Political Economy

0:00Against despotism and in favor of freedom, they broke out in 1789. Very soon, a few years later, they made a group of communists under the leadership of a man named Babov The attempt to bring about a communist arrangement of French political affairs. They were defeated, but they were represented in all essays, theories, books dealing with modern conditions.

0:55and especially with the history of the last 200 years, they were represented as having been more radical than the rest of the French Revolution. People said they were in the same direction, but going farther. They were considered as more to the left. The idea which dominated and still dominates the language of politics of Politics, calls people who are in favor of freedom, people of the left. And these communists were considered, in all the literature that you have from these events, as people being more to the left.

2:07Anti-communists and anti-socialists describe themselves as being in the direction in which the French Revolution leaders went, but more to the left. This distinction between left and right was just a distinction in the parliaments, I think I think that the people who were against the majority were seated on the left and were escorted to the left and so on.

2:46And we have retained this misleading terminology. That means we believe, we assume that people who are in favor of communism are farther in the same direction in which the supporters of freedom are going. And from this point of view, we are talking, we are using the description of the communists as more radical than the people whom we are forgetting in this country completely, the and people who in the 19th century were in favor of constitutions and so on.

3:53We have, therefore, an entirely misleading orientation of the political mind. We consider people who are in favor of a complete suppression of every kind of freedom as people being more in favor of freedom than the people who are in favor of a constitutional government. This is simply a silly and untenable distinction and it results and it cannot be carried out to its ultimate consequences Because it brings immediately about a problem by a problem that considers the complete suppression of every individual freedom is the most radical point of freedom policy.

5:27It is impossible to develop this doctrine to its logical consequences, And this becomes visible in the description of the parties and the ideas that one calls fascism. Fascism is called the opposite of what? Of a system of freedom, of course. that communism is the same, communism too wants or plans to abolish every freedom of the individual and to put the head as an absolute ruler of everything.

6:22We have therefore, if one asks what is the difference between fascism and communism, They say, of course it's absolute opposite. It's not absolute opposite, it's only other people. What is the difference between the Chase Bank and another bank? Both are banks, but with other people. We have, therefore, absolutely misleading political orientation, but if we look at this problem, We discovered that this confusion is a very old one, and that this confusion originated already in ancient Greeks and inter-philosophical treatises in which Greek philosophers dealt with the problems of state and government and the reception of these ideas by the people.

7:52The utopian autos, they are mostly considered or are and are entirely considered today as People to the left, that means people who wanted more freedom, but they were people who printed out systems in which freedom was entirely eliminated. Also, people, again and again, repeat that Plato was in search of the autocrat who would put into practice his theories.

8:50They did not consider the ideas of Plato as ideas against liberty. In the 20th century after Plato, people always again and again tried to write utopias, descriptions, plans for a state which was always, of course, in which nothing else should rule than the plan once and for all times to come made by the authors.

9:54Plato did not, none of these authors, who imitated Plato in antiquity and also they were living in a world in which democratic institutions had existed or had disappeared only in the, in years which were, already described by historical investigation, they did never point out that all these systems were completely totalitarian, totalitarian in the same sense in which the Russian government today is totalitarian, that nobody else has to say something.

10:52Therefore, one did not see that all the socialist and communist plans were the most radical and complete abolition of every kind of civil freedoms. Once for all should be established a system and the system had to be operated and ruled from the centre by the supreme, by the supreme power, no one wanted to say. And so we have today the same spectacle.

11:43To the left, who is at the left? The people who want the extreme left are the people who want to suppress everything for the domination by the state, the government, the autocrat. And this is really paradoxical that people are considering as enemies of freedom the people who are not in favor of the dictatorship, of the proletariat and so on, although they are using the term dictatorship.

12:35The dictatorship of the politaried, what does this mean? Everybody knows very well that it means necessarily the dictatorship of somebody, that the real dictatorship of the politaried, that means of everybody, would be a democracy. This error prevents us from seeing what economic democracy really means. One thinks that democracy, economic democracy and socialism are the same thing.

13:36They are the absolute incompatible two systems that are both. What people did not realize is that the market is a democracy. As some economists said, a democracy in which every penny gives the right to vote. But how do you acquire the penny? You acquire already the penny by operating, working for the benefit of the consumers.

14:25I return to the question which I have quoted again and again here. The question raised by the German philosopher, he was not a great philosopher, but he was a professor of philosophy. Scheler, who asked to raise the question, why did the ancient Romans not develop steam power? They knew everything that was from the point of view of physics. Why did they not develop steam power? The answer was, because it smells bad, because they didn't like the smell.

15:15That means they knew they could do these things, but this was not for them, you know. Of course, you know what problems we have with the pollution of the air by steam. Now, the fact was that this idea never occurred to these people because they didn't have a market democracy. Because, if one had to talk to a Roman, that the development of a quite different system will bring about higher luxury, let us say, for everybody, He would not have believed it because the whole thinking of economic problems was absolutely different from what it is today.

16:26People did not realize that the care for increasing consumption was a thing that could not be left to individuals but that the individuals had to cooperate in this field.

17:01What I said, I have to know, has to explain Our present-day political and economic ideology, let us start with the economic ideology. would believe that what is dangerous for democracy, democracy considered as the autonomy of as much as possible autonomy for the individual, that what is dangerous for it is the fact that there are rich people.

17:47Riches is the bad thing, you know. But in the economic system of private ownership of the means of production, Riches is the result of the actions of the individuals, actions in which individuals try to improve their own conditions. The railroads, they are not built for the pleasure of the rich. But the people who built the railroads and in this way served the masses, improved the conditions of the masses, became rich.

18:42And they remain rich as long as they are continually improving to their investments the economic conditions and the consumption of the masses. There is nothing more democratic than the way in which in the capitalistic society wealth is acquired and lost. Look at the railroads. They were built by people who, by building the railroads, increased their property considerably.

19:46and they are going and this accumulated wealth is wasted by nationalizations that transfer the management of these institutions from the people who are subject in unconditionally to the democratic institutions, to people who are above democracy because they are supported by the system of violence of the state. I want now to interrupt a little bit and to ask whether you have not to ask precious concerns, this point which we have already mentioned.

20:38You said that all the historic utopias were totalitarian. Was that necessarily so, or just an accident of history? No, because it was always the plan of one man. I am right to each utopia. According to my will, everything is done according to my will. and I assume that this utopia will remain an utopia as long as my intentions or those of my successors because nobody is immortal or will prevail. The utopia is necessarily a dictatorial, absolute system.

21:27There is no utopia that has been written in which people would have permitted the democratic system to work. In every utopia there is a leading will, a leader. The leader is, for instance, in the utopias of the Jesuits, the Jesuit order. There is a leader and he directs everything. And concerning the pre-Jesuit ages, as soon as such a system is introduced into economic affairs, it becomes totalitarian.

22:36The Catholic Church developed a wonderful system of totalitarian management in theory, of course. Isn't Adam Smith like an utopia? Adam Smith wrote a system in which the individuals are operated and out of the actions of the individuals, the market prevails. It was the opponents of the system that weakened considerably the democratic elements that brought about something else out of it.

23:34Would you define a utopia as a myth, a fallacy or an ideal? I would say that the utopia is an ideal, but what I want to say is not that an utopia is necessary for the Italian, but what I am saying is that an individual who writes an utopia is a potential dictator. He writes, he wants to arrange everything as it is, you know, and you could see that even their minor wishes, their sex wishes for instance and so on, influence what they are.

24:30You call Plato's Republic a utopia? Yes, of course. The name utopia was given in the 16th century, this is something. Well, some people think of it as an ideal. Yes, an ideal. He did not, you know, Plato made, let us say, not an ideal, but if we would say in the language of modern technology, He made a blueprint. This would be the best building of state. And then he was looking for the man who would buy this thing, and for the distinguished ruler who would put this into practice.

25:23But, in the whole thing, there was only, everything should be as I wanted, Plato, and this should remain forever, you know, and they did not, and this idea prevails even today. All these people were potential Platos or potential dictators. For instance, this man, Herzka, who wrote Freiland, I don't know whether you ever heard of it and so on, in the 19th century, and all these people, and the men who wrote it, and the men who wrote it, all these people who wrote it. This English soap man, too? What was this fellow?

26:09Robert Owens. Owens? Yes. Did he mean to run it himself? First of all, you know, they did not, you can't blame these people of the older ages, they had not the fantasy and ideas to anticipate the development of capitalism. Capitalism is a system in which people, all the people cooperate in this thing, you know. There is a man who produces buttons and there is a man who produces something else and they all bring together this system.

26:59system. There is nobody who says buttons are dangerous or so on. There is what develops because the consumers accept it. Everyday people are making plans which are rejected We see of course only those, the tax collector sees only those who have succeeded, but we don't see the people who did not succeed in this regard. We're going to arrange for that. With the negative income tax, we'll arrange for that.

27:50In the pre-capitalistic ages, everybody was working for himself. Because, let us say, because a man, this is a little bit, it looks a little bit ridiculous because a man liked wine, he was going to produce wine. Because another man, like something else, he produced something else, that he was limited by the natural conditions of his environment, this is another thing. Of course he was limited.

28:43The faculty of men to achieve something is necessarily always limited. But what I am attacking is the idea that the socialist system is a progress in the same direction in which the attempts to receive freedom were made. People are in favor of freedom. They want to determine to themselves the way in which they integrate themselves into the whole system of human life.

29:43They don't want to be integrated with somebody else. And the socialist system is precisely this. And I think what is set in favor of socialism is that this will avoid some measures, some mistakes which are made by individuals who are less fit to direct these things. But how can you say this? How can you assume this? People make errors and you can only assume this by ascribing to the head.