L'INSTITUT HAYEK PUBLIE DEUX INTERVIEWS INEDITES EN ANGLAIS DE F.A. HAYEK AU QUOTIDIEN "EL MERCURIO", SANTIAGO DU CHILI, AVRIL 1981

La publication par l'Institut Hayek de la traduction anglaise de deux interviews données par F.A. Hayek au quotidien chilien El Mercurio, en 1981, est le résultat d'un travail de longue haleine. Je me propose, en guise d'introduction, d'en retracer brièvement la généalogie.

Depuis des années circulent sur Internet des extraits de ces interviews, datées des 12 et 19 avril 1981, sous des références parfois fantaisistes. Le contexte n'est pas étranger à l'intérêt qu'elles suscitent : en 1981, le général Pinochet dirigeait le Chili. Seule la seconde des interviews fut, en réalité, enregistrée au Chili ; l'autre le fut à Fribourg, en Allemagne, où Hayek passa les trente dernières années de sa vie.

C'est à la suite d'un échange sur la Hayek-L que je tâchai de retrouver sur Internet le texte intégral des entretiens. Je ne parvins à trouver que la version espagnole de l'interview du 19 avril 1981. Je décidai alors de remonter à la source, et pris contact avec la rédaction du quotidien El Mercurio, à Santiago, et avec la Bibliothèque nationale du Chili. Etant l'incertitude initiale sur les dates, tant El Mercurio que la Bibliothèque nationale du Chili éprouvèrent toutes sortes de difficultés à retrouver les originaux ; nous finîmes néanmois par recevoir un scanner des deux interviews grâce à l'obstination de madame Ximena Cruz de la Bibliothèque nationale et de monsieur Rodrigo Palma Costabal, du Centro de Documentacion "El Mercurio".

Parallèlement, nous tentâmes de prendre contact avec les interviewers (deux femmes), Mmes Renée Sallas (12/04) et Lucia Santa Cruz (19/04). Seule Madame Santa Cruz réagit à notre sollicitation et nous informa du fait que l'entretien s'était déroulé en anglais et qu'il n'en existait ni enregistrement, ni version anglaise originale. Le seul texte subsistant était la version publiée par El Mercurio, en espagnol.

Nous décidâmes, dès lors, de faire traduire ces deux interviews et nous adressâmes à cet effet à un traducteur britannique réputé, M. Michael Lomax. Nous avons pris le parti de respecter le texte original publié en espagnol, y compris lorsque la journaliste commet une erreur manifeste (cfr., dans la première interview, la mention de Montesquieu et Tocqueville comme membres de la société du Mont Pelerin, en réalité fondée par Hayek lui-même).

Dès que les traduction eurent été effectuées, nous les envoyâmes au Dr. Laurence Hayek, fils et héritier de F.A. Hayek, avec lequel nous étions en rapport depuis quelques temps pour acquérir les droits d'éditer en français différents ouvrages de son père. Le Dr. Laurence Hayek se montra immédiatement enthousiaste à l'idée de leur publication ; dans un courrier du 17 mai 2004, il nous écrivait : "Thank you so much too for the translation of the interview in Chile. My father particularly liked to tell the story of 'how he tried old age, decided he didn't like it, and started to work again' ". Le Dr. Hayek devait malheureusement décéder quelques semaines après nous avoir envoyé ce courrier.

Nous dédions la publication de la traduction anglaise de ces deux interviews de F.A. Hayek à la mémoire de son fils, le Dr. Laurence Hayek.

Nous publions aujourd'hui le premier entretien, daté du 12 avril 1981. Le second entretien sera publié dans le courant du mois de juin.

Drieu Godefridi, Institut Hayek

Friedrich von Hayek, Leader and Master of Liberalism

By Renée Sallas

"El Mercurio" (p. D8-D9), 12 April 1981, Santiago de Chile

The sole concession he has made to his 82 years, which he will be celebrating on May 8 next, is to finally give up his pipe. Today he merely sniffs from time a time a pinch of good English tobacco that he takes from an old silver snuff-box which he keeps in his waistcoat pocket.

Otherwise, Friedrich von Hayek retains his alertness, his explosive sentences, his pugnacity, his brilliance and his passion for liberty that have characterized the best years of his life.

He is an indefatigable workers and traveller. Once, when told off by someone for his intense activity at such an advanced age, von Hayek replied: "I had a spell of bad health when I reached 70. For 5 years I was practically out of circulation. Of course, no doctor correctly guessed what I was suffering from. Until one day, unexpectedly, I got up... forgot that I was now 75 and began working as actively as ever. The joke that I always make nowadays is that I challenged old age. I don't like it, so I have decided to give it back."

To define him only as an economist is to limit von Hayek's world of concerns. He is also a social philosopher, a psychologist, a doctor of political sciences and a humanist.

Nonetheless the world knows him best for his economic ideas with an old-fashioned liberal stamp. For continuing a school, the "Mont Pelerin Society", that counted Montesquieu and De Tocqueville amongst it most illustrious representatives (sic). For making himself the leader and master of the economists - he influenced entire generations from the universities of Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, including Milton Friedman and William Buckley — who today plead for an ever greater reduction of government's role in the economy and for the abolition of public welfare. It is for all this that in 1974 Friedrich von Hayek was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics.

It is on these themes that he has written no less than 54 books (among other things he foretold the Great Crash of the 1930s).

For these reasons he also opposed the "sacred" economist of his day, the Briton John Maynard Keynes who, unlike von Hayek, defended cheap money and public investment during recessionary periods in order to maintain full employment. "The Keynesian remedy for unemployment, von Hayek commented then - has failed. This remedy has led us increasingly towards inflation, at the same time as increasing unemployment."
One of his books in particular, "The Road to Serfdom", published in 1944 and translated into 12 languages, made him unpopular and weakened his prestige in many countries, in particular the United States.

Nonetheless today we are witnessing a return to "Hayekism" by governments like those of England and even the United States.
It was precisely on the subject of Ronald Reagan's inaugural speech on 20 January that I interviewed Friedrich von Hayek, in Freiburg, a peaceful mountain city in Western Germany, close to his native Austria (he has since taken British citizenship).

The interview took place on the third floor of the Freiburg's Albert Ludwig university, where von Hayek has been professor emeritus for the past 14 years.

When I placed on the little round table the clipping with Reagan's speech he smiled. Without vanity. Almost with resigned wisdom, as he began this interview.

I would say, ultimately, that when you hear Friedrich von Hayek pronounce the word liberty - liberty in general and not just economic liberty - this word once again sounds attractive. Protective. Almost natural.



Reagan said: "Let us begin an era of National Renewal!" How do you understand that this will be a renewal?
I am placing much hope in this new administration. And if I were to meet Mr Reagan, I would tell him that his "new beginning" is on the right track. It is indeed a "new beginning" after over 30 years. Since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the United States has been on the wrong path, for the past 50 years. (This looks like bad editing: I would revise it as: "It is indeed a new beginning. For the past 50 years, since Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, the United States has been on the wrong path.", Translator's Note) Of course the situation has got much worse during the past 20 years. And for the first time I feel that the United States is today on the right track. Reagan understands that the best thing is to take the free market as his basis, as the only way of restoring the country's economy. He knows this, and he has also chosen very good advisers.

Do you personally know any of his advisers?
Mr Reagan, Mr Solzhenitsyn and I are honorary members of the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California. Reagan, you know, was governor of California, and his many advisers came from the Hoover Institution. I do not know him personally, but I do know the ideology of his advisers, almost better than he does. Advisers are fundamental for a government. And these advisers are going to take Reagan in the right direction. The new president also means a total turnaround in the way North America is governed. It signifies a return to the old American tradition of liberty, of which Reagan is a good connoisseur. For the past 30 years in which the United States has appeared to be moving towards becoming a welfare state, Reagan has been saying that the country's main problem is precisely the government. This move towards the welfare state has already done huge damage to the British economy, and was also threatening to destroy the North American economy. The first move in the contrary direction — that is towards limiting the government's powers — was made by Mrs Thatcher. Followed today by Mr Reagan.

In what other countries do you also notice this change?
There are certain intellectual movements in this direction in France, and also in the younger generation in Western Germany. In these four countries - United States, France, England and Germany - there is a clear return to what we call "classical liberalism", as opposed to the liberalism that has reigned in North America during the past 20 years and which has smiled too often in the direction of socialism.

How would be your definition of "classical liberalism"?
We think that government should not be given discretionary powers. Government ought, of course, to provide certain services. But it should never have a monopoly. The one thing that government can do well is to make general and universally applicable laws. But it should not be given discretionary powers giving it the privilege of undertaking unpermitted actions. A government should not hold privileges. This is the basis of my philosophy. I am an enemy, I insist, of state welfare. This idea has, of course, made me notoriously unpopular during the past thirty years, amongst the economic currents which postulate different levels of government intervention in the economy, in order to cushion the effects of exchange rates on prices and unemployment. My theory, on the contrary, is that excessive public sector expansion, deficit spending by government, and generous money creation by the central bank are the main causes of economic problems in any country. I always take an example: when a government has to decide how many pigs have to be bred and how many buses should run, or the prices at which shoes have to be sold, this government is not able to apply pre-established principles. Take good note of the danger here: it is each successive government's point of view that will end up deciding what are the most important and priority interests it needs to attend to. And this point of view will arbitrarily turn into the general law of this country.

Ultimately, there is one sentence of Reagan's that would summarize your principles. "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
Exactly, exactly. Right now the main task confronting us is to reduce the government's power. In this sentence Reagan clearly distinguishes between what a government should do and what it should not do. As I have already said, right now, in Western Germany, the government's role is being considerably reined in. In the past century limits were placed in England. Later in the United States. But today, of all the major countries, I would cite Germany and Switzerland - although the latter is a special case - as examples of this setting of limits. The fact is that socialist ideas have been very influential in English-speaking countries during the past 25 years. Whilst German-speaking countries took an opposing direction to Hitler's totalitarianism. In addition to Germany and Switzerland I would also cite Israel as a country which is in process of paring back the government's role.

And Mrs Thatcher's England...
Good. Mrs Thatcher is moving in this right direction. But she faces an uphill battle with the trade unions. For me Mrs Thatcher is the only hope for England, but I am not certain she will win the battle against the trade unions. If she should lose the battle against trade unions - which are politically too strong - I believe there is no more chance of recovery for England. All hopes lie in Mrs Thatcher being successful. But of course, no one can predict this. If a society is to remain operating as a free society it cannot permit any monopoly that uses physical force to maintain its position, or threatens to deprive the public of essential services. All these practices of the English trade unions are highly dangerous. This intimidation, this abuse of strength which in certain cases leads them to close down companies, or to set up stick picket lines to prevent people who wish freely to work from doing so, are practices that should never be permitted in prosperous western countries.

In your book "The Road to Serfdom" you said that it is possible to have economic freedom without political freedom but that political freedom will never be possible without economic freedom. Is this not to posit the economy as the most decisive factor in countries' lives? Does this not limit or reduce everything that makes us human to economic value?
It is very simple: a country can have a proper political life only if the economic system allows its people to survive. Not counting, of course, with the ever-growing problem of population growth. Very well, people need to survive. And I am convinced that it is only in the free market, following the competitive market order, that all these people can be kept alive. It is precisely the policies of the left that attempt to impede those economic mechanisms that for me are the only ones that can give us everything we need. In the West, in particular, access by the masses to a certain degree of well-being has been the result of the general rise in a country's wealth, not of so-called "social justice". "Social justice" has rather prevented the elimination of poverty. The interference of the powers that be in the mechanisms of the market has succeeded only in provoking greater injustices in the form of new privileges in favour of particular interests. Let me remind you that democracy needs the broom of strong governments. Unfortunately, democracies are at times allowing governments too much power. This is why I am very careful to distinguish between "limited democracies" and "unlimited democracies". And obviously my choice is for limited democracies.

Could I ask you for examples of limited and of unlimited democracies?
In certain countries, what we call majorities are able to turn into discriminatory groups which favour certain people to the detriment of others. For me these are unlimited democracies. On the other hand, the limited democracy ought be able to give its own group of supporters the same possibilities as the rest.

In one volume of your latest book "Law, Legislation and Liberty", you introduce the title "The Mirage of Social Justice". You have already touched on this theme in an earlier reply, but could I ask you expand on this idea?
Almost always when a government is asked to intervene on behalf of a particular group, this is done in the name of "social justice". Please, when you write these two words, place them in quotation marks, because for me they are lacking in all meaning, they are yet another demagogic phrase. The various authoritarian and dictatorial governments of our day have never stopped proclaiming this "social justice". Sakharov has provided us with clear testimony of what is happening in today's Russia: millions and millions of people are victims of a terror which is seeking to cloak itself under the device of "social justice". All movements in the direction of socialism, in the direction of centralized planning, involve the loss of personal freedom and end up ultimately in totalitarianism. And yet the call to "social justice" has become the most widely used and most effective argument in political discussion. From the outset, these two words have been the rallying point for all the aspirations of socialism. The essential difference between the social order to which classical liberalism aspires and the type of society people want to build in most countries lies in the fact that the first is governed by the principles of correct individual behaviour, whereas the second is committed to satisfying whatever demands "social justice" places on it. Liberalism demands the right behaviour of the individual. Today, instead, many societies attribute to an authority the power to dictate to people what they want to do. The pernicious idea that all public needs have to be satisfied by co-active type organizations, and that all collective needs must be controlled by the government, is totally foreign to the basic principles of a free community. The true liberal is a proponent of the proliferation of intermediate voluntary organizations between the individual and the government. I insist that the abolition of poverty is not achieved via "social justice". Rather it is one of the biggest obstacles to the elimination of poverty. The only way to eliminate poverty is to increase a country's generalized wealth.

Returning now to the topic of the United States. Do you believe that Reagan won the last elections, or that Carter lost them?
Quite honestly I don't know. But it is true that I am unable to take Mr Carter too seriously.

Why not?
He is too naïve. He is a man of good intentions, but in fact he understands nothing about anything. I too am ready to recognize that in a certain sense he is an idealist. But a naïve idealist. And one of these naïve ideals consists of believing that good will is enough, of ignoring the fact that a government also needs to understand what a country's prosperity depends on.

Why then do you believe that the American people voted for Carter four years ago?
I myself was confused as to the reason. In fact I am unable to explain it. At best, yes, by Watergate. But more than anything because of the Republican government's being associated with certain international matters: disenchantment with the Vietnam war, for example. (Spanish not totally clear here, Translator's Note) For me the United States' big mistake was this: if you go into a war, you have to go in to win it. But firstly in Korea, and then in Vietnam, the North Americans attempted to conduct a purely defensive war. And you can never win a purely defensive war. To win a war, you need to attack. But the Americans were never really convinced of the need to carry off an offensive war. Which is why they never truly tried to defeat the enemy. It is simple: you cannot triumph simply by self-defence.

How did you view Carter's position towards Iran?
Very weak. Very weak. Given his position, it would have been better to abstain from using military power. But he ought at least once to have sent an ultimatum to Iran, indicating that Teheran would be bombarded if the hostages were not freed. This was a major mistake.

Who really succeeded in freeing the hostages, Carter or Reagan?
I think that too much importance was given to the matter. They ought to have been considered as prisoners of war from the start. If 52 soldiers are captured, one should not make major concessions. It may be necessary that 52 soldiers die. It is much more important to uphold certain principles of international law. And if Iran broke fundamental principles of international law, it ought immediately to be outlawed. So that, in summary I believe that it would have been better to take a much stronger position. Of course, I am sure that a stronger position was not taken out of fear of conflict with Russia. What frequently placed a brake on Carter's government was the fear of confrontation with Russia. As a result of which the Iranians understood perfectly from the outset that they were facing a weak president. Which is why they were ready to solve the problem before a strong man came into power. Obviously, I believe that the entire success of this freeing should be attributed to Mr Reagan. He was the first to say that these 52 hostages were prisoners of war. And no country would have made concessions like this in order to free prisoners of war. The Iranians made use of a very criminal type of blackmail. And no international law accepts blackmail. I have the same viewpoint towards terrorists. No government ought to give way to the demands of a terrorist group that kidnaps an important person. Obviously, from the human viewpoint, this is very sad and may appear impious. But no government ought to depart from general principles in order to make concessions to terrorists. And the Iranians, for me, are terrorists. Simply terrorists.

Let us continue, now, our analysis of Ronald Reagan's inaugural speech of 20 January. He said: "We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people." Do you agree with these nefarious outcomes of inflation?
Totally. I am in absolute agreement. This will obviously be the first problem Reagan is going to have to solve. And I believe that his chances of doing so are better than those of Margaret Thatcher in England.



Why?
Because in North America the trade unions are much weaker than in England. And I would add that in North America the trade unions are not socialist in orientation. The English trade unions, on the other hand, are socialist and support a socialist party. This is why they are so strong. This is what makes the problem so complex. The worse thing about inflation is that it funnels productive forces towards those sectors which, in the long term, are unable to maintain them. In the short term, inflation reduces the unemployment rate. But in the long term it increases it horribly. Just think about it. From the political standpoint, inflation is very attractive, as in the short term it reduces unemployment. But, I insist, it is inevitable that in the long term this unemployment will rise.

If you had to mention just one fundamental cause - and one only - of inflation, what would it be?
Excess public spending by the state. Unable to raise enough money by taxes, a government pays part of its costs by creating money. And Reagan is right in saying that the huge burden of taxes is perhaps the hardest problem to resolve. It is very difficult, indeed, and very complicated to pare back the plethora of Government entities and services. Very difficult as a political problem, I mean.

May I ask you to comment on the sentence: "All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government"?
Here we return to the true roots of federalism. It is totally right from the historical viewpoint, and the formula is opposed to excessive government centralization. This is also my old fight. The general law requires the maximum amount of government possible to be devolved to the individual states. Central government should be empowered solely to legislate in the true sense of the word. Not in any way to instruct people in what they should do, but to establish the rules of correct behaviour. And also to defend external relations. But almost all other administrative tasks ought to be carried out by local governments, by city governments. Until a few years ago the United States was a genuine example of federalism. But Reagan is right when he says that there has been too much centralization.

Moving away a bit from the speech, do you believe that Reagan's past as an actor is positive or not for his task as the nation's president?
For me it is very important and very positive. You may not know it, but the present Pope John Paul II also wanted to be an actor. And he too, like Reagan, has this extraordinary capacity for publicity. And I believe this capacity to be fundamental for a leader.

Cannot this capacity for publicity at times become synonymous with demagogy?
For a government to function well, you need at the helm someone with something of an actor's talent. This is clear. Today, certain people use this talent for worthy ends, others for unworthy ends. In the first case, it is a blessing, in the second a tragedy.

Another sentence of Reagan's struck my attention: "If we look to the answer as to why, for so many years, we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was because here, in this land, we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before."
In other words, they had a system of liberty, and not an oppressive government.

Why is it so difficult to achieve this sort of government in Latin America?
The difference lies in its having another tradition. The United States takes its tradition from England. In the 18th and 19th centuries especially, this was a tradition of liberty. On the other hand the tradition in South America, for example, is rooted basically in the French Revolution. This tradition lies not in the classical line of liberty, but in maximum government power. I believe that South America has been overly influenced by the totalitarian type of ideologies. And I regret to say that this includes a famous Englishman, the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham, who effectively believed in the deliberate organization of everything. This is obviously very far from the liberal English tradition of the Whigs. So the answer is that the United States remained faithful to the old English tradition even when England partly forsook it. In South America, on the other hand, people sought to imitate the French democratic tradition, that of the French Revolution, which meant giving maximum powers to government.

What opinion, in your view, should we have of dictatorships?
Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement.

Apart from Chile, can you mention other cases of transitional dictatorial governments?
Well, in England, Cromwell played a transitional role between absolute royal power and the limited powers of the constitutional monarchies. In Portugal, the dictator Oliveira Salazar also started on the right path here, but he failed. He tried, but did not succeed. Then after the war, Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhardt held initially almost dictatorial powers, using them to establish a liberal government in the shortest possible space of time. The situation called for the presence of two very strong men to achieve this task. And the two of them very successfully accomplished this stage towards the establishment of a democratic government. If you permit I would like to make a brief comment in this sense on Argentina.

Why not?
I felt very disenchanted right from my first visit there, shortly after Peron's fall. At that time I talked with many officers from the Military School. They were highly intelligent persons. Politically brilliant, I would say among the most brilliant politicians in their country. For me it was a pity they did not make better use of this intelligence. I would have hoped they could have laid the foundations for a stable democratic government. And yet they did not. I do not know why they failed, in fact, but my impression is that they had the political ability and the intelligence to do so.

Which means that you would propose stronger, dictatorial governments, during transitional periods...
When a government is in a situation of rupture, and there are no recognized rules, rules have to be created in order to say what can be done and what cannot. In such circumstances it is practically inevitable for someone to have almost absolute powers. Absolute powers that need to be used precisely in order to avoid and limit any absolute power in the future. It may seem a contradiction that it is I of all people who am saying this, I who plead for limiting government's powers in people's lives and maintain that many of our problems are due, precisely, to too much government. However, when I refer to this dictatorial power, I am talking of a transitional period, solely. As a means of establishing a stable democracy and liberty, clean of impurities. This is the only way I can justify it - and recommend it.

Mr Hayek, do you have hope? I mean, are you optimistic as to the future?
Yes, yes. I would almost say that if politicians do not destroy the world in the next 20 years, there are very good chances of achieving the just and proper society that mankind deserves. Of course... I am not very optimistic that the politicians are not going to destroy the world..., but this is another topic. And I believe that people today are aware that the ideals that dominated this 20th century were all based on superstitions. For example, a planned economy, with fair distribution. Or the ability to free oneself from repression and moral conventions. Or seeing a permissive education as a path towards liberty. Or replacing the market economy by a rational arrangement of a government with coercive powers. These ideals marked the age of superstitions. And what is the age of superstitions? It is a time in which people imagine that they know more than they in fact do.

Are you a believer? In the religious sense, I mean.
I was born a Catholic. I was baptized. I was married in the church, and they will probably bury me as a Catholic. But I have never been able to be an effective Catholic, a faithful Catholic. Despite this I was in Rome three weeks ago together with another twelve Nobel Prize winners to advise the Pope on political matters. I discovered the Pope to be a man of extraordinary intelligence, and an excellent conversationalist. Really, he impressed me a lot.

Do you believe in God?
I have never understood the meaning of the word God. I believe that it is important in the maintaining of laws. But, I insist, as I do not know the meaning of the word God, I am unable to say either that I do or don't believe in his existence.

Doesn't this doubt, this problem, occupy a good part of your time?
It takes up my entire life. For my entire life I have been asking the same question, without finding an answer. Nor has anyone been able to give me the answer.

This scepticism, is it a driving force to continue searching? I mean, are people who ask questions like you do closer than others to reaching the truth?
(Smiling). It's a good question. And I am going to answer it like this: I believe that we all have a duty to search for the truth. But at the same time we all need to admit that none of us is in full possession of all the truth. Of "all" the truth, I said. And if you wish me to define God as the truth, then I am ready to use the word God. And I'll go further. Providing that you do not claim to have the entire truth, I am ready to work with you in searching for God via truth. It's a fascinating challenge.

***


© "El Mercurio" — Santiago de Chile 1981, for the original Spanish text

© Institut Hayek 2004-2005, for the English translation

Download this interview as a PDF file

Read also Friedrich von Hayek: From Servitude to Liberty, By Lucia Santa Cruz, "El Mercurio" (p. D1-D2), 19 April 1981, Santiago de Chile