First Ayn Rand, now Hayek and Koch

[Cain]

http://www.thenation.com/article/163672/charles-koch-friedrich-hayek-use-social-security

There seems to be a severe problem of, well, you can either call it hypocrisy or shameless cynicism, with the Tea Party's various idols, backers and ideological influences.

There's right-wing hypocrisy, and then there's this: Charles Koch, billionaire patron of free-market libertarianism, privately championed the benefits of Social Security to Friedrich Hayek, the leading laissez-faire economist of the twentieth century. Koch even sent Hayek a government pamphlet to help him take advantage of America's federal retirement insurance and healthcare programs.

Now, I'm familiar with Hayek's original Road to Serfdom, where Hayek did (grudgingly) concede that a basic safety net may be required by some societies, so I wondered if this was as hypocritical as the authors were making out.  However, it turns out in his later life, his positions on Social Security etc had considerably hardened:

Charles Koch and his brother, David, have waged a three-decade campaign to dismantle the American social safety net. At the center of their most recent push is the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, which has co-sponsored Tea Party events, spearheaded the war against healthcare reform and supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attack on public sector unions. FreedomWorks, another conservative group central to the rise of the Tea Party and the right-wing attempt to dismantle Social Security and Medicare, emerged from an advocacy outfit founded by the Koch brothers called Citizens for a Sound Economy. FreedomWorks now exists as a separate entity that champions the "Austrian school" of economics.

Hayek, a founder of that school of thought, is primarily known for two major works. The first, The Road to Serfdom (1944), grudgingly accepts the possibility that some "free" countries might find it necessary to set up a bare-minimum catastrophic social insurance program limited to the very neediest, so long as the benefits do not incentivize productive members of society to abandon free-market retirement savings or medical insurance.

Hayek's comparatively liberal attitude toward social insurance hardened considerably by the time he published his 1960 opus, The Constitution of Liberty. Despite privately spending the intervening years paying into Social Security, Hayek devoted an entire chapter—titled "Social Security"—to denouncing the modern welfare state as a gateway to tyranny and moral decay. Ironically, one of Hayek's main objections to government programs like Social Security was the "fundamental absurdity" of using tax dollars to promote their benefits. In other words, Hayek publicly objected to the kind of brochure that Charles Koch sent him. In their private correspondence, however, we could find no objection to this "fundamental absurdity."

By the mid-1970s, Hayek had fully distanced himself from the modest benefits he'd originally conceded to in The Road to Serfdom. In his preface to the 1976 edition, he explained his "error": "I had not wholly freed myself from all the current interventionist superstitions, and in consequence still made various concessions which I now think unwarranted."

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Sounds like shameless cynicism to me.

I have known some rightwingers who willingly accepted public assistance when they needed it, even after speaking out against the very same programs all their lives, rationalizing it on the basis of, "Well, I have been paying for it all these years, might as well use it."

[kingyak]

It's in their enlightened self-interest to mooch off the state.

[Elder Iptuous]

Sounds like shameless cynicism to me.

I have known some rightwingers who willingly accepted public assistance when they needed it, even after speaking out against the very same programs all their lives, rationalizing it on the basis of, "Well, I have been paying for it all these years, might as well use it."

Frankly, that seems like a perfectly valid rationalization to me...
would you honestly expect someone who is opposed to a scheme to not take recoup what they have been obligated to pay in for so many years on principle?
If somebody were to take such a martyred stance, you would then call them not only an idiot for 'being wrong', but a fool for cutting off their nose to spite their face.

[Scribbly]

For what its worth, my Dad, as a devout Thatcherite, never claimed any of the benefits he could have claimed when he was out of work as a contractor, on the basis that we had enough money to get by, and if he did, he'd be taking money from people who needed it more.

I may not like his politics, but he is a very principled man.

[Cain]

Yeah, it's not hypocritical at all - except Hayek was openly agitating for the dissolution of such institutions and the Koch brothers were helping to fund propaganda and political movements aimed at the same thing.

Apart from that, there is no hypocrisy in either of their actions. 

"THE FREE MARKET IS AWESOME, AND I AND MY FRIENDS ARE ALL COMFORTABLY WELL OFF OR WEALTHY...BUT HEY, IS THAT SOME FREE, SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE?  SIGN ME UP!"
\

[Elder Iptuous]

kudos to those that are able and willing to let the money that they have been relieved of not be returned in the form of the social favors that it was intended for.  They can get a warm feeling that they have made an altruistic gesture by turning a forced purchase into a voluntary donation.  Or they can claim it as a pyrrhic victory.

if some social rule is in debate of being adopted, and the folks against it lose, then they will be forced to make whatever concession is required to make the gains that the proponents anticipate.  But i see no reason that the opponents should be expected to wave those gains while the rule is in place any more than wave pompoms around in support of the new rule all of a sudden.  The rule is in effect, and it is entirely rational to minimize your perceived loss from the setup until such time as you can have the rule dismantled.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

kudos to those that are able and willing to let the money that they have been relieved of not be returned in the form of the social favors that it was intended for.  They can get a warm feeling that they have made an altruistic gesture by turning a forced purchase into a voluntary donation.  Or they can claim it as a pyrrhic victory.

if some social rule is in debate of being adopted, and the folks against it lose, then they will be forced to make whatever concession is required to make the gains that the proponents anticipate.  But i see no reason that the opponents should be expected to wave those gains while the rule is in place any more than wave pompoms around in support of the new rule all of a sudden.  The rule is in effect, and it is entirely rational to minimize your perceived loss from the setup until such time as you can have the rule dismantled.

In other words, the "principles" of the Libertarian are exactly as opportunistic and self-serving as they appear to be; the Libertarian is a sociopath.

[LMNO]

As an analogy, it's sort of like a Christian pro-lifer getting an abortion because, you know, they're still legal in this country, and they can still choose not to have a kid, so why not?

[Doktor Howl]

kudos to those that are able and willing to let the money that they have been relieved of not be returned in the form of the social favors that it was intended for.  They can get a warm feeling that they have made an altruistic gesture by turning a forced purchase into a voluntary donation.  Or they can claim it as a pyrrhic victory.

if some social rule is in debate of being adopted, and the folks against it lose, then they will be forced to make whatever concession is required to make the gains that the proponents anticipate.  But i see no reason that the opponents should be expected to wave those gains while the rule is in place any more than wave pompoms around in support of the new rule all of a sudden.  The rule is in effect, and it is entirely rational to minimize your perceived loss from the setup until such time as you can have the rule dismantled.

So, there's no actual principle involved here?

[Elder Iptuous]

Nigel: Yes. however, they assuage their guilt by saying that there is a natural order of things that is arranged such that if everyone simply acted opportunistically, without causing direct harm to others, then everyone would be better off.  (i am not advocating this, btw)

LMNO: no. that analogy fails because it is likening what they perceive as murder to a social contract that, while you could argue has some moral aspect to it, is not even in the same ballpark.  this topic seems straight forward enough that it shouldn't require analogy unless one wants to drag heated emotion into it.

[LMNO]

Just because the analogy is turned up to 11, doesn't mean the thought process isn't similar.

"I Strongly Believe this is Wrong; however, when it's convient, I'll do it anyway."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm done with humanity. You all deserve to die. Myself included.

Hey, let's apply sociopathic principles to running the economy and see what happens!

OMG

the sooner we are extinct, the better.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You see, since Libertarians HAVE no morals, nothing they do is wrong.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm done with humanity. You all deserve to die. Myself included.

Hey, let's apply sociopathic principles to running the economy and see what happens!

1980-Present is on the line for you, Dark Empress.