7 Economic Control and Totalitarianism
Planners who have seriously considered how to make planning work know that it must be under dictatorial conditions. The argument used is that this authoritarian direction will only apply to economic matters. We are told we will be free to pursue higher values under planning. Unfortunately that argument takes for granted that the economic matters are separate from other ends of life. But strictly speaking, there is no economic motive, only economic factors conditioning our striving for other ends.
Even in the premise that economic matters are of lesser importance, we view it as such because we are free in economic matters, that we are free to decide more or less what is important to us.
The question raised by economic planning is who will decide what is important for us: ourselves or the planner? Economic control isn’t a sector of control that can be separated from the rest.
The freedom planners offer us is to be relieved of the necessity of solving our own economic problems. But since nearly every part of our lives is dependent on others, there is almost no area of control the planner wouldn’t exercise over us.
Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on our ability to turn to another source if one doesn’t satisfy us. If we face a monopolist, we are at his mercy. But the state wielding central planning power is the most powerful monopolist of all, one from which we have no escape. While the state might not be trying to extract the maximum financial gain out of us, it would have complete power to decide who is given what and on what terms.
In a competitive society, the prices we pay depend on a network of interrelated factors. Prices are not determined by any the conscious will of anyone. Obstacles in our path are not due to someone’s disapproval of our ends. In a directed economy, this is precisely what would happen.
Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours can change anything.
Most planners tout that choice of occupation will increase with planning. But if they want to plan, they must control entry into the different occupations in order to accomplish what they want. Socialists tell us that man will cease to be mere means, when in fact, he will be purely means for the ends that the socialists declare.
Yes, many people resent the difficult choices of economic life, but turning those choices over to an agent outside yourself only relieves you of choice, not difficulty.
About the only reasonable sales pitch left for socialism is that it will secure a more just and equitable distribution of wealth. But the price we pay for the realization of someone else’s ideal of justice is bound to be more discontent and oppression than was ever caused by the much-abused free play of economic forces.