Saturday, October 2, 2010

I don't think "serfdom" means what you think it means

Have the Glenn Beck followers who are buying up Hayek's The Road to Serfdom got to page 148 yet?

Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance — where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks—the case for the state’s helping to organise a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong . . . . But there is no incompatibility in principle between the state's providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom . . . . Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken.

Friedrich Hayek, notorious Obamacare socialist