social engineering | Shift Frequency

Friedrich Hayek was the founder of the Mont Pelerin Society. (The pseudonym used by this author derives from that group.) Hayek was a remarkable intellectual, doing path-breaking work in several areas, primarily economics and political science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974. “The Pretense of Knowledge” was the title of his Nobel address. These four words capture the problems that remain with us today. Government believes and acts as if it possesses knowledge which no single entity can possibly possess. It is the pretense of all central planners.

Richard Ebeling is an Austrian economist who provided this article about Friedrich Hayek at The Daily Bell. Read it to appreciate the man and his contributions. If possible, email it to Paul Krugman and his ilk so that they may become more informed about economics. As an aside, Hayek’s final book (published posthumously from Hayek’s notes) was entitled The Fatal Conceit, a title meant to describe those who believed society could be “improved” by social engineers and central planners.

December 02, 2014

Editorial By Richard Ebeling ~ Forty years ago, on December 11, 1974, Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek formally received that year’s Nobel Prize in Economics at the official ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden. He delivered a lecture called, “The Pretense of Knowledge,” which forcefully challenged all those who believe that government has the wisdom or ability to successfully plan the economic affairs of society.

His primary targets were the Keynesian economists at that time who were confident that they could micro-manage the “macro-economy” to assure full employment, economic growth and market stability. His more general antagonists were all those social engineers who wished to redesign and regulate society through the coercive agency of government.

Hayek’s Role in Fighting Keynesianism and Socialism

Hayek was awarded the Nobel Prize that year for his contributions over many decades to the understanding of inflations and depressions, and his writings on the nature and workings of society as a “spontaneous order” of evolution and development independent of political control and manipulation.

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“We’re wonderfully, marvelously human. We have hearts, we have empathy, we have love, we have consciousness. That they could be this cold, evil and manipulating is something we’re catching on to at an exponentially accelerating rate. We’re getting it.” – Z Gardner

Have you ever wondered about all these rousing freedom fighting movies and “outnumbered little guy gets back” scenarios? Don’t they seem counter-productive to the cause of the contained, control world we’re being shoe-horned into? In a world of manipulation and social engineering, why would heavily promoted dramas about rebellion against totalitarian control, and even specifically against a mechanistic, fascist future, be so prevalent?

Think about how you feel after one such moving media event. Spent.

You might identify with Braveheart or Leonidas and the 300, and every sinew in your body is pulsing with a drive to Get Back at The Man. You feel vindicated in your convictions. “Yes, it’s always been this way and it’s so right to stand up to such obvious oppression and fight to the finish! I so relate and feel that!”

But do you see that actually happening? Why do you think the droids of Orwell’s 1984 were encouraged to participate in the “2 minutes of hate” against the staged enemy of the day? Think maybe they knew this innate craving to rebel had to be vented? Sure don’t want it directed at the ‘elite’ now, do we?

Syphoning the Spirit

This is how religion works, or erudite phony intellectualism and the like for that matter. They seem as self expression and empowerment, nicely encapsulated in an innocuous little bundle of self absorbtion with zero empowerment. Baked in their belief systems, they won’t hurt anybody; there’s too much self loathing and ‘original sin’ think going on. Continue reading →