Friday, August 19, 2011

Hayek Caused Hitler

Wow. Robert Sidelsky is clearly a zealot, someone who puts worship ahead of logical argument. But that's okay. There are plenty of folks I admire who do that also.

Sidelsky has perhaps overstepped, however. It turns out that Hayek's economic policies brought Hitler to powerin Germany. If only the D-Bank had been Keynesian, and had inflated the money supply, and wasted a bunch of money on make-work projects, the Nazis would never have had a chance.

Who knew?

The surprising thing for me is that I would have said that inflating the hell out of the money supply and spending a bunch of money on crony projects was EXACTLY what Weimar did. Thank goodness B-Sid is here to set me straight.

Note that I am not making the Godwin's Law objection. Sidelsky is not making a gratuitous comparison to Hitler. He literally means that Hayekian economic policies are directly responsible for the rise of the Nazis.

(Nod to Herr F, who is helpful)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can't use logic to follow his reasoning, because logic has no place in religion. In Sidelsky's religion, Keynes is God, which means Hayek is the devil, and who could have caused Hitler if not Satan?

Ten Mile Island said...

Um, gobsmacked.
.

Simon Spero said...

If only the D-Bank had been Keynesian, and had inflated the money supply, and wasted a bunch of money on make-work projects, the Nazis would never have had a chance

There was no D-Bank until after the fall of the Nazis, so (the central bank of the Weimar republic was the Reichsbank) under many logics, this statement can have a true reading, due to the failure of the antecedent in a material implication.

If the Deutche Bundesbank had leaped into the body of the Reichsbank, it would not have printed money, due to the deep seated fear of hyperinflation (caused by the experiences that lead to the collapse of the Weimar Republic). Oh Boy.

Of course, Keynes, not one to turn his nose up at the offer of a quick debauch, drew the line at currency abuse. [your punch-line here]*

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. (ECOTP, p. 127)

Come to think of it, ECOTP had such a strong effect on western public opinion that it may have directly helped grease the path for Hitler's rise.

You know who else helped grease the path for Hitler's rise? The Nazis - that's who.

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* fail: "I like my sexual partners like I like my monetary supply. Quantative and Easy. "

Les Cargill said...

Lord Skidelsky's comments should surprise nobody. We in the know know that we had Superman, and that is why we won. "Clark Kent" is clearly a pseudonym for John Maynard Keynes....

Okay, so is there any credence to the Douglas Irwin claim that French monetary policy is basically what caused the Depression?

Google "did france cause the great depression" and there's a Dartmouth .pdf.