Girard contra Hayek

Hayek was wrong because Girard was right
Anybody who reads Girard with an open mind will be free henceforth of two egregious misconceptions with which thinkers like Friedrich Hayek have infected the social sciences.
The first is that there is anything to be admired in the phenomenon of spontaneous social order. It is certainly impressive, in some non-moral sense, that human societies display self-organizing behaviour: they form complex patterns of order without any conscious central planning. But the most historically common form of spontaneous order is that of a human community tacitly agreeing to vent all of its violent frustration upon a defenceless subgroup. Girard’s work consisted of exposing the secret violent origins of almost all human institutions. Our enthusiasm for our institutions must be brought face-to-face with their origins.
The second is the notion that capitalism succeeds because it accepts human vices for what they are. Capitalism, it is commonly said, designs systems by which the self-interested egoism of individuals can be employed for the benefit of society. But humans are not self-interested in the required sense. They are willing to make great sacrifices in material wellbeing for the sake of visiting greater suffering upon their scapegoats. Americans could enjoy a higher standard of living if they sought to maximize employment rather than incarceration for racial minorities. But then many of them would not get to enjoy the relief of frustration that comes from knowing that others are suffering violence and degradation, that those others are not themselves and not ‘people like themselves’.
It is not capitalism that we have to thank for the stability and prosperity of our society. It is the scapegoating mechanism. This is a horrific scandal, of course. The loss of Girard is the loss of a finger to point to that scandal. We will go back to ignoring the horror by which we live until another Girard comes along.
Mais