Corey Robin, whose Nation piece on Nietzsche and Hayek I referred to here, posted this comparison of the two thinkers’ ideas on class on his own blog. They support his contention that Hayek was more in tune with Nietzschean philosophy than commonly supposed. Whatever you think of Robin’s thesis, it is instructive at least to see the contempt or, at least, casual dismissal of the worth of the working class in Hayek’s musings.
Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human:
Culture and caste.—A higher culture can come into existence only when there are two different castes in society: that of the workers and that of the idle, of those capable of true leisure; or, expressed more vigorously: the caste compelled to work and the caste that works if it wants to….the caste of the idle is the more capable of suffering and suffers more, its enjoyment of existence is less, its task heavier. (§439)
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My utopia.—In a better ordering of society the heavy work and exigencies of life will be apportioned to him who suffers least as a consequence of them, that is to say to the most insensible, and thus step by step up to him who is most sensitive to the most highly substantiated species of suffering and who therefore suffers even when life is alleviated to the greatest…
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