Capitalism sucks for workers. It’s common to see the obvious failures of our current system as new horrors, and to conclude that we need to return to some time when things were better. Maybe the “better time” is vague — just a general hand-waving and an exhortation to make things…
I quite like Hayek. Not because I like what he says. But because he articulates some modern right wing views so well. And he’s unashamed.
Many reactionaries today will try to sugar coat their politics. But if you explain what they’re really saying by paraphrasing Hayek? It’s like holding up a perfect mirror, yet the reactionary thinks it’s one of those fairground, distorting mirrors. He’s good for highlighting the problems of capitalist governance to onlookers. He puts the grotesqueness on display.
I feel the same way about ancient Greek philosophers. Fascists like to hold up Greece as the birthplace of civilization and democracy, but if you read what Plato had to say he’s all like “Slavery rocks, we should gear up for war, and everyone must breed for the state”. It’s so candid it’s refreshing
That’s a good way of putting it. I think with the Greeks, it’s not just the fascists, either. There’s a view even among more level-headed (albeit mistaken) libs who look to the Greeks as virtuous fathers of democracy. You can find some of that. But you have to read it through a rose tinted welding helmet or, as you say, fascist eyes, to ignore the bit about limiting democracy to certain citizens or to treat that bit as a good thing and, likewise, to ignore the bits where they rejected markets.