In his famous book, The Road to Serfdom (p. 136), F.A. Hayek wrote of “the position that precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime” in a chapter entitled “Why the Worst Get on Top” [under collectivism or socialism].
“In this stage,” Hayek wrote, “it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough ‘to get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal” (emphasis added). Someone who can “get the trains to run on time,” in other words.
What the people will seek is “somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that the new type of party, organized on military lines, comes in.”
I was reminded of this today upon reading how Ron Paul recently referred to Donald Trump as “a dangerous person.” Here’s something I wrote about Trump four years ago when he last tinkered with running for president on a “platform” that included a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea, a 14.25% wealth tax on the most productive, “well administered” socialized medicine, and complaints that lethal injections as a death penalty for convicted murderers are “too comfortable,” and that defense spending is “too low.”
2:18 pm on July 16, 2015
