Hayek: A Collaborative Biography

Two concepts of civilisation revolve around the extent of power—should it be separated or concentrated? Liberalism in the non-Austrian classical tradition remains fearful of power concentrated in the hands of government, labour unions or corporations; Red Terrorists sought to monopolise power to liquidate enemies and competitors as a prelude to utopia (the ‘withering away of the State’); and behind the ‘slogan of liberty,’ White Terror promoters (Mises and Hayek) sought to concentrate power in the hands of a ‘dictatorial democracy’ where henchmen would liquidate enemies and—‘guided’ by ‘utopia’ (the ‘spontaneous’ order)—follow orders from their social superiors. In his mendacious Memoirs (which he denied having written), Mises—from the safety of neutral Manhattan—described the motto which had underpinned his life: ‘Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it.’ A few months before, he had abandoned Europe to the ‘Fascists’ (including ‘Hitler’) who he claimed had ‘saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.’ Contrary to the Mont Pelerin Society ‘consistent doctrine,’ the evidence reveals that both ‘Fascism’ and anti-Semitism were endemic within the Austrian School of Economics—which continues to maintain a ‘united front’ with ‘Neo-Nazis.’ This chapter examines both the utopian personality characteristics of the ‘worst inferior mediocrities’ that Hayek recruited so as to provide the ‘effective framework for a functioning spontaneous order’; and also his support of the Operation Condor dictatorships that were, he asserted, reconstructing that ‘spontaneous’ order.

The political ‘Fascists’ that Mises believed had ‘saved European civilization’ included ‘Ludendorff and Hitler.’ Mises was a card-carrying Austro-Fascist and member of the official Fascist social club; Rothbard described the interwar emergency that Fascism had solved; and Hayek, his fellow fourth-generation Austrian School leader, saw similar merits in the Operation Condor dictatorships that targeted dissidents for liquidation.