Sunday, August 17, 2008

A Comment About Hayek's Point, Sent to the Mises Blog.

A key point made by Fredrich Hayek in The University of Chicago Law Review (Spring 1949) is when he refers to the philosopher as the prince of the intellectuals.

To understand this we have to separate ourselves from socialism. A philosopher within socialism is functionally no more (due to its incongruence with the human spirit) a prince than any other socialist, just a more decorated one.

For Hayek's statement to be true - 'a philosopher is the prince of the intellectuals' - there has to be freedom of the human spirit. The entrepreneurial spirit that is alert to human potential will tend to be philosophic.

Here is an analogy:

Entrepreneurs are alert to the human needs and the resources necessary to meet those needs - they are the driving force of the economy. In like manner philosophers alert to human potential lay the groundwork necessary for the advancement of civilization.

Business people of all facets of commerce dutifully compete to get what the entrepreneurs discovered and all products and services to the consumers. In like manner the intellectuals diligently find ways to distribute this new philosophic information and information in general to human minds.

Socialism is not only a system of depravity economically but ineludibly it is a system of shackled intellectual and philosophic expressiveness.

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