"How the worst gets on top" - or How Harper inverts Hayek

Harper's marketplace Bible is The Road to Serfdom a polemical work in classical liberal economics by Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), first published in 1944. As a student of economics, Harper would have considered this a “must read,” a book that was also greatly popularized in the United States by Reader’s Digest condensed versions.

Of particular interest is the Chapter “Why the worst get on top,” prefaced by Lord Acton's famous dictum: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It would appear that Harper not only read Hayek, he also inverts his thinking (or he did not read him closely enough). In other words, Harper sees in Hayek a guide to "strong man" demagoguery – or a manual for so-called electioneering - where Hayek only saw the danger signals of authoritarianism, or worse.

We must return for a moment to the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime. In this stage it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which make’s action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems resolute enough “to get things done” who exercises the greatest appeal. “Strong” in this sense means not merely a numerical majority – it is the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities with which people are dissatisfied. What they will seek is somebody with solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that a new type of party, organized on military lines, comes in. ...

There are three main reasons why such a numerous and strong group with fairly homogenous views is not likely to be formed by the best but rather by the worst elements of society. By our standards the principles on which such a group would be selected will be almost entirely negative.

In the first instance .... It is, as it were, the lowest common denominator which unites the largest group of people. If a numerous group is needed, strong enough to impose their views on the values of life on all the rest, it will never be those with highly differentiated and developed tastes – it will be those who form the “mass” in the derogatory sense of the term, the least original and independent, who will be able to put their numbers behind their particular ideals. ...

Here comes in the second negative principle of selection: he will be able to obtain the support of the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently. It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party.

It is in connection with the deliberate effort of the skillful demagogue to weld together a closely coherent and homogenous body of supporters that the third and perhaps most important negative element of selection enters. It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program – on the hatred of the enemy, on the envy of those better off - than on any positive task.


Source: F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom. Texts and Documents. The Definitive Edition, ed. Bruce Caldwell (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2007), pp.159-161.