The second paragraph discussion about rule of law is excellent. It is also why the common use of the phrase "Law and Order" especially by conservatives is somewhat contradictory.HondurasKeiser wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 11:01 am I am not posting this as an explicit endorsement of Falco's thesis (though again, I think he's on to something). Nevertheless, this came across my transom this morning and it obviously dovetails with his argument:In the Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek describes the illiberal nature of totalitarian regimes using the Soviet Union and the Third Reich as iconic examples. When the book was written in the mid-1940s these regimes were (and continue to this day to be) considered antithetical to one another on account of where they fell on the political spectrum. Hayek, however, explains that the regimes were much more alike than they were different. What they had in common, and what characterized them more profoundly, was that they were collectivist regimes. The common and most defining feature of collectivist systems according to Hayek is the “deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal.” What distinguishes different collectivist regimes is the “nature of the goal to which they want to direct the efforts of society.” That collectivist systems seek to organize the “labors of society” towards a singular goal leads them to an “all-overriding desire to give the group the maximum of power to achieve these ends.” This implies a moral or ethical system that places the one goal above all other competing, and thereby subordinate, goals. As a result, the “ends justify the means” “becomes necessarily the supreme rule” to reach the societal goal.
As a result, Communism and National Socialism were not antithetical to each other. They were, rather, the same system albeit with different “definite goals.” The true antithesis to both these systems, and to collectivist systems more broadly for Hayek, is liberalism. To Hayek, liberalism is defined by an inclination towards the individual – and indeed all individuals – relative to the collective, and the many freedoms and negative rights this implies. These rights and freedoms (rights and freedoms that we expect and are accustomed to in the Anglosphere) include: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of movement, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment. The latter is particularly important since it harkens to another critical characteristic of liberalism: the rule of law. Hayek explains that, while often misunderstood and misconstrued, the rule of law is simply the principle that the law applies to all individuals equally, that all individuals are equal before the law, and, as importantly, that laws also apply to the state. It is typically easier to understand the liberal rule of law not through its definition, but through its ideal manifestation. Under the rule of law, individuals know how the state will act in any circumstance, and that the state will act in the same way towards all individuals. If an individual breaks a law, they know what the consequences will be. As important, the individual knows what the state will not do, e.g. arbitrarily violate their fundamental freedoms.
Both Nazi Germany and the USSR had a tremendous amount of order. They both had giant security apparatuses dedicated to enforcing order in the form of the Gestapo and KGB (and modern regimes like Iran have the same). However they had little or no rule of law as Hayek defines the term. Instead they had concentration camps, gulags, and vast secret police agencies. Law and Order are actually opposite objectives in many ways. In Western Democracies we emphasize law (the Constitution and civil rights) and then live with some disorder as a result. Freedom can be messy. In totalitarian and authoritarian regimes like Nazi Germany, the USSR or modern Iran they emphasize order and dispense with the rule of law to achieve it.
So yes there is definitely that commonality. But I don't see that so much as originating from common economic ideology that you can trace to early 19th century political philosophy of Marx and Hegel. But rather as originating from a common authoritarian impulse shared by all authoritarian regimes of every ideology going back millennia. The Romans had secret police too, as did the Spanish Inquisition.
