The fact that a lot of my peers are quick to say that socialism would be a good thing for America in this day in age is terrifying to me. It goes beyond the liking of socialism; it is an epidemic of my generation not digging deeper and looking at how history repeats itself. We no longer want to do the research or think for more than a few minutes about things because it does not provide instant gratification or an immediate answer. Socialism, from a basic overlook, seems to be great and like it would provide a lot of help and aid for the lower class. But, if you look back in history, in multiple countries throughout the world, socialism has never worked. Hayek's essay "The Road to Serfdom" exemplifies just that.
Although our current democracy is not a true, pure democratic system, it still provides basic human freedom and rights. A system of socialism would remove all freedom and pave the way to totalitarianism, which then will lead to communism.
If you were to stand on the sidewalk at a college campus and ask students if they believe that specific socialist ideals would benefit our society, they would likely say yes. If you asked them if communism is good, they would say no. But do people realize the correlation between the two and how one leads to the other?
Hayek's makes the point that people who promote central planning say not that it is desirable, but that it is inevitable. I think that this mindset is problematic from the beginning. Saying that central planning is inevitable is already removing the idea of human freedom to resist the movement and work against the change.
The argument from central planners that only economic matters are effected by their system is not true, and this is supported by Hayek's essay.* Controlling the economy and centralizing removes basic freedom from life, such as the right to a standard of life. * The line when crossing to socialism is blurry sometimes between controlling someone's standard quality of life and offering basic physical security. When the standard of a quality life is set by the government, that is where it becomes too controlling. Taxes are taken in order to distribute wealth to keep everyone at this baseline standard of life, and freedom is removed. There is no longer competition, it's almost like a participation trophy.
