A time with Authority and Revisiting Hayek

To say the least, I've been very busy recently.  At Best Buy, I'm currently not only covering requests for my everyday tasks, but also most of the tasks of a couple of co-workers who are out on leave.  These 10+ hour days even have my Director asking me questions on when I'm taking vacation.  It is what it is.

I have though, had a chance to meet Best Buy's new Chief Executive Officer, Hubert Joly.  The Frenchman spent a little time to introduce himself to others at the Richfield corporate office.  As you can see, I had a chance for a short conversation.

I have to say Mr. Joly did not have the firmest handshake.  He had a friendly demeanor to him though.

The conversation was simply me introducing myself and talking about how well Mr. Joly has been able to integrate himself into the company.  The man has led the turnaround of three companies.  He'll have his work cut out here though.

At the end of our conversation, Mr. Joly asked me to hold a "V for Victory" sign in our picture together.  I'm working to see that victory actually happens and I'm confident that they will not be a dull moment in the next few months pursuing it.

I'll just say that there's never a dull moment working at Best Buy.

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As we enter the final stretch of this election year, I thought it would be interesting to take a contextual view of how this election fits into the evolution of our society.  Call me a pessimist, but I generally see us following the path that was dictated by Friedrich A. Hayek in his famous book, "The Road to Serfdom"

 I have a copy of this book which I first read as a sophomore at Carleton.  However, I will have to recollect facts of the book mainly by memory since I loaned the book out months ago.  Hopefully whoever has it is gaining some enlightenment from it (they know who they are).

Anyways, I'm quite concerned that the issues that Hayek talked about in the 1940s are quite relevant now.  Hayek wrote the the book to  "warn of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning,"^[1] 

^{Hayek discussed that back in post WWI Germany, the Nazi part was simply against individualism, capitalism, democracy and classical liberalism.  However, they used the} democratic system to gain power by convincing the electorate that socialism (economic control and guidance by the government) could be mixed with democracy and freedom would not be lost.  Well, we know how that story ended.

But way did it happen?  Let's think about what was happening about the time Hayek wrote the Road to Serfdom:

• Germany as wells as the world was recovering from a great economic crisis;
• A growing consensus that the solution of – trust in government to solve the problems of this crisis (Hitler was the ultimate Keynesian, pursuing a massive public works program to rebuild the economy, but also help his own ends);
• A growing acceptance to the concentration of power on part of the government through the message crisis (greater emphasis on nationalism)
• laws that are passed to legitimizes economic control over people lives
• loss of personal freedom (in Hitler's Germany, you know what that meant, I hope).

Does this sound familiar? Does the economic crisis in 2008, greater financial regulation, the increase of federal power in education, immigration, healthcare, etc. make you think about how much power has been centralized in our society today.   Personal freedoms lost to greater regulation and more invasive tracking techniques make you pause in thought of the devaluation of individualism that was seen for many years an integral facet of American Exceptionalism?

Going back to Hayek, another idea that he discussed in the Road to Serfdom is that the diversity of expectations in a democracy often leads to elected officials not being able to implement the policies they promised.  This generally leads to gridlock, which I'm generally a fan of due to my pessimistic view of the quality of any policies that are implemented these days.  However, the public at large over time can become disenchanted with government's inability to get things done (fiscal cliff, anyone?).

Hayek also talked about the the importance of economic freedom and economic security in relation to a more centralized state.  Hayek said that "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends."  If one is expecting government intervention for mere subsistence, then a loss of economic freedom with inevitably result.  When one thinks that about 2 out of every 5 Americans are living under the poverty line and we hear folks expecting public assistance to pay their mortgage and/or their student loans, there's the potential for much loss of economic freedom and greater public disenchantment.

When the public becomes disenchanted, they can eventually unify behind one leader or group of leaders who promises to address their needs.  Over time that leader can gain greater centralized power the leads to the bullet points above.  That's pretty much what I recall from the book.  Does history repeat itself?  We'll see.