2013년 3월 11일 월요일

[발췌 15장: Hayek's Road to Serfdom] The Prospects of International Order

자료: [구글도서] his Collected Works, vol.2 (Univ. of Chicago Press 2009) ; [구글도서] Routledge(1944 [2001]) ; Some HTML (& its contents) ; Some PDF; ... 차례/독서노트;


※ This is a reading note with excerpts taken and some personal annotations or remarks added in trying to partially read the above text. So visit the links above or elsewhere to see the original work.

※ 발췌 (excerpts):


Chapter 15_ The Prospects of International Order

Of all checks on democracy, federation has been the most efficacious and the most congenial. ... The federal system limits and restraint the sovereign power by dividing it and by assigning to Government only certain defined rights. It is the only method of curbing not only the majority but the power of the whole people.─Lord Acton[1]
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1. In no other field has the world yet paid so dearly for the abandonment of 19th-century liberalism as in the field where the retreat began: in international relations. Yet only a small part of the lesson which experience ought to have taught us has been learned. Perhaps even more elsewhere current notions of what is desirable and practicable are here still of a kind which may well produce the opposite of what they promise.

2.  The part of the lesson of the recent past which is slowly and gradually being appreciated is that many kinds of economic planning, conducted independently on a national scale, are bound in their aggregate effect to be harmful even from a purely economic point of view and, in addition, to produce serious international friction. That there is little hope of international order or lasting peace so long as every country is free to employ whatever measures it thinks desirable in its own immediate interest, however damaging they may be to others, needs little emphasis now. Many kinds of economic planning are indeed practicable only if the planning authority can effectively shut out all extraneous influences; the result of such planning is therefore inevitably the piling-up of restrictions on the movements of men and goods.

3.  Less obvious but by no means less real are the dangers to peace arising out of the artificially fostered economic solidarity of all the inhabitants of any one country and from the new blocs of opposed interests created by planning on a national scale. It is neither necessary nor desirable that national boundaries should mark sharp differences in standard of living, that membership of a national group should entitle one to a share in a cake altogether different from that in which members of other groups share. If the resources of different nations are treated as exclusive properties of these nations as wholes, if international economic relations, instead of being relations between individuals, become increasingly relations between whole nations organized as trading blocs, they inevitably become the source of friction and envy between whole nations. It is one of the most fatal illusions that, by substituting negotiations between states or organized groups for competition for markets or for raw materials, international friction would be reduced.[:] 
  • This would merely put a contest of force in the place of what can only metaphorically be called the "struggle" of competition and would transfer to powerful and armed states, subject to no superior law, the rivalries which between individuals had to be decided without recourse to force
  • Economic transactions between national bodies who are at the same time the supreme judges of their own behavior, who bow to no superior law, and whose representatives cannot be bound by any considerations but the immediate interest of their respective nations, must end in clashed of power.[2]
4.  If we were to make no better use of victory than to countenance existing trends in this direction, only too visible before 1939, we might indeed find that we have defeated National Socialism merely to create a world of many national socialisms, differing in detail, but all equally totalitarian, nationalistic, and in recurrent conflict with each other. The Germans would appear as the disturbers of peace, as they already do to some people,[3] merely because they were the first to take the path along which all the others were ultimately to follow.

5.  Those who at least partly realize these dangers usually draw the conclusion that economic planning must be done "internationally," i.e., by some supernational authority. But though this would avert some of the obvious dangers raised by planning on a national scale, it seems that those who advocate such ambitious schemes have little conception of the even greater difficulties and dangers which their proposals create. The problems raised by a conscious direction of economic affairs on a national scale inevitably assume even grater dimensions when the same is attempted internationally. The conflict between planning and freedom cannot but become more serious as the similarity of standards and values among those submitted to a unitary plan diminishes. There need be little difficulty in planning the economic life of a family, comparatively little in a small community. But, as the scale increases, the amount of agreement on the order of ends decreases and the necessity to rely on force and compulsion grows. In a small community common views on the relative importance of the main tasks, agreed standards of value, will exist on a great many subjects. But their number will become less and less the wider we throw the net; and as there is less community of views, the necessity to rely on force and coercion increases.

6.  The people of any one country may easily be persuaded to make a sacrifice in order to assist what they regard as "their" iron industry or "their" agriculture, or in order that in their country nobody should sink below a certain level. So long as it is a question of helping people whose habits of life and ways of thinking are familiar to us, of correcting the distribution of incomes among, or the working conditions of, people we can well imagine and whose views on their appropriate status are fundamentally similar to ours, we are usually read to make some sacrifices. But one has only to visualize the problems raised by economic planning of even an area such as western Europe to see that the moral bases for such an undertaking are completely lacking. Who imagines that there exist any common ideals of distributive justice such as will make the Norwegian fisherman consent to forgo the prospect of economic improvement in order to help his Portuguese fellow, or the Dutch worker to pay more for hs bicycle to help the Coventry mechanic, or the French peasant to pay more taxes to assist the industrialization of Italy?

7.  If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this justly and equitably. The English people, for instance, perhaps even more than others, begin to realize what such schemes mean only when it is presented to them that they might be a minority in the planning authority and that the main line of the future economic development of Great Britain might be determined by a non-British majority. How many people in England would be prepared to submit to the decision of an international authority, however democratically constituted, which had power to decree that the development of the Spanish iron industry must have precedence over similar development in South Wales, that the optical industry had better be concentrated in Germany to the exclusion of Great Britain, or that only fully refined gasoline should be imported to Great Britain and all the industries connected with refining reserved for the producer countries?

8.  To imagine that the economic life of a vast area comprising many different people can be directed or planned by democratic procedure betrays a complete lack of awareness of the problems such planning would raise. Planning on an international scale, even more than is true on a national scale, cannot be anything but a naked rule of force, an imposition by a small group on all the rest of that sort of standard and employment which the planners think suitable for the rest. If anything is certain, it is hat Grossraumwirtschaft of the kind at which the Germans have been aiming can be successfully realized only by a master-race, a Herrenvolk, ruthlessly imposing its aims and ideas on the smaller people shown by the Germans simply as a sign of their special wickedness; it is the nature of the task they have assumed which makes these things inevitable. To undertake the direction of the economic life of people with widely divergent ideals and values is to assume responsibilities which commit one to the use of force; it is to assume a position where the best intentions cannot prevent one from being forced to act in a way which to some of those affected must appear highly immoral.[4]
[n.4] The experience in the colonial sphere, of Great Britain as much as of any other, has amply shown that even the mild forms of planning which Englishmen know as colonial development involve, where they wish or not, the imposition of certain values and ideals on those whom they try to assist. It is, indeed, this experience which has made even the most internationally minded of colonial experts so very skeptical of the practicality of an "international" administration of colonies.

9.  This is true even if we assume that dominant power to be as idealistic and unselfish as we can possibly conceive. But how small is the likelihood that it will be unselfish, and how great are the temptations! I believe the standards of decency and fairness, particularly with regard to international affairs, to be as high, if not higher, in England that in any other country. Yet even now we can hear people in England arguing that victory must be used to create conditions in which British industry will be able to utilize to the full the particular equipment which it has built up during the war, that the reconstruction of Europe must be so directed as to fit in with the special requirements of the industries of England, and to secure to everybody in the country the kind of employment for which he thinks himself most fit. The alarming thing about these suggestions is not that they are made but that they are made in all innocence and regarded as a matter of course by decent people who are completely unaware of the moral enormity which the uses of force for such purposes involve.[5]
RE: {WETP.p096-3, n.56} [n.5] If anyone should still fail to see the difficulties, or cherish the belief that with a little good will they can all be overcome, it will help if he tries to follow the implications of central direction of economic activity applied on a world scale. {Can there be much doubt that this would mean a more or less conscious endeavor to secure the dominance of the white man, and would rightly be so regarded by all other races?} Until I find a sane person who seriously believes that the European races will voluntarily submit to their standard of life and rate of progress being determined by a world parliament, I cannot regard such plans as anything but absurd. But this does unfortunately not preclude that particular measures, which could be justified only if the principle of world direction were a feasible ideal, are seriously advocated.

10.  Perhaps the most powerful agent in creating the belief in the possibility of a single central direction by democratic means of the economic life of many different peoples is the fatal delusion that if the decisions were left to the "people", the community of interest of the working classes would readily overcome the differences which exists between the ruling classes. There is every reason to expect that with world planning the clash of economic interests which arises now about the economic policy of any one nation would in fact appear in even fiercer form as a clash of interests between whole peoples which could be decided only by force. On the questions which an international planning authority would have to decide, the interests and opinions of the working classes of the different people will inevitably be as much in conflict, and there will be even less of a commonly accepted basis for an equitable settlement than there is with respect to different classes in any one country. To the worker in a poor country the demand of his more fortunate colleague to be protected against his low-wage competition by minimum-wage legislation supposedly in his interest, is frequently no more than a means to deprive him of his only chance to better his conditions by overcoming natural disadvantages by working at wages lower than his fellows in other countries. And to him the fact that he has to give the product of ten hours of his labor for the product of five hours of the man elsewhere who is better equipped with machinery is as much "exploitation" as that practiced by any capitalist.

11.  It is fairly certain that in a planned international system the wealthier and therefore most powerful nations would to a very much greater degree than in a free economy become the object of hatred and envy of the poorer ones; and the latter, rightly or wrongly, would all be convinced that their position could be improved much more quickly if they were only free to do what they wished. Indeed, if it comes to be regarded as the duty of the international authority to bring about distributive justice between the different peoples, it is no more than a consistent and inevitable development of socialist doctrine that class strife would become a struggle between the working classes of the different countries.

12.  There is at present a great deal of muddleheaded talk about "planning to equalize standards of life." It is instructive to consider in a little more detail one of these proposals to see what precisely it involves. The area for which at the present moment our planners are particularly fond of drawing up such schemes is the Danube Basin and southeastern Europe.[6] There can be no doubt about the urgent need for amelioration of economic conditions in this region, from humanitarian and economic considerations as well as in the interest of the future peace of Europe, nor that this can be achieved only in a political setting different from that of the past. Bu this is not the same thing as to wish to see economic life in this region directed according to a single master-plan, to foster the development of the different industries according to a schedule laid down beforehand in a way which makes the success of local initiative dependent on being approved by the central authority and being incorporated in it plan. One cannot, for example, create a kind of Tennessee Valley Authority for the Danube Basin without thereby determining beforehand for many years to come the relative rate of progress of the different races inhabiting this area or without subordinating all their individual aspirations and wishes to this task.[7]

13.  Planning of this kind must of necessity begin by fixing an order of priorities of the different claims. To plan for the deliberate equalization of standards of living means that the different claims must be ranked according to merit, that some must be given precedence over others, and that the latter must wait their turnㅡeven though those whose interests are thus relegated may be convinced, not only of their better right, but also of their ability to reach their goal sooner if they were only given freedom to act on their own devices. There exists no basis which allows us to decide whether the claims of the poor Rumanian peasant are more or less urgent than those of the still poorer Albanian, or the need of the Slovakian mountain shepherd greater that those of his Slovakian colleague. But if the raising of their standards of life is to be effected according to a unitary plan, somebody must deliberately balance the merits of all these claims and decide between them. And once such a plan is put into execution, all the resources of the planned area must serve that planㅡthere can be no exemption for those who feel they could do better for themselves. Once their claim has been given a low rank, they will have to work for the prior satisfaction of the needs of those who have been given preference.

14.  In such a state of affairs everybody will rightly feel that he is worse off than he might be if some other plan had been adopted and that it is the decision and the might of the dominant powers which have condemned him to a place less favorable than he thinks is due to him. To attempt such a thing in a region peopled by a small nations, each of which believes equally fervently in its own superiority over the others, is to undertake a task which can be performed only by the use of force. What it would amount to in practice is that the decisions and power of the large nations would have to settle whether the standards of the Macedonians or the Bulgarian peasant should be raised faster, whether the Czech or the Hungarian miner should more rapidly approach Western standards.  It does not need much knowledge of human nature, and certainly only a little knowledge of the people of Central Europe, to see that, whatever the decision imposed, there will be many, probably a majority, to whom the particular order chosen will appear supreme injustice and that their common hatred will soon turn against the power which, however disinterestedly, in fact decides their fate.

15.  Though there are no doubt many people who honestly believe that if they were allowed to handle the job they would be able to settle all those problems justly and impartially, and who would be genuinely surprised to find suspicion and hatred turning against them, they would probably be the first to apply force when those whom they mean to benefit prove recalcitrant, and to show themselves quite ruthless in coercing people in what is presumed to be their own interests. What these dangerous idealists do not see is that where the assumption of a moral responsibility involves that one's moral views should by force be made to prevail over those dominant in other communities, the assumption of such responsibility may place one in a position in which it becomes impossible to act morally. To impose such an impossible moral task ot the victorious nations is a certain way morally to corrupt and discredit them

16.  By all means let us assist the poorer people as much as we can in their own effort to build up their lives and to raise their standards of living. An international authority can be very just and contribute enormously to economic prosperity if it merely keeps order and creates conditions in which the people can develop their own life; but it is impossible to be just or to let people live their own life if the central authority doles out raw materials and allocates markets, if every spontaneous effort has to be "approved" and nothing can be done without the sanction of the central authority.

17.  After the discussion in earlier chapters it is hardly necessary to stress that these difficulties cannot be met by conferring on the various international authorities "merely" specific economic powers. The belief that this is a practical solution rests on the fallacy that economic planning is merely a technical task, which can be solved in a strictly objective manner by experts, and that the really vital things would still be left in the hands of the political authorities. Any international economic authority, not subject to a superior political power, even if strictly confined to a particular field, could easily exercise the most tyrannical and irresponsible power imaginable. Executive control of an essential commodity or service (as, for example, air transport) is in effect one of the most far-reaching powers which can be conferred on any authority. And as there is scarcely anything which could not be justified by "technical necessities" which no outsider could effectively questionㅡor even by humanitarian and possibly entirely sincere arguments about the need of some specially ill-favored group which could not be helped in any other wayㅡthere is little possibility of controlling that power. The kind of organization of the resources of the world under more or less autonomous bodies, which now so often finds favor in the most surprising quarters, a system of comprehensive monopolies recognized by all the national governments, but subject to none, would inevitably become the worst of all conceivable racketsㅡeven if those entrusted with their administration should prove the most faithful guardians of the particular interests placed in their care.

18.  One need only seriously consider the full implications of such apparently innocuous proposals, widely regarded as the essential basis of the future economic order, such as the conscious control and distribution of the supply of essential raw materials, in order to see what appalling political difficulties and moral dangers they create. The controller of the supply of any such raw material as gasoline or timber, rubber or tin, would be the master of the fate of whole industries and countries. In deciding whether to allow the supply to increase and the price or the income of the producers to fall, he would decide whether some country is to be allowed to start some new industry or whether it is to be preclude from doing so. While he "protects" the standards of life of those he regards as specially entrusted to his care, he will deprive many who are in a much worse position of their best and perhaps only chance to improve it. If all essential raw materials were thus controlled, there would indeed be no new industry, no new venture on which the people of a country could embark without the permission of the controllers, no plan for development or improvement which could not be frustrated by their veto. The same is true of international arrangement for "sharing" of markets and even more so of the control of investment and the development of natural resources.

19.  It is curious to observe how those who pose as the most hard-boiled realists, and who lose no opportunity of casting ridicule on the "utopianism" of those who believe in the possibility of an international political order, yet regard as more practicable the much more intimate and irresponsible interference with the lives of the different peoples which economic planning involves; and believe that, once hitherto undreamed-of power is given to an international government, which has just been represented as not even capable of enforcing a simle Rule of Law, this great power will be used in so unselfish and so obviously just a manner as to command general consent. If anything is evident, it should be that, while nations might abide by formal rules on which they have agreed, they will never submit to the direction which international econonomic planning involvesㅡthat while they may agree on the rules of the game, they will never agree on the order of preference in which the rank of their own needs and the rate at which they are allowed to advance is fixed by majority vote. Even if, at first, the peoples should, under some illusion about the meaning of such proposals, agree to transfer such powers to an international authority, they would soon find out that what they have delegated is not merely a technical task but the most comprehensive power over their lives.

20.  What is evident at the back of the minds of the not altogether unpracticable "realists" who advocate these schemes is that, while the great powers will be unwilling to submit to any superior authority, they will be able to use those "international" authorities to impose their will on the smaller nations within the area in which they exercise hegemony. There is so much "realism" in this that by thus camouflaging the planning authorities as "international" it might be easier to achieve the condition under which international planning is alone practicable, namely, that it is in effect done by one single predominant power. This disguise would, however, not alter the fact that for all the smaller states it would mean a much more complete subjection to an external power, to which no real resistance would any longer be possible, than would be involved in the reunification of a clearly defined part of political sovereignty.

21.  It is significant that the most passionate advocates of a centrally directed economic New Order for Europe should display, like their Fabian and German prototypes, the most complete disregard of the individuality and of the rights of small nations. The views of Professor Carr, who in this sphere, even more than in that of internal policy is representative of the trend toward totalitarianism in England, have already made one of his professional colleagues ask the very pertinent question: "If the Nazi way with small sovereign states is indeed to become the common form, what is the war about?"[8] Those who have observed how much disquiet and alarm some recent utterances on these questions in papers as different as the London ^Times^ and the ^New Statesman^[9] have caused among our smaller Allies will have little doubt how much this attitude is even now resented among our closest friends, and how easy it will be to dissipate the stock of good will which has been laid up during the war if these advisers are followed.

22.  Those who are so ready to ride roughshod over the rights of small states are, of course, right in one thing: we cannot hope for order or lasting peace after this war if states, large or small, regain unfettered sovereignty in the economic sphere. But this does not mean that a new superstate must be given powers which we have not leaned to use intelligently even on a national scale, that an international authority ought to be given power to direct individual nations how to use their resources. It means merely that there must be a power which can restrain the different nations from action harmful to their neighbors, a set of rules which defines what a state may do, and an authority capable of enforcing these rules. The powers which such an authority would need are mainly of a negative kind; it must, above all, be able to say "No" to all sorts of restrictive measures.

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23.  Far from its[it] being true that, as is now widely believed, we need an international economic authority while the states can at the same time retain their unrestricted political sovereignty, almost exactly the opposite is true. What we need and can hope to achieve is not more power in the hands of irresponsible international economic authorities but, on the contrary, a superior political power which can hold the economic interests in check, and in the conflict between them can truly hold the scales, because it is itself not mixed up in the economic game. The need is for an international political authority which, without power to direct the different people what they must do, must be able to restrain them from action which will damage others.

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24.  The powers which must devolve on an international authority are not the new powers assumed by the states in recent times but that minimum of powers without which it is impossible to preserve peaceful relationships, i.e., essentially the powers of the ultra-liberal "laissez-faire" state. (...)

25. The form of international government ...

26. This division of power ...

27. It is worth recalling that ...

28. We shall not rebuild civilization on the large scale ...

29. But the small can preserve their independence ...

30. An international authority which effectively limits the powers of the state over the individual will be one of the best safeguards of peace. ...

31. Wisely used, the federal principle of organization may indeed prove ...

32. It is true that with the formation of such regional federations ...

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