
Hayekian communism - Apocryphon
http://glineq.blogspot.com/2018/09/hayekian-communism.html?m=1
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partiallypro
I'm starting to think many of you have never read Hayek in any serious manner,
including the author. The mere existence of the Hayekian information problem,
which is the core tenant of Hayek's ideology, refutes the fairly loose framing
of what this post tries to convey.

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gowld
It's fascinating that, to draw crude boundaries, "conservative" thinking is
pro-capitalist/free-markets, which is largely justified by the theory of
distributed local knowledge, but also strongly in favor of centralized
authority on social/moral/scientific/religious/artistic matters.

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andrenth
There is actually an interesting parallel between the idea of prices in a free
market as information (distributed knowledge as you put it) and the
conservative notion (originally from Burke I believe) of traditions as
information (from one generation to the next).

I don’t see conservatism as inherently advocating centralization in the
matters you mentioned, just a desire of not throwing away hard-earned good
things, due to the realization that they’re much harder to build than to
destroy.

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viburnum
Great article. What's happening in China is not so different than in the US
and Europe, with management of the economy shifting from democratically
elected leaders to central bankers, etc. Hayek was an enemy of democracy (just
skim LLL if you don't believe me), so recent trends are in accord with his
vision.

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sandov
Your conflating two unrelated issues:

(1) Liking or disliking democracy

(2) Liking or disliking certain policies that may be taken under democracy, or
under an authoritarian regime.

A country could democratically ban the use of cars, that doesn't mean that
everyone who is against democracy loves using cars.

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stcredzero
_A country could democratically ban the use of cars_

It depends on how this is done. If this is done in a way which tightens
centralized control of the populace, then it could be quite anti-democratic.

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0x8BADF00D
That’s the only way it can be done. Otherwise, how do you enforce it?

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gowld
If 51% of the population destroy the 49%'s cars, that's a crude form of
democracy. (or at least "majority rule", whichmost people misuse as the
definition of 'democracy')

~~~
stcredzero
This is why the US system is constructed as a republic. It's explicitly
designed to also curb the totalitarianism of the majority.

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nabla9
There is simple identifiable reason for the economic success of Chinese
communist regime.

It was Deng Xiaoping and the revolutionary but simple change he made to the
standard Marxist thinking:

> Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less
> communism. [1]

Traditionally Marxists justified the poor conditions in the socialist
countries as necessary step on the road to full communism. Alternatively they
blamed capitalists outside the country or some inside forces. Deng abandoned
this excuse and introduced very pragmatic economic approach.

Principles like "One country, two systems" or the cat's color theory: "It
doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."
helped to push this idea trough.

Basically Chinese first moved towards Socialist market economy with limits to
private ownership, but the process has taken over and it's impossible to think
that private ownership would be reduced again. I don't think that new
generation of leaders really want to do that. They don't believe in communist
ideology anymore. They want China be like Singapore or South Korea without the
democracy part.

[1]: Deng Xiaoping, BUILD SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS, June 30,
1984
[http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/Deng/Buildin...](http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/Deng/Building.htm)

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simias
This comment contributes to the discussion, I don't understand why it's being
downvoted.

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dang
Please don't break the guidelines by going on about downvoting. Instead, if
you see an unfairly downvoted comment, simply give it a corrective upvote and
move on. Other users will typically do so too—but comments like this one
linger on, orphaned and meaningless.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
simias
Fair enough, I just get irrationally annoyed when I see thoughtful comments be
downvoted but you're right, I won't do it again.

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scythe
Paul Krugman provides a contrary perspective here:

[https://www.pairault.fr/documents/lecture3s2009.pdf](https://www.pairault.fr/documents/lecture3s2009.pdf)

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jeffreyrogers
Isn't a key tenet of communism that workers own the means of production? That
doesn't seem to be the case in China.

Isn't a fundamental motivator or justification for moving towards communism a
reduction in inequalities? That doesn't seem to be the case in China.

China is certainly remarkable, but I think a more apt description is:
authoritarian with market-oriented policies. I don't see much evidence for
communism as originally envisioned. China's recent rise has largely been the
story of a strong state enabling markets to function, but I wonder if the
state's growing desire to involve itself in business will lead to sclerosis,
similar to what happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

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AnimalMuppet
China's government isn't involved in business in anything like the way the
USSR's was. China probably has some room before it hits those particular
problems.

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JPKab
China isn't communist. It's state capitalist, and on an economic level (NOT
philosophically) much more similar to the German Fascist model where private
enterprise is welcomed, but always subservient to the whims of the state,
without limitation.

If you disagree with this, then ask yourself if there is a court or any
recourse in China for a private enterprise to challenge an action by the
government. There isn't, and we all know it.

In the US, when the government wants to block a merger, they have to do so in
court, where they frequently lose (the recent TimeWarner/AT&T merger being a
prime example).

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AnimalMuppet
There's also this element of nationalism in China. The Nazis were _national_
socialists, distinct from the communists, who were _international_ ("workers
of the world, unite").

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monocasa
You're painting communists with a wide brush. The differences in thought
between Stalin and Trotsky ultimately boiled down to if the revolution should
be seen as international or not.

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amasad
Hayek is best known for his book The Road to Serfdom which sounded the alarm
on socialism/communism so... no! Hayek won't feel "right at home" in the
surveillance state of China that's implementing 1984-esque "social score" and
other policies that if not Serfdom I don't know what they are.

~~~
beat
Social scores are bad.

Credit scores are good.

I'm not exactly clear on the difference, but I'm sure it's very important.

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stale2002
The only thing a credit score is, is a judge on your likelyhood to pay your
bills.

The social credit score, on the other hand, is a measure of society/government
approval. And it effects your ability to get on trains.

It seems fair that if you stop paying your bills, then people might not want
to loan you money anymore.

It does not seem fair that if you criticise the government, or are friends
with people who criticize the government, that you won't be allowed to travel
anymore.

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beat
Criticize the government the wrong way in America, you wind up in jail, and
aren't allowed to travel anymore. We're talking differences of degree, not
kind.

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stale2002
We do not have any laws in America that do this.

If you are talking about how a police officer can just make something up and
arrest you, well I guess, but that is something that can happen anywhere in
the world.

And as bad as the news has been about unaccountable police officers, I can
assure you that the US is way ahead of most countries, in terms of things like
corruption.

If by "criticizeing the wrong way", you meant civil disobedience, well yes
that's true. You usually do get arrested if you infringe on other people's
property rights.

I wouldn't call this bad though, as it has nothing to do with your criticism
of the government. Its the infringement on other people's property rights that
you are arrested for.

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beat
I narrowly dodged being arrested simply for being on the street during the
2008 GOP convention. The only reason I wasn't arrested was that they weren't
arresting EVERYONE the first day. (I did have to sit for hours, not allowed to
leave, next to two people who were just trying to get home to their
apartment.) After that, anyone unfortunate enough to be caught on the streets
in a kettling zone got arrested, whether or not they were even protesters. A
friend's co-worker got arrested when he went outside for a smoke break.

Yes, it could be worse, and it is in many other countries. But my point still
stands.

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WaxProlix
Not sure what part of China is supposed to be communist these days, except in
name and maybe totalitarianism (if you take that to be a tenet of communism).
As the author says, actual communist groups have been forcibly disbanded in
universities and -- afaik -- nothing is really communally or democratically
owned/controlled. Seems vastly more Hayek than Marx to me.

~~~
stcredzero
_Not sure what part of China is supposed to be communist these days_

There are parts of China where one can be pretty free in one's personal life,
so long as one keeps their heads down and one isn't rich or famous. If one
becomes rich or famous, one is inevitably drawn into politics, which can have
high stakes consequences.

 _Not sure what part of China is supposed to be communist these days, except
in name and maybe totalitarianism_

Communism isn't what's bad about Communism. It's the resulting totalitarianism
that's the bad part. If it were possible to and stable to reorganize the world
into 450 person communes, there would be something utopian about that. It's
very possible to seek out and find such communal experiences. The problem is
that such organization isn't stable for Homo sapiens.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17433487)

Here's what we know about democracy. It's short term stable, even when pitted
against other forms of government. It often changes from within and becomes
totalitarianism, however.

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WaxProlix
I don't think I disagree with anything you're saying, it just doesn't seem
like what China is doing right now has much to do with the goals of communism.
So the article seems weird to me. Obviously, given the downvotes, people
disagree.

