There was once a man who commented on freedom like this. He said that freedom means observing common abstract rules, which has nothing to do with ability and does not promise happiness. Mankind is always faced with a choice, whether to seek equality in poverty or freedom in inequality.
There are three human values that cannot be voted by the majority. They are peace, freedom and private property beyond democracy. He also said that money is the greatest tool of freedom invented by mankind. Only money will be open to the poor, but power will never be. The essence of freedom is that the world is uncertain and only free people have the ability to deal with it.
A European named Hayek gave these definitions to freedom. He was born in 1899. This year marks the 20th anniversary of his birth/kloc-0. He was a banner figure of neoliberalism in the past 100 years. Hayek lived a long life, at the age of 93. His life has almost gone through the whole 20th century, that is, from 1 World War to World War II, to the outbreak of the cold war, and then to the end of the cold war. This has been turbulent for 100 years, and it can be said that human beings have re-recognized freedom 100 years.
Hayek wrote 25 books in his life, of which two are the most famous, one is Fatal Conceit, and the other is The Road to Slavery. Their common theme is to point out the fallacy of planned economy and centralization. Hayek wrote that when we try our best to consciously build our future according to some lofty ideals, we actually unconsciously create the opposite result to the goal we have been fighting for. Can people imagine a bigger tragedy than this?
He is an economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, but his works have never seen charts, formulas or even any statistical data, so it is hard to say that his works are purely academic economic works, only with the color of moral philosophy.
In his theoretical system, freedom is regarded as the supreme moral criterion, and he even thinks that freedom rather than democracy is the ultimate value pursued by human beings. He believes that the clearest way to distinguish the state of a free country from that of a country ruled by an authoritarian government is that the former follows this great principle called the rule of law. Only in the era of liberalism can the rule of law develop consciously, which is one of the greatest achievements in the era of liberalism. It is not only the guarantee of freedom, but also the legal embodiment of freedom. Under this premise, a strong government has become the object of vigilance. Hayek wrote that by giving the government unlimited power, the most authoritarian rule can be legalized, and a democratic system can establish an imaginable and complete authoritarian rule in this way.
So Hayek said he didn't believe in three things:
First of all, he does not believe that a healthy national economy can be centrally managed and scientifically planned. He said that the concept of completely centralized management of economic activities is still frightening to most people, not only because of the great difficulty of this task, but also because of the fear caused by the concept that everything should be guided by a unique center.
Secondly, he doesn't believe that the government can control the greed for power. He said that by giving the government unlimited rights, the rule of the most exclusive part can be legalized, and a democratic system can establish the most complete authoritarian politics imaginable in this way. If a democratic system determines a task, and this task must use power that cannot be guided by rules, it will definitely become arbitrary power.
Third, he doesn't believe that the elite can really find the absolute truth. He said that from a pure and sincere idealist to a fanatic, there is only one step away. Although the anger of disappointed experts strongly promoted the requirements of the plan, if the most famous experts in every field in the world can realize their ideals without obstacles, there will be no more unbearable and unreasonable world.
Hayek and Keynes were contemporaries, compared with Keynes who was an official. Hayek's theory is too moralized. In order to criticize the planned economy, he refused all forms of control, and even once advocated the non-nationalization of currency. Some of his ideas seem unrealistic. But at the same time, no one dares to deny his moral courage, so Hayek is regarded as a symbol of neoliberalism.
In The Road to Slavery, Hayek famously said: If we want to build a better world, we must have the courage to start from scratch, even if it means that we have to go in first and go back first. We have almost no right to feel superior to our ancestors, and it is not them who make a mess, but ourselves.