Preface
“I use throughout [this book] the term ‘liberal’ in the original, nineteenth-century sense in which it is still current in Britain. In current American usage it often means very nearly the opposite of this. It has been part of the camouflage of leftish movements in this country, helped by the muddleheadedness of many who really believe in liberty, that ‘liberal’ has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control.” (xxxv)
“[T]rue liberalism is [] distinct from conservatism…. A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on the power of government for the protection of privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some [that] are not available on equal terms to others.” (xxxvi)
“[T]he most important chance [that] extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of people. This is necessarily a slow affair, a process [that] extends not over a few years but perhaps over one or two generations.” (xxxix)
“[T]he unforeseen but inevitable consequence[] of socialist planning [is] a state of affairs in which, if the policy is to be pursued, totalitarian forces will get the upper hand.” (xlii)
Chapter 1: The Abandoned Road
“Few [intellectuals] are ready to recognize that the rise of fascism and nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. This is a truth [that] most [intellectuals] were unwilling to see even when the similarities of many of the repellant features of the internal regimes in communist Russia and National Socialist Germany were widely recognized. As a result, many who think themselves infinitely superior to the aberrations of naziism, and sincerely hate all its manifestations, work at the same time for ideals whose realization would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny.” (6)
“We have progressively abandoned [economic] freedom [] without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past. Although we [have] been warned by some of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by De Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism.” (16)
“Individualism has a bad name today [because] the term has come to be connected with egotism and selfishness…. But the essential features of [] individualism [that], from elements provided by Christianity and the philosophy of classic antiquity, was first fully developed through the Renaissance and had since grown and spread into what we know as Western civilization – are the respect for individual man qua man, that is, the recognition of his own views and tastes as supreme in his own sphere, however narrowly that may be circumscribed, and the belief that it is desirable that men should develop their own individual gifts and bents.” (17)
“The attitude of the [true] liberal toward society is like that of a gardener who tends a plant and, in order to create the conditions most favorable to its growth, must know as much as possible about its structure and the way it functions.” (22)
Chapter 2: The Great Utopia
“Where freedom was concerned, the founders of socialism made no bones about their intentions. Freedom of thought they regarded as the root-evil of nineteenth-century society, and the first of its planners, Saint-Simon, even predicted [accurately] that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be ‘treated like cattle.’” (28)
“Nobody saw more clearly than De Tocqueville that democracy as an essentially individualist institution stood in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: ‘Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom … socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each [person], socialism makes each [person] a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.’” (29)
“There can be no doubt that the promise of greater freedom has become one of the most effective weapons of socialist propaganda and that the belief that socialism would bring freedom is genuine and sincere. But this would only heighten the tragedy if it should prove that what was promised to us as the Road to Freedom was in fact the High Road to Servitude. Unquestionably, the promise of more freedom was responsible for luring more and more liberals along the socialist road, for blinding them to the [contradictions] between the basic principles of socialism and liberalism, and for often enabling socialists to usurp the very name of the old party of freedom. Socialism was embraced by the greater part of the intelligentsia as the apparent heir to the liberal tradition: therefore it is not surprising that to them the idea of socialism’s leading to the opposite of liberty should appear inconceivable.” (31)
“Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Stalinist Russia as is pre-Hitler Germany.” (33)
“While many who have watched the transition from socialism to fascism at close quarters the connection between the two systems has become increasingly obvious, in the democracies the majority of people still believe that socialism and freedom can be combined…. [But] democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, [] to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who now wish it would be [are] prepared to accept the consequences ….” (35-36)
Chapter 3: Individualism and Collectivism
“[S]ocialism means the abolition of private enterprise, of private ownership of the means of production, and the creation of a system of ‘planned economy’ in which the entrepreneur working for profit is replaced by a central planning body…. What [the] planners demand is a central direction of all economic activity according to a single plan, laying down how how the resources of society should be ‘consciously directed’ to serve particular ends in a definite way.” (37, 40)
“The liberal argument in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of co-ordinating human efforts [and it] is based on the conviction that, where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other…. [W]here it is impossible to create conditions necessary [for] competition [to be] effective, we must resort to other methods of guiding economic activity. Economic liberalism is opposed, however, to competition’s being supplanted by inferior methods of coordinating individual efforts[, a]nd it regards competition as superior not only because it is in most circumstances the most efficient method known but even more because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority.” (41)
Chapter 4: The “Inevitability” of Planning
“It is revealing that [Marxists] are content to say that central planning is desirable. Most of them affirm that we can no longer choose but are compelled by circumstances beyond our control to substitute planning for competition. The myth is deliberately cultivated that we are embarking on the new course not out of free will but because competition is spontaneously eliminated by technological changes [that] we can neither reverse nor wish to prevent. This argument is rarely developed at any length[, rather,] it is one of the assertions taken over by one writer from another until, by mere iteration, it has come to be accepted as an established fact…. [L]ike so many Marxist ideas, it is now found in many circles [that] have received it at third or fourth hand and do not know [from] whence it derives.” (49-50)
“From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.” (62)
Chapter 5: Planning and Democracy
“The common features of all collectivist systems may be described … as the deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal. That our present society lacks such a ‘conscious’ direction toward a single aim, that its activities are guided by the whims and fancies of irresponsible individuals, has always been one of the main complaints of its socialist critics.
In many ways this puts the basic issue very clearly[, a]nd it directs us at once to the point where the conflict arises between individual freedom and collectivism. The various kinds of collectivism, communism, fascism, etc., differ among themselves in the nature of the goal toward which they want to direct the efforts of society. But they all differ from liberalism and individualism in wanting to organize the whole of society and all its resources for this unitary end and in refusing to recognize autonomous spheres in which the ends of [the] individuals [themselves] are supreme. In short, they are totalitarian in the true sense of this new word [that] we have adopted to describe the unexpected but nevertheless inseparable manifestations of what in theory we call collectivism.
The ’social goal,’ or ‘common purpose,’ for which society is to be organized is usually vaguely described as the ‘common good,’ the ‘general welfare,’ or the ‘general interest.’ It does not need much reflection to see that these terms have no sufficiently definite meaning to determine a particular course of action…. The welfare of a people, like the happiness of man, depends on a great many things that can be provided in an infinite variety of combinations. It cannot be adequately expressed as a single end, but only as a hierarchy of ends, a comprehensive scale of values in which every need of every person is given its place. To direct all our activities according to a single plan presupposes that every one of our needs is given its rank in an order of values [that] must be complete enough to make it possible to decide among all the different courses [from] which the planner has to choose. It presupposes, in short, the existence of a complete ethical code in which all the different human values are allocated their due place.” (64)
“[M]orals have [ever]more tended to become merely limits circumscribing the sphere within wich the individual [may] behave as he like[s]. [But t]he [existence] of a [complete] ethical code comprehensive enough to determine a unitary economic plan [entails] a complete reversal of this tendency.
The essential point [therefore] is that no such complete ethical code exists. The attempt to direct all economic activity according to a single plan would raise innumerable questions to which the answer could be provided only by a moral rule, but to which existing morals have no answer and where there exists no agreed view on what ought to be done. People will have either no definite views or conflicting views on such questions, because in the free society in which we have lived there has been no occasion to think about them and still less to form common opinions about them.
This is the fundamental fact on which the whole philosophy of individualism is based. It does not assume, as is often asserted, that man is egoistic or selfish or ought to be. It merely starts from the indisputable fact that the limits of our powers of imagination make it impossible to include in our scale of values more than a sector of the needs of the whole society, and that, since, strictly speaking, scales of value can exist only in individual minds, nothing put partial scales of values exist – scales [that] are inevitably different and often inconsistent with each other. From this the individualist concludes that the individuals should be allowed, within defined limits, to follow their own values and preferences rather than somebody else’s’ that within these spheres the individual’s system of ends should be supreme and not subject to any dictation by others. It is this recognition of the individual as the ultimate judge of his ends, the belief that as far as possible his own views ought to govern his actions, that forms the essence of the individualist position.
The view does not, of course, exclude the recognition of [legitimate] social ends, or rather of a coincidence of individual ends [that] makes it advisable for men to combine for their pursuit. But it limits such common action to the instances where individual views coincide; what are called ’social ends’ are for it merely identical ends of many individuals – or ends to the achievement of which individuals are willing to contribute in return for assistance they receive in the satisfaction of their own desires. Common action is thus limited to the [areas] where people agree on common ends” (65-67)
“The limits of [an individual's] sphere [of liberty] are determined by the extent to which the individuals agree on particular ends; [but] the probability that they will agree on a particular course of action necessarily decreases as the scope of such action extends. There are certain functions of the state on the exercise of which there will be practical unanimity among its citizens; there will be others on which there will be agreement of a substantial majority; and so on, until we come to [areas] where, although each individual might wish the state to act in some way, there will be almost as many views about what the government should do as there are different people…. We can [therefore] rely on voluntary agreement to guide the action of the state only so long as it is confined to spheres [of liberty] where [such] agreement exists.” (67-68)
“It is the price of democracy that the possibilities of conscious control are restricted to the [areas] where true agreement exists and that in [other areas] things must be left to chance…. Democratic government has worked successfully where, and so long as, the functions of government were, by widely accepted creed, restricted to [areas] where agreement among a majority could be achieved by free discussion; and it is the great merit of the liberal creed that it reduced the range of subjects on which agreement was necessary to one on which it was likely to exist in a society of free men. It is now often said that democracy will not tolerate ‘capitalism.’ If ‘capitalism’ means here a competitive system based on free disposal over private property, it is fare more important to realize that only within this system is democracy possible. When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.” (77-78)
“Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. [But] it is by no means infallible or certain [for] it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.” (78)
Chapter 6: Planning and the Rule of Law
“[T]he Rule of Law[, s]tripped of all technicalities, [entails] that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand – rules [that] make it possible to foresee with [reasonable] certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of [such] knowledge.” (80)
“While every law restricts individual freedom to some extent by altering the means [that] people may use in the pursuit of their aims, under the Rule of Law the government is prevented from stultifying individual efforts by ad hoc action. Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.” (81)
“The distinction … between formal law or justice and substantive rules … is simple enough. The difference between the two kinds of rules is the same as that between laying down a Rule of the Road, as in the Highway Code, and ordering people where to go; or, better still, between providing signposts and commanding people which road to take.” (82)
“Formal rules are thus merely instrumental in the sense that they are expected to be useful to yet unknown people, for purposes for which these people will decide to use them, and in circumstances [that] cannot be foreseen in detail. In fact, what we do not know their concrete effect, that we do not know what particular ends these rules will further, or which particular people they will assist, that they are merely given the form most likely on the whole to benefit all the people affected by them, is the most important criterion of formal rules in the sense in which we here use this term. They do not involve a choice between particular ends or particular people, because we just cannot know beforehand by whom and in what way they will be used.” (83)
“In out age, with its passion for conscious control of everything, it may appear paradoxical to claim as a virtue that under one system we shall know less about the particular effect of the measures the state takes than would be true under most other systems and that a method of social control should be deemed superior because of our ignorance of its precise results. Yet this consideration is in fact the rationale of the great liberal principle of the Rule of Law[, a]nd the apparent paradox dissolves rapidly when we follow the argument a little further.” (83)
“Where the precise effects of government policy on particular people are known, where the government aims directly at such particular effects, it cannot help knowing these effects, and therefore it cannot be impartial. It must, of necessity, take sides, impose its valuations upon people and, instead of assisting them in the advancement of their own ends, choose their ends for them. As soon as the particular effects are foreseen at the time a law is made, it ceases to be a mere instrument used by the lawgiver upon the people and for his ends. The state ceases to be a piece of utilitarian machinery intended to help individuals in the fullest development of their individual personality and becomes a ‘moral’ institution – where ‘moral’ is not used in contrast to immoral but describes an institution [that] imposes on its members its views on all moral questions, whether these views be moral or highly immoral.” (85)
“[A]s planning becomes more and more extensive, it becomes regularly necessary to qualify legal provisions increasingly by reference to what is ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’; this means that it becomes necessary to leave the decision of the concrete case more and more to the discretion of the judge or authority in question. One could [indeed] write a history of the decline of the Rule of Law … in terms of the progressive introduction of these vague formulas into legislation and jurisdiction, and of the increasing arbitrariness and uncertainty of, and the consequent disrespect for, the law and the judicature, which in these circumstances could not but become an instrument of policy. It is important to point out once more in this connection that this process of the decline of the Rule of Law has been going on steadily in Germany for some time before Hitler came into power and that a policy well advanced toward totalitarian planning had already done a great deal of the work [that] Hitler completed.” (87)
“It is the rule of Law, in the sense of the rule of formal law, [namely,] the absence of legal privileges of particular people designated by authority, [that] safeguards that equality before the law which is the opposite of arbitrary government…. A necessary … result of this is that formal equality before the law is in conflict … with any activity of the government deliberately aiming at material or substantive equality of different people, and that any policy aiming directly at a substantive ideal of distributive justice must lead to the destruction of the Rule of Law[for the simple reason that t]o produce the same result for different people, it is necessary to treat them differently. To give different people the same objective opportunities is not the give them the same subjective chance.” (87-88)
“[It is of course true] that the Rule of Law produces economic equality – all that can be claimed for it is that [such] inequality is not designed to affect particular people in a particular way. It [ought therefore come to no surprise] that socialists (and Nazis) have always protested against ‘merely’ formal justice, that they have always objected to a law [that] had no views on how well off particular people ought to be, and that they have always demanded a ’socialization of the law,’ attached the independence of judges … [all of] which undermined the Rule of Law.” (88)
“The conflict between formal justice and formal equality before the law, on the one hand, and the [fundamentally misguided] attempts to realize various ideals of substantive justice and equality, on the other, also accounts for the widespread confusion about the concept of ‘privilege’ and its consequent abuse. To mention only the most important instance of this abuse – the application of the term to ‘property’ to property as such. It would indeed be privilege if, for example, as has sometimes been the case in the past, landed property were reserved to members of the nobility. And it is privilege if, as is true in our time, the right to produce or sell particular things is reserved to a particular people designated by authority. But to call private property as such, which all can acquire under the same rules, a privilege, because only some succeed in acquiring it, is depriving the world ‘privilege’ of its meaning.” (89)
“The Rule of law was consciously evolved only during the liberal age and is one of its greatest achievements, not only as a safeguard but as the legal embodiment of freedom. As Immanuel Kant put it (and Voltaire expressed it before [Kant] in very much the same terms), ‘Man is free if he needs to obey no person but solely the laws.’ As a vague ideal it has, however, existed since Roman times, and during the last few centuries it has never been so seriously threatened as it is today.” (90)
“The Rule of law [] implies limits to the scope of legislation: it restricts it to the kind of general rules known as formal law and excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination. It means, not that everything is regulated by law, but, on the contrary, that the coercive power of the state can be [legitimately] used only in cases defined in advance by the law and in such a way that it can be foreseen how it will be used.” (92)
Chapter 7: Economic Control and Totalitarianism
Chapter 8: Who, Whom?
“[T]o the ancients blindness was an attribute of their deity of justice.” (112)
“The fact that the opportunities open to the poor in a competitive society are much more restricted than those open to the rich does not make it less true that in such a society the poor are much more free than a person commanding much greater material comfort in a different type of society.” (113)
“[T]he system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.” (115)
“There will always exist inequalities [that] will appear unjust to those who suffer from them, disappointments [that] will appear unmerited, and strokes of misfortune [that] those hit have not deserved.” (117)
“As soon as the sate takes upon itself the task of planning the whole economic life, the problem of the due station of the different individuals and groups must indeed inevitably become the central political problem. As the coercive power of the state will alone decide who is to have what, the only power worth having will be a share in the exercise of this directing power. There will be no economic or social questions that w[ill] not be be political questions in the sense that their solution will depend exclusively on who wields the coercive power, on whose are the views that will prevail on all occasions.” (119)
“Socialists, the cultivated parents of the barbarous offspring they have produced [in Germany], traditionally hope to solve th[e problem of the individual's spiritual freedom to for one's essential values] by [the mechanism of] education. But what does education mean in this respect? Surely we have learned [by now] that knowledge cannot create new ethical values, that no amount of learning will lead people to hold the same views on the moral issues [that] a conscious ordering of all social relations raises. It is not rational conviction but the acceptance of a creed [that] is required to justify a particular plan. And, indeed, socialists everywhere were the first to recognize that the task they had set themselves required the general acceptance of a common[], definite set of values. It was in these efforts to produce a mass movement supported by such a single world view that the socialists first created most of the instruments of indoctrination of which Nazis and Fascists have made such effective use.” (125)
Chapter 9: Society and Freedom
“Independence of the mind or strength of character is rarely found among those who cannot be confident that they will make their way by their own effort.” (132)
“The planning for security [that] has such an insidious effect on liberty is that for security of a different kind. It is planning designed to protect individuals or groups against diminutions of their income, which although in no way deserved yet in competitive society occur daily, against losses imposing severe hardships having no moral justification yet inseparable from the competitive system. This demand for security is thus another form of the demand for a just remuneration – a remuneration commensurate with the subjective merits and not with the objective results of a man’s efforts. This kind of security or justice seems irreconcilable with freedom to choose one’s employment.” (135)
“The problem of inadequate incentives [that] arises here is commonly discussed as if it were a problem mainly of the willingness of people to do their best. But this, although important, is not the whole, nor even the most important, aspect of the problem. It is not merely that if we want people to give their best we must make it worth while for them. What is more important is that if we want to leave them the choice, if they are to be able to judge what they ought to do, they must be given some readily intelligible yardstick by which to measure the social importance of the different occupations. Even with the best will in the world it would be impossible for anyone intelligently to chose between various alternatives if the advantages they offered him stood in no relation to their usefulness to society. To know whether as the result of change a man ought to leave a trade and an environment [that] he has come to like, and exchange it for another, it is necessary that the changed relative value of these occupations to society should find expression in the remunerations they offer.” (138)
“Within the market system, security can be granted to particular groups only by the kind of planning known as restrictionism …. ‘Control,’ i.e., limitation of output so that prices will secure an ‘adequate’ return, is the only way in which in a market economy producers can be guaranteed a certain income. But this necessarily involves a reduction of opportunities open to others. If the producer, be he entrepreneur or worker, is to be protected against underbidding by outsiders, it means that other who are worse off are precluded from sharing in the relatively greater prosperity of the controlled industries. Every restriction on the freedom of [contract] reduces the security of all those outside it. And, as the number of those whose income is secured in this manner increases, the field of alternative opportunities [that] are open to anyone who suffers a loss of income is restricted; and for those unfavorably affected by any change the chance o f avoiding a fatal diminution of their income is correspondingly diminished. And if, as has become increasingly true, in each trade in which conditions improve, the members are allowed to exclude others in order to secure to themselves the f[ruits] in the form of higher wages or profits, those in the trades where demand has fallen have nowhere to go, and every change becomes the cause of large unemployment.” (142)
“[F]reedom can be had only at a price and … us as individuals … must be prepared to make severe material sacrifices to preserve our liberty.” (147)
Chapter 10: Why the Worst Get on Top
“Just as the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would soon have to choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure. It is for this reason that the unscrupulous and uninhibited are likely to be more successful in a society tending toward totalitarianism. [He w]ho does not see this has not yet grasped the full width of the gulf [that] separates totalitarianism from a liberal regime, the utter difference between the whole moral atmosphere under collectivism and the essentially individualist Western civilization.” (149)
“[I]n general, the higher the education and intelligence of individuals become, the more their views and tastes are differentiated and the less likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values. It is a corollary of this that if we wish to find a high degree of uniformity and similarity of outlook, we have to descend to the regions of lower moral in intellectual standards where the more primitive and ‘common’ instincts and tastes prevail. This does not mean that the majority of people have low moral standards; it merely means that the largest group of people whose values are very similar are the people with low standards. It is, as it where, the lowest common denominator [that] unites the largest number 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 the weight of their numbers behind their particular ideals.” (152)
“[A] political dictator … will be able to obtain the support of all 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 … totalitarian[ism." (152-53)
"To act on behalf of a group seems to free people of many of the moral constraints [that] control their behavior as individuals within the group.” (157)
“Like formal law, the rules of individualist ethics, however imprecise they may be in many respects, are general and absolute; they prescribe or prohibit a general type of action irrespective of whether in the particular instance the ultimate purpose is good or bad. To cheat or steal, to torture or betray a confidence, is held to be bad, irrespective of whether or not in the particular instance any harm follows from it. Neither the fact that in a given instance nobody may be the worse for it, nor any high purpose for which such an act may have been committed, can alter the fact that it is bad. Though we may sometimes be forced to chose between different evils, they remain evils.” (161)
“The principle that the end justifies the means in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there is literally nothing [that] the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves ‘the good of the whole,’ because the ‘good of the whole’ is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done…. There can be no limit to what [the collectivist] must be prepared to do, no act [that] his conscience must prevent him from committing, if it is necessary for an end [that] the community has set itself or [that] his superiors order him to achieve.” (162)
“Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes [that] horrify us follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one in which the ’selfish’ interests of the individual are allowed to obstruct the full realization of the ends the community pursues.” (163)
“Where there is one common all-overriding end, there is no room for any general morals or values.” (164)
“To be a useful assistant in the running of a totalitarian state, it is not enough that a man should be prepared to accept specious justification of vile deeds; he must himself be prepared actively to break every moral rule he has ever known if [it is] necessary to achieve the end set for him.” (165-66)
Chapter 11: The End of Truth
“The most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody be forced to work for the same ends. It is essential that the people should become to regard them as their own end. [T]he beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them [in a way that allows them to] act spontaneously in the way the planner wants.” (168)
“This is, of course, brought about by propaganda…. The skillful propagandist then has the power to mold their minds in any direction he chooses, and even the most intelligent and independent people cannot entirely escape that influence if they are long isolated form all other sources of information.” (168-69)
“While in the totalitarian states this status of propaganda gives it a unique power over the minds of the people, the peculiar moral effects arise [out of] the object and scope of totalitarian propaganda[,] … the moral code of a totalitarian society[, which reorganizes] the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order [in which the] most … humanitarian elements of our morals, the respect for human life, for the weak, and for the individual generally, will disappear.” (169)
“The moral consequences of totalitarian propaganda … are destructive of all morals because they undermine one of the foundations of all morals: the sense of and the respect for truth.” (170)
“The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those [that] they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but [that] were not properly understood or recognized before. The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretense that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning.” (172)
“The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word ‘liberty[,]‘ [for] wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people.” (173)
