Hayek: In social evolution nothing is inevitable but thinking makes it so
Father's Day 2010 Down East at Camelot-by-the-Sea with an ambiguous sunrise that could go either way.
The "little people." The "small people." The "folks." When did the rugged individualism that is our American birthright get sucked down into the Gramscian cesspool that is the marxist meme of "the masses"? The term is used unthinkingly even by some of our admired allies on this side of the aisle. Then there's BP Chair Carl-Henric Svanberg, who bowed down to politically correct pressure to issue the usual "apology" for speaking truth to powerlessness:
"I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people." He later said he was sorry for speaking "clumsily."
Opinionators tried to make it okay due to a loss in translation. But frankly, we see little difference between the "little" and the "small" people. It all comes down to a self-appointed elite's disdain for tea party "folks" like ourselves who aren't buying their statist utopia. We've started rereading F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, and we're getting revved up with the frenzied underlining and margin scribbling — which we still totally agree with! — of our first reading, perhaps twenty years ago. Loaded for bear. A taste:
In social evolution nothing is inevitable but thinking makes it so.
Thanks to Glenn Beck's promulgation, Hayek's brilliant insight is now #1 on Amazon. Maybe it's not too late for the masses our fellow Americans to wake up from our long national nightmare.
Crossposted at sisu and Liberty Pundits.
Hayek rulz.
Plain and simple.
The Road to Serfdom should be required reading in any high school civics class. In the last 20 years we’ve gone from “American exceptionalism rewards the best and brightest” to “everybody is special in their own way.”
Sadly, today’s younger folks have bought into the whole “you get a trophy for just participating” garbage. Some of the new blood coming into my workplace post-graduation are getting a hands-on lesson in American Business 101: Only Results Matter. You can tell who’s not going to make it until the end of the year, the ones showing up 10 minutes late, the ones clacking away on Facebook on their iPhones, the ones shocked to hear pay is tied to performance metrics, the ones confused and silent at staff meetings who don’t speak up and think managers like myself are going to call on them if they make no effort to put forth their ideas.
All men are created equal. Everything from that point on is your own damn responsibility.
I think I need to recommend Hayek to these kids for their own good.
Small people my Butt. That is what an English public school eduation will do for you. Turn you into a bloviating upper crust pompous ass.
This will never be proven even if true, and I may be making it too complicated, but I wonder if he wasn’t just echoing what Obama or Holder was talking about. This was right after the 5 hour meeting leading to turning over $20 billion outside of the normal channels of liability. I can imagine someone on the administration side talking about “doing right by the little people,” and the hapless Swede coming out dazed and making the mistake of saying in public what Dems say in private.