GM’s Cartoon Version of von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” – on the 70th Anniversary of D-Day

June 7, 2014

William K Black

The web has provided another proof of our family rule that it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. The day after GM’s preposterous congressional testimony and its release of the unintentionally hilarious Valukas report detailing GM’s criminal indifference to human health and life a libertarian blogger featured GM’s cartoon version of von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” to warn us of the fact that democratic government invariably leads to serfdom.

As a further act of unintentional self-parody, the blogger chose the 70th anniversary of D-Day to post GM’s cartoon. The cartoon’s premise is the supposed absurdity of the government being competent to plan anything. It is worth noting (a) that the folks who planned the invasion were government employees, (b) that the plan they drew up was extraordinarily complex, (c) that the plan was highly creative, particularly in its deception as to the place and timing of the invasion(s), (d) that the government planners embraced risk (while also seeking to reduce many risks), (e) that the planners adjusted rapidly and radically – and embraced even greater risk – when weather caused a delay in D-Day and offered a reasonable possibility that a narrow window of barely acceptable weather would occur on June 6, 1944 that would permit the air and sea elements to invade Normandy, (f) that the government planner/commander-in-chief took personal responsibility for the decision to risk a June 6 invasion (and composed the famous letter taking personal responsibility for the failure of the invasion), (g) that the plan achieved strategic and tactical surprise, (h) that when some of the plan’s assumptions (inevitably) proved incorrect due to intelligence errors or incomplete intelligence and due to (inevitable) mistakes in execution the planners and government employees (soldiers, airmen, and sailors) responded creatively, vigorously, and courageously to the mistakes and errors and improvised revisions to the plan, (i) the government employees accomplished each of these things in a struggle against a rival government employee who also displayed exceptional planning competence (Field Marshall Erwin Rommel), and (j) the plan worked even when terrible storms destroyed or severely damaged the innovative port facilities created pursuant to the original plan (the logistical aspects of the plan were more complex and difficult than the exceptionally complex and difficult troop movements that are more familiar to non-specialists like me).

Victor Davis Hanson, the ultra-right classicist (who I criticized in a column earlier today) is a historian who has studied World War II.

Hanson describes D-Day as “the most brilliantly conducted invasion in military history….”

In sum, the libertarian blogger has an atrocious sense of timing to post a cartoon prepared as propaganda by GM – the self-described incompetent customer killers who had to be saved by a public bailout – that attempts to ridicule the government’s ability to plan – on the 70th anniversary of one of the greatest triumphs of government planning in history.

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/gms-cartoon-version-von-hayeks-road-serfdom-70th-anniversary-d-day.html#more-8312