In a centrally planned system, those willing to use coercion without scruple are the most likely to rise to power.
Hayek argued it in the tenth chapter of The Road to Serfdom (1944). A plan requires agreement on ends that a free society lacks, so power passes to those prepared to impose one; the easiest following to assemble is the least discriminating, united by a negative programme against a common enemy; and ruthless people are best suited to the jobs a planning state creates.
In practice
- A crisis committee given emergency powers is soon run by its most forceful member rather than its most capable one.
- A club that votes to enforce a strict dress code finds the enforcer's job taken by the member who enjoys it most.
- Possible explanations
- One explanation is selection: roles that require coercion attract people comfortable with it. Another is coalition-building: a broad following is easiest to unite against an enemy.
- In its favour
- Consistent with the leadership of the totalitarian planned economies of the twentieth century, and with research suggesting that some dark personality traits help people gain power.
- Against it
- Critics note that planned economies with democratic institutions, such as post-war Britain, did not produce the outcome, and that ruthless people also rise in markets and democracies. Selection into power may depend more on institutions than on planning.
- Standing
- Disputed as a claim about planning in general rather than about dictatorship. Compare the road to serfdom thesis and Michels's iron law of oligarchy.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Competing accounts of how power works