In ‘The Road to Serfdom,’ the author argues that “planning” is the downfall of liberty and inevitably leads to totalitarianism. While I had difficulty understanding the author’s definition of “planning,” I settled on it being used synonymously with our definition of socialism: the government controls the means of production. I wholeheartedly agree with the author’s general message, and believe that the government should be focused on enhancing competition rather than regulating. I do take a few exceptions to the author’s ideas, primarily in how black and white he sees the idea of planning. While “planning” as defined being synonymous with socialism is, in my opinion, certainly going to lead to the totalitarian system he suggests, some planning by the government is necessary to maintain a level of equity, security, and liberty.
Who has More Power – the Government or your Employer?
The author mentioned that people would have a hard time arguing with the idea that an employer has more control over you than the government. I think most people would disagree with this, I certainly do. An employer controls your entire livelihood. There’s an idea that you can “just go get another job” which the author expresses, but this isn’t always the case. Even if it is, for some people, the time spent finding that next job could be detrimental to their precarious living conditions. Employers control your money which controls your life. For the average individual, the government just tells you a few things you can’t do that you probably already shouldn’t be doing for safety or morality reasons anyway. What is much scarier to me than either government or company power over me, however, is that companies have more control over government than people do. Because companies have larger collections of money, they naturally have more influence over the government and better ability to achieve their agenda which may be in direct contradiction with what the people want.
Dictatorships are Fast, but that Doesn’t Mean they are Inevitable
Another point of contention for me in this text is the idea that planning always leads to dictatorship because that is the most efficient way to make the planning happen. Even if it is the most efficient way, it isn’t the best. In general, a dictatorship is one of the most efficient forms of government. But that doesn’t mean it’s the best and it doesn’t mean it’s what people want. If people can avoid dictatorship for democracy in the absence of planning even though dictatorship is more efficient, why can’t they do the same with planning as well? The planning would certainly be slower, but it could still happen and could happen in a way that does not threaten freedoms. I don’t believe planning and freedom are opposites. I think there are limits to the planning, just like any power you give to the government, while still expecting them not to abuse it, but some planning can certainly happen if the planning maintains and even improves power for the people.
Some Planning Can be Good
The author takes issue with the idea which seemed to be taking root that planning is necessary with growing complexities of society. While I believe increasingly complex economic systems and even social systems which impact a consumer’s day-to-day life do not require planning as the author suggests, there are some pieces of society which have not been effectively regulated by competition alone because of how far they are from the economic sphere. The most obvious example is environmental issues. Environmentally-friendly practices are most often more costly, and the consequences do not impact consumers in the short term so it does not greatly impact their purchasing choices. This is where I believe the government steps in with some form of planning. The solution has not and will not occur naturally, and therefore the government needs to artificially create the solution for this pressing problem. This, I believe, is similar to restrictions implemented for worker’s rights including OSHA regulations and child labor laws because they, too, protected people where it was clear competition alone could not protect them.
The Decrease in Entrepreneurs
The text also mentions that people are not entering entrepreneurial endeavors because media has conditioned them to believe that the risk is not worth the reward. He says that you must give up liberty to have security, and this is not a worthwhile trade; however, the whole point of organized society is that you give up some liberty for some security. In a traditional job, you give up the hours from 9-5, for example, to be able to feed yourself. By giving power to the government, the people give up liberty at the very minimum in a small amount of taxes to protect themselves from bodily harm, theft, or other crimes. What I believe the reason people do not undertake entrepreneurial pursuits today has much more to do with an imbalance in the security you have to give up compared to the liberty you gain. You may get to control your working hours and pursue something you are more passionate about, but you are often working more and have no security that you will be able to provide for your own basic needs. This is only ever a risk worth taking for people that are already secure in their ability to provide for their own basic needs based on the assets they presently have. It is not propaganda, but rather an inability for people of lower economic status to accumulate wealth because of the present economic system which stifles mobility.
Socialism as a Means of Control, Democratic Socialism as a Tool for Mobility
A talking point of all of these anti-socialist ideas is that an equitable division of wealth requires the government to control all of the economy, and I understand this leap, but I have not had the same understanding of socialism as it exists in the US. What I have understood Democratic Socialism to stand for is greater mobility for those that wish to pursue it. It is not that anyone, whether they work or don’t, no matter how skilled or unfavorable their labor is, should have the same amount of money, but rather that we should find a way to return to the American ideal that hard work can improve your economic standing. It seems that the only thing that can improve your economic standing in the US is a high economic standing because for every instance of wealth I can think of, they are making most of their money passively through the money or assets they already have. Someone poor and hard-working can have 2-3 jobs and a college degree and remain poor despite how hard they work. I am hoping through this class to find some evidence for or against the idea that mobility among social classes can be improved without descending into full totalitarianism via socialism.