Chapter 5 entitled 'The Fatal Conceit' addresses the arrogant, misinformed, ignorant and destructive 'conceit' of socialist 'thought', dressed up in the guise of what 'intellectuals' call constructivism, rationalism or positivism. All of these are code words for the destruction of the individual and the elevation of the communal. They appeal to those who know little about how civilization developed; or feel a need to embrace the fetish of a-historical, hypocritical and immoral socialist cant.

Socialist thought today is conflated with 2 false gods, both of which can lead to evil and devolution. The first is 'morality', the primitive sort of the instinctual paleo-lithic variety. The pre-civilized, Rousseau-ian 'morality' of the savage – group solidarity, communal living, polygamy, children as wards of the tribe, 'sharing', and the other innate and quite savage simplistic instincts of survival in a hostile world now mean 'morality'. The second is the cult of science. Socialist dialecticism, socialist 'activism', and socialist theology wrapped up in 'science' is to be accepted at face value as such. Thus when a cult of the earth-mother, using 'science' as a soap-box, informs us that in a 4 billion year life-span every year 2000 years after the birth of Christ is 'the hottest on record' and a trace chemical comprising less than 3/100 of 1% and necessary for life is deforming 'climate', the common idiot is suppose to meekly bow his or her head and wail in unison over the death of the green goddess. But as Hayek wryly observed:

“..but that we have reason to suppose that we shall eventually learn that many of our present scientific conjectures are untrue.”

Science by definition changes. Aristotle's law that life forms from nothing [abiogenesis] was a fact for 2000 years until Pasteur. His 'science' was bunk. One must also separate money, power and celebrity status from science. Activism, corruption and self-aggrandizing is not science. Neither is a lot of what 'science' purports to know [the origins of life, the exact chemical makeup of Mars?].

Socialism is rather immoral, especially in its primitive irrational nature [that of instincts]; and in implementation. Yet it is the socialists who claim that anyone who does not support pre-civilized instincts is somehow 'immoral' and 'greedy'.

“...it was over 250 years that Hume observed that 'the rules' of morality are not the conclusions of our reason.' Yet Hume's claim has not sufficed to deter most modern rationalists from continuing to believe – curiously enough often quoting Hume in their support – that something not derived from reason must be either nonsense or a matter for arbitrary preference...”

As Hayek maintains, what socialism is ultimately after is the complete deconstruction of the modern world and the creation in part, of a pre-modern cult, ruled by a different language, set of institutions, expectations and social conditioning. It is a return to Sumeria circa 3200 B.C. in which a cult rules the mass in part to appease 'instinct' and in part to reject reason and morality.

“....the conclusion is reached that there is an urgent need to construct a new, rationally revised and justified morality which does meet these requirements [of the intellectuals]....this is only a part of the great task that these new lawgivers – socialists such as Einstein, Monod and Russell, and self-proclaimed 'immoralists' such as Keynes – set for themselves.”

and

“The aim of socialism is no less than to effect a complete redesigning of our traditional morals, law and language, and on this basis to stamp out the old order and the supposedly inexorable, unjustifiable conditions that prevent the institution of reason, fulfilment, true freedom and justice.”

But what the socialists and cult members of communal gangs and thuggery don't understand is that their pre-modern addiction to primitive barbaric instinct is both immoral and unproductive. It is not instinct which is 'good' or which created the modern world. Neither is it the worship or dependency on the 'state', 'the ruling cult', or the theology of the communal. The opposite factors inserted between instinct and pure reason created civilization:

“There is, first, as we saw, the innate morality, so-called, or our instincts (solidarity, altruism, group decision, and such like)...Second, there is the evolved morality (savings, several property, honesty and so on) that created and sustains the extended order. As we have already seen, this morality stands between instinct and reason, a position that has been obscured by the false dichotomy of instinct versus reason.”

Socialism rejects political-economic and social evolution. It also rejects the evolution of morality itself a hybrid of both reason and instinct. Socialist thought either fully embraces the primitive [Rousseau] or the utterly rational [which in reality is irrational], such as Russell, Keynes or even Einstein. As Hayek makes clear there is no conflict between reason and instinct, because the moral and ethical order which fashioned modernity and which gave rise to heritage and culture is a mixture of both.

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Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four