Friedrich Hayek’s Nightmare: America Completes The Road to Serfdom

A revered libertarian treatise demonstrates America’s totalitarian slide

Photo by MARCIN CZERNIAWSKI on Unsplash

In 2006, I published a book called Call to Liberty in which I identified the forces leading America toward the possibility of a fascist state—namely, the Christian right, neoconservatism, and the corporate elite. My path for assessing the move toward a totalitarian state had been outlined sixty years earlier by Friedrich Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom, and very much a darling of the libertarian right. Writing in the last year of World War II, Hayek warned western countries of the ways in which socialism and the ideals that serve it can combine with nationalism to lead whole nations into totalitarian nightmares. He was thinking, of course, of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia. At the time, Hayek was most concerned about a perceived increase in the intellectual and political acceptance of socialist ideas in America and Europe, and how that might slide the western countries into their own totalitarian experiences.

Six Factors in the Rise of Totalitarianism in a Society

As I read Hayek, he outlines six factors which are necessary for the rise of totalitarian control:

1. The articulation of a central organizing philosophy based on the common good and “Ideal Society.”

2. The distortion of thought and ideation toward the Ideal Society vision.

3. The loss of real communication between the people—words lose their meaning through relentless propaganda—the end of truth.

4. The rise of the most ruthless to the top.

5. The bold, clear, harsh, public handling of dissent, and the absolute refusal to tolerate dissent.

6. The willingness of the people to trade freedom for security.

Eighty years later, Hayek is still valued by conservatives for his warning about a left-wing slide into communist totalitarianism. The principles behind his lessons, however, can be just as easily applied to a potential right-wing slide into fascist totalitarianism. The irony is that the conditions leading to communist and fascist totalitarianisms are the same. Even though communism and fascism are very different ideologies, the clarity of Hayek’s insight may be applied at both ends of the political spectrum. As it turns out, the two ends of the spectrum are closer than we think.

These six factors, I argue below, are being amply demonstrated in this first month or so of Trump’s second term and the rise of MAGA. By tracking these factors, we can continue to get a better idea of what we are up against at this time in history. In many ways, it is less about the individuals involved than it is about the cultural changes coursing through the country. It is tempting to demonize the individuals, and perhaps some deserve it, but what is happening could not have happened without the changes in culture and society that are reflected in these six principles. So, let’s compare what Hayek saw in the mid-1940s and what we can observe today.

The Ideal Society

If MAGA is anything at all, it is the articulation of a vision of an Ideal Society. America the great, standing on her own, needing no one else, free of all encumbrances, Christian, white, and male. Wasn’t Germany to be the Great Third Reich, standing on her own, needing no one else, free of encumbrances and dominating the world with Christian, white, Aryan men? Hayek saw the essence of the vision in Germany. Can we now, see it here?

The biggest difference is that MAGA has extended the vision in two ways. First, it has appended the development of a techno-utopian world to the Ideal Society. AI and the race to Mars are both wrapping themselves into this dream while ignoring and overriding the very real challenges of climate catastrophe and the limits of what the earth can sustain. Almost all tech leaders have signed on to MAGA with the hopes of creating the techno-utopia that they have always dreamed of.

The second extension of the vision follows very much in the footsteps of the classical totalitarians—the usurpation of the state apparatus. Robert O. Paxton, in The Anatomy of Fascism, describes this process as an essential aspect of the fascist state. Hayek didn’t speak as directly to this in the six factors, but MAGA is full-on taking over the state apparatus under the guidance of Project 2025. Executive orders, firings and purgings, extra-legal and extra-governmental “departments,” and so on. The installation of loyalists is designed to exert control over the apparatus of the state in service of the Ideal Society.

The purge of civil servants enables the replacement of nonpartisan civil servants with loyalists. This replacement is crucial because just as the Nazi vision was a delusion, so is MAGA’s. Loyalists in government, however, can control the information and further extend the delusion. We see only the very beginnings of this in the distortion of information about measles in Texas, what USAID was doing, and the great white-washing of government information on climate change—just to name a few.

The Distortion of Thought

Hayek identified the second factor as the distortion of thought and ideas in favor of the Ideal Society vision. Hayek had seen Himmler’s scholars and the bending of truth and knowledge meant to support crackpot ideas. Heather Pringle, author of The Master Plan documents this effort led by Himmler in the Third Reich. It meant shutting down university programs, shutting out those who would not comply, preventing the publication and dissemination of information that disproved racial and other bogus theories. Himmler also spurred the creation of institutions to research eugenics, conduct inhumane experiments, and develop historical theories of the mythical Aryan race.

Today, the distortion of thought and ideas has been developed and implanted through the big lie (about the 2020 election), the rise of alternative facts, accusations of the news being fake, and so on. But the distortion in many ways is far more profound than that. Many kids are being taught false history regarding the separation of church and state, education policies are pretending slavery never happened, and the war on academia is being waged to prevent new ideas and scientific knowledge from coming to the fore. Christian fundamentalists teach young lawyers that “God’s law” is above to the secular law of the United States. Imperialists distort facts regarding the Panama Canal, Greenland, Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico—the renaming of which shows the attention to symbolic detail that is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s. Corrupt corporate leaders, including the techno-utopians, deny the facts and science of global warming. Right-wing domination of the media, together with skillful use of language and positioning, actively distort and purposely limit the range of political debate.

The End of Truth

Third, Hayek noted that “the end of truth” is a major characteristic of totalitarian regimes. In fact, such regimes have no truth because they simply say and do whatever they want to get the masses of the population to think the way the regime wants them to think. Who among us has not encountered a discussion with people who are so removed from reality that you seem to be unable to communicate at all? January 6, 2021 was a regular day at the capitol? Trump won the 2020 election? His first inaugural address had the biggest crowd ever when the photos showed the direct opposite? What the hell is an alternative fact? Deny the facts and pretend that the problems don’t exist. Or, make up problems that don’t exist to justify actions in your agenda to the public. Tens of millions of people believe these things because the propaganda works.

Until now, the media has played a key role in causing that confusion by amplifying the messaging—both the right wing media and the traditional media that criticizes it. But now, everything is changing because the government apparatus is being purged in order to replace it with loyalists. Information like inflation numbers, census counts, climate data, safety information, and so on were gathered, analyzed, protected, and ultimately reported by non-partisan civil servants—what MAGA denigrates as “deep state.” MAGA, however, is attempting to remove all those civil servants so as to get control over the data and the message—this affects the economy, science, health information like pandemic data, climate change, and nearly every aspect of the government and society. Until now, the problem was propaganda overwhelming the facts, but one could go find the facts. Now, there won’t even be any facts to know. The end of truth, indeed.

The Ruthless Rise

Hayek’s fourth factor in the development of totalitarianism is the rise of the most ruthless to the top. In his time, Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were the avatars. These men were ruthless in their rise to power, even though many fewer people were killed in the early years than in the final paroxysm of their societies as their rule came to an end. As time went on, the ruthlessness came down on millions and millions of people.

In our current situation, January 6, 2021 was the unveiling of the ruthless nature of MAGA. Not only did Trump’s ruthless nature come to the surface, but also that of groups like Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Our system appeared to hold them accountable, but then Trump’s re-election and immediate pardons for everyone convicted of those crimes demonstrated the victory of ruthlessness.

It is not hard to identify Trump with ruthlessness. Many people have noted his lack of concern for other people in any shape or form, his willingness to turn on anyone who questions him, and the rotten ways he has treated people who he thought would do his bidding but obeyed a higher level of moral and ethical standard. Attack judges, attack witnesses, attack victims. Destroy their lives, if possible. Turn on and turn down even your most loyal people like Rudy Giuliani. And yet, knowing this, the American people voted him back into office. His re-election is an indication of the victory of the ruthless.

In this second term of the MAGA movement, we witness the rising of the worst America has to offer, particularly the rise of Elon Musk to that of hatchet man on the federal workforce. Trump and his entire cabinet carry that kind of ruthlessness. One may argue that this is different than the violence of Hitler or Stalin, and so far, that would be true. However, the impact of their ruthless actions on millions and millions of people, from federal workers to people receiving international aid to the halting of life saving medical research projects—is life changing for all of them. And these leaders simply do not care about the damage they cause.

That’s ruthless. And they are, indeed, at the top.

Intolerance of Dissent

Hayek also calls out, as the fifth key factor, the bold, clear, harsh, public handling of dissent. Firings, purges, terminations, name calling, public humiliation, and any other tactic one can think of are all used to accomplish this. The full range of tactics is used to intimidate everyone against dissent, and especially those closer to the action from breaking rank. Hitler, for example, personally murdered his close friend and leader of the SA, Ernst Rohm, during the Night of the Long Knives purge. To our knowledge, Trump has not done that yet. But he has employed many other tactics and one that could result in similar outcomes—pulling the security details from people who have dutifully served this country but who he has determined oppose him. It is a terrible form of retaliation meant to send a clear message to anyone else who might turn against him.

This intolerance of dissent is not just at the top of MAGA; it runs deep into the heartland. Deep contempt for others is reflected in the obnoxious lawn signs: “Fuck you if you voted for Biden,” or “Fuck you and your feelings,” or “Fuck that bitch!” referring Hilary Clinton. There can be no discussion with such personalized belligerence, and that’s the point. In MAGA world, you have no right to see things differently. No right to dissent.

The contemptuous anger reflected in these signs and in the voices of those we try to talk with make it clear. As soon as you bring information that pops the bubble of the delusional worldview, anger erupts. You, as the person, become the problem. If you don’t like the message, attack the messenger. Why? Because dissent in intolerable.

Trading Freedom for Security

Hayek’s final factor is that citizens become convinced that it is better to trade freedom for security. In his terms, this has to do with economic freedom. He was concerned about the impact of guaranteed standards of living and incomes above a certain minimum threshold, as in planned economies like the Soviet Union. When the people accept the guarantee, they are opting for security over freedom, in his view.

As I noted in Call to Liberty, the security-for-freedom trade was manifest differently in the US with the public’s willingness to allow Patriot Act invasions and NSA spying on Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. Today, it takes a very different form. The security MAGA voters want is the security to know that they are not stuck at the bottom of the economic totem pole, and they are willing to give up the norms and institutions of free and democratic government to have that security. We are allowing the institution of democracy to be disbanded so as to concentrate power in the hands of a man some people trust to provide that security. In other words, they seek the security they had in the era of Jim Crow when blacks in both the north (by away of housing policies, for example) and the south (by way of Jim Crow discrimination) were denied freedom in order to provide lower class whites with this security. The attack on DEI and the gutting of the federal workforce is precisely this kind of attack, and it is likely only the very beginning. Many MAGA supporters are cheering this return to what they view as a comfortable normalcy. At east their economic security will no longer be under threat—or so they believe.

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While there are many other ways to understand the ongoing collapse of American democracy into a totalitarian state, I find Hayek’s perspective very interesting, especially because of his affinities with right-wing libertarians. One of the most important distinctions he makes is that freedom exists when we need follow a steady and sober body of law rather than the whims of a man. The current campaign of retribution that is unfolding, the radical shifts in policy that disrupt supply chains, the blaming of individuals like civil servants, the deportation strategy and attempts to redefine birthright citizenship, the pardons of criminals for no reason other than that their crimes were at the president’s behest… all of these and more show that it is the whims of a man and his extreme implementers that counts, not the law. Indeed, there is nothing we can count on other than successfully anticipating that man’s ire. How is this the democracy we grew up in and came to know and love? How is this freedom? As Hayek shows us, it is not.

Anthony Signorelli

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