The Road to Serfdom
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I almost wish I had thought of Patrick’s choice first, though I only cursorily read Hayek in my graduate seminar on economic history. Though I won’t go as far as our friend David Lindsay in trumpeting Old Labour, it is well worth reflecting on the fact that contra Austrian dogma, it is the welfare states of Europe that have dismantled empires, not the laissez-faire.
Nowhere was this more true than in Britain, where the sun finally set under Attlee and Bevin. It is monumentally depressing to contemplate what the proud bourgeois monarchist Clement Attlee – to say nothing of the anti-Unionist English patriot Ernest Bevin, the mineworkers leader whose knowledge of communist strategy in attempting to take over his union was indispensable to preventing the communist takeover of Western Europe and who courageously resisted Zionism as Britain’s greatest Foreign Secretary – would make of the neoliberal New Labour that sought to renconquer Iraq and whose most reliable defenders have been unrepentant Stalinists.
Indeed, it is little wonder that Hayek is a favorite among the usual suspects Patrick cites when we consider that this is a central operating principle of the neocons themselves. Irving Kristol himself has said as much, that what disillusioned him with Cold War liberalism was not the public policy pettiness of most tellings, but rather his observation of Britain during his time there in the 50s, that the welfare state was creating a society unfit to roll back communism and advance democratic revolution.
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Stalinism and Zionism together-therein lies the logical nuance that I hoped I’d glimpse. This is way beyond realism vs neoconservatism- one ideal advocating the murdering of millions of people for political gain under the banner of Lenin, grouped and linked with a movement of a set of people who have been oppressed for millennia for simply being that particular set of people, who were given the go ahead thanks to Balfour in 1948 to return to their homeland, thus ending the Diaspora, and you call them Stalinists. What kind of anti-Semitic tripe is that? This isn’t about realism vs idealism in foreign policy- that’s where reasonable people can disagree. This is more insane than the xenophobic low-brow “scholarship” of Mearschimer and Walt. “Courageously resisted Zionism”. What?!! That’s like courageously resisting Black people, or courageously resisting Asians. What, are you some throwback sympathiser with the Know Nothings? Anti Jew, Anti Catholic, but Pro American? I courageously resist Jew haters, how’s that?
Besides,since when can nations live with fascism, be it leftist or nationalist in nature? Fascism means war- it is a part of it, it is indistinguishable from it. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, whomever- all fascists. That’s the thrust of Kristol’s arguement, not some sort of Stalinist/proletarian perpetual “revolution”. It’s about western democracy and the survival of western institutions. Oh, for all people of course, not just WASP isolationist anti Semites.
[...] 30, 2009 Inspired by the recent slash-and-burn of Hayek up over at Post Right, I was inspired to go look up the cartoon version of the [...]
[...] 30, 2009 Inspired by the recent slash-and-burn of Hayek up over at Post Right, I decided to go look up the cartoon version of the Road to [...]
I can’t say this absolutely, but I am pretty sure Jack Ross is far from a WASP anti-Semite…
“Besides,since when can nations live with fascism, be it leftist or nationalist in nature? Fascism means war- it is a part of it, it is indistinguishable from it.”
So … we must go to war with “fascism” because “fascism means war.” And, uh, war is bad, so we need to go to war against it, and we need to continue going to war against fascist war until there is no more war. Otherwise, “western institutions” will not be safe for “all people.”
Gotcha.
Yeah, Patrick, I’m pretty sure that, rather than WASP anti-Semite, Mr. Ross is, well, Jewish.
So a Jewish person who’s anti-Zionist? Well, now I’ve heard everything.
And George- you’ve almost got it right. Fascism means war, so you must prepare to defend yourself against it, and to go to war with it to protect yourself in many cases. Here’s the scenario- Iran gets a nuke, fires it at Israel, and hits Tel Aviv. What does the US do? The solution that would be trumpeted here would be “well it’s their problem and we’re safe in our hemisphere blah blah blah”. That seems to defy logic in my opinion. All I’m saying is that the US should retaliate in that situation. It’s in our nation’s interest to prevent the destruction of the state of Israel in that situation.
Tripp, please, man, for your own good, lay off of the Kool-Aid. You’ve reached a point at which I’m not sure anything but a snarky reply suffices.
Hold on, let me get out my Neocon dictionary … ah yes, here it is:
“anti-Semite [an-tee-sem-ahyt], noun: A person who has ever questioned Sean Hannity’s foreign policy proposals.”
Sorry Jack, you’re clearly an anti-Semite.
As penance, you need to write 100 posts arguing that if Obama doesn’t immediately nuke Tehran, he’s exactly like Hitler and Jimmy Carter (which is redundant, because Carter is also exactly like Hitler).
Dude, what kool aid are you talking about? If I were trying to propose learned discourse on the theories of international relations on other conservative websites it would turn into some sort of circle jerk about the Bush doctrine. My advocacy of a partially interventionist foreign policy in areas relating directly to the national interest doesn’t make me a Sean Hannity lackey. That’s rather dismissive and ignorant, intellectually speaking. I read and get great ideas from across the spectrum of conservatism and libertarianism, and just because I might find some parts of the justifications for our current actions overseas logical and desireable doesn’t make me some sort of bloodthirsty 21st century Godfrey de Bouillon “neo-con” crusader type. Sure, I’m not a realist, per se, but I’m not some reformed ex-communist hawk either. The issues of foreign relations pertaining to the rabid bellicosity of certain places in the Middle East are a bit too poignant for me to say “You know what?Let’s just stay out of it-we don’t want to piss people off,right?”. I don’t live in political la la land and honestly think foreign entanglements won’t come to us, especially considering large amounts of people with relatively good military technology who are only motivated by the desire to re-establish a worldwide caliphate and who don’t care if they die in the process. Something has to be done about that.
Tripp, I’m referring to the Kool-Aid the compels you to think that a war between an antagonistic Israel and an Iran that would be incredibly stupid to start such a war could possibly be our business.
Israel’s concerns are Isarel’s; ours are ours. They sometimes overlap, but with Bibi in control there, we should be wary of getting in any deeper than we are. I don’t want to be around when that neurotic s.o.b. pisses of Mahmoud or whoever ends up pretending to run that place.