05 June 2023

The Fractures in The Left Over Liberty

The Other McCain asks an important question: Is the Left Breaking Apart?

The Other McCain is an astute student of politics and history. I have come to appreciate his take on things. In this case, it isn't something he developed, only something he remembers. About liberty versus socialism.

This is exactly what Hayek was addressing in The Road to Serfdom and, in another way, what Eric Hoffer was talking about in The True Believer. Economic liberty cannot be separated from other types of liberty, including freedom of speech, so that advocates of a government-controlled economy must eventually demand government control of everything (to summarize briefly one of Hayek’s major points). And radical causes, which Hoffer called “mass movements,” always attract certain personality types, who bring with them characteristic problems, including the intellectual bullying and demand for conformity about which deBoer is now complaining. Sic semper hoc.

Go read the whole thing; you won't be disappointed.

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