“A confusion largely responsible for the way in which we are drifting into things which nobody wants must be cleared up. This confusion concerns nothing less than the concept of socialism itself. It may mean, and is often used to describe, merely the ideals of social justice, greater equality, and security, which are the ultimate aims of socialism. But it means also the particular method by which most socialists hope to attain these ends and which many competent people regard as the only methods by which they can be fully and quickly attained. In this sense socialism 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.
There are many people who call themselves socialist, although they care only about the first, who fervently believe in those ultimate goals of socialism but neither care nor understand how they can be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, whatever the cost. But to nearly all those to whom socialism is not merely a hope but an object of practical politics, the characteristic methods of modern socialism are as essential as the end themselves. Many people on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialist refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by the Socialists.”
F.A.Hayek
The Road to Serfdom
ascent du jour 