Hayek, Spengler and Nazis
In the Thanksgiving season, it might be worthwhile to reminisce about options to the American experiment. One of the questions that arise periodically is, "Where did Nazism come from?" A famous explanation is that it arose from a misunderstanding of modern evolutionary thought, a Darwinian application to specie subsets. So the Nazis were amateur anthropologist and geneticists gone a bit wrong.
Hunter writes that Hayek has some interesting observations on the sources of Nazism in philosophy. Hayek writes of Spengler, for whom the Prussian model stood in opposition to England’s liberalism; Prussianism was the ideal example of what Germany should aspire to. In the Prussian political model, the individual has no other role than to be a part of the whole and to serve the collective’s interests in the name of the state.
This is from Road to Serfdom:
"The three last nations of the Occident have aimed at three forms of existence, represented by famous watchwords: Freedom, Equality, Community. They appear in the political forms of liberal Parliamentarianism, Social Democracy, and authoritarian socialism... The German, more correctly, Prussian, instinct is: the power belongs to the whole. . . Everyone is given his place. One commands or obeys. This is, since the eighteenth century, authoritarian socialism, essentially illiberal and anti-democratic, in so far as English Liberalism and French Democracy are meant."
(Note he distinguishes between English Liberalism and French Democracy, between "Freedom" and "Equality.")
And while Prussian militarism was seen to be the enemy of socialism, Spengler helped bridge that gap. Both schools of thought require an abandonment of the individual identity and a dedication to the greater good of society. Explaining the similarities, Hayek says:
"In Prussia there existed a real state in the most ambitious meaning of the word. There could be, strictly speaking, no private persons. Everybody who lived within the system that worked with the precision of a clockwork, was in some way a link in it. The conduct of public business could therefore not be in the hands of private people, as is supposed by Parliamentarianism.”
Spengler write, "The decisive question not only for Germany, but for the world, which must be solved by Germany for the world is: Is in the future trade to govern the state, or the state to govern trade? In the face of this question Prussianism and Socialism are the same...Prussianism and Socialism combat the England in our midst.”
So the Spengler saw the liberalism of the English a model of inefficiency and national socialism as its solution. Hide the women.
In the Thanksgiving season, it might be worthwhile to reminisce about options to the American experiment. One of the questions that arise periodically is, "Where did Nazism come from?" A famous explanation is that it arose from a misunderstanding of modern evolutionary thought, a Darwinian application to specie subsets. So the Nazis were amateur anthropologist and geneticists gone a bit wrong.
Hunter writes that Hayek has some interesting observations on the sources of Nazism in philosophy. Hayek writes of Spengler, for whom the Prussian model stood in opposition to England’s liberalism; Prussianism was the ideal example of what Germany should aspire to. In the Prussian political model, the individual has no other role than to be a part of the whole and to serve the collective’s interests in the name of the state.
This is from Road to Serfdom:
"The three last nations of the Occident have aimed at three forms of existence, represented by famous watchwords: Freedom, Equality, Community. They appear in the political forms of liberal Parliamentarianism, Social Democracy, and authoritarian socialism... The German, more correctly, Prussian, instinct is: the power belongs to the whole. . . Everyone is given his place. One commands or obeys. This is, since the eighteenth century, authoritarian socialism, essentially illiberal and anti-democratic, in so far as English Liberalism and French Democracy are meant."
(Note he distinguishes between English Liberalism and French Democracy, between "Freedom" and "Equality.")
And while Prussian militarism was seen to be the enemy of socialism, Spengler helped bridge that gap. Both schools of thought require an abandonment of the individual identity and a dedication to the greater good of society. Explaining the similarities, Hayek says:
"In Prussia there existed a real state in the most ambitious meaning of the word. There could be, strictly speaking, no private persons. Everybody who lived within the system that worked with the precision of a clockwork, was in some way a link in it. The conduct of public business could therefore not be in the hands of private people, as is supposed by Parliamentarianism.”
Spengler write, "The decisive question not only for Germany, but for the world, which must be solved by Germany for the world is: Is in the future trade to govern the state, or the state to govern trade? In the face of this question Prussianism and Socialism are the same...Prussianism and Socialism combat the England in our midst.”
So the Spengler saw the liberalism of the English a model of inefficiency and national socialism as its solution. Hide the women.
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