I recently revisited the chapter titled “Why the worst get on top” from FA Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. The essay discusses the sociopolitical dynamics within a totalitarian system that inevitably encourage and enable bad actors to gain power while sidelining decent people.

The worst features of totalitarian governments are not accidental or avoidable; they are features totalitarianism produces given enough time to operate. Just as a socialist planner must choose between either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, a totalitarian dictator must renounce morality or fail. Socialism produces a totalitarian society, which places at its helm a dictator not bound by common morals, and from this system we get social and economic repression, destruction of life and property, elimination of political alternatives, conscription, etc.

The imposition of a totalitarian regime on a population does not initially require the support of the majority. The totalitarian leader begins by gathering a small, highly organized group of followers who voluntarily embrace the discipline of committing to the leader’s cause, obeying his commands without opposition, and disallowing common morals from getting in the way. The followers then coerce this totalitarian discipline upon larger bodies of people, gaining political power along the way.

At some point, in order to exert meaningful political influence over a state, the totalitarian leader must gain support from a large group of followers. This large group of people is likely to comprise of the worst elements of any society. Hayek presents three reasons why.

1. A large group strong enough to impose its views on the rest cannot be formed out of those with highly differentiated and developed tastes; it must be composed of the masses, the least original and independent.

2. The leader requires the support of the docile and gullible, those without their own convictions, those willing to accept a ready-made system of values frequently presented to them.

3. It is human nature to agree on a negative, such as the hatred of an enemy, than on a positive.

Those acting on behalf of a group are frequently able to overcome the moral obstacles they would face as individuals. As Reinhold Niebuhr notes, there is “an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.”

To serve the totalitarian state, one must be prepared to break any moral code if it ever seems necessary to achieve the goal served to him by his leader. Only the dictator determines the ends, so the followers must not have their own convictions, lest they should pose unneeded hurdles. The followers must be completely unprincipled, fully committed to the dictator, and capable of executing any assigned task.

Positions of power in such a regime have nothing to offer to those with moral beliefs of any kind. People with morals either do not contest for political and administrative positions, or give up on promotion opportunities, thus remaining in positions with little to no power. Ultimately, only those willing to wield power, those willing to act unscrupulously, contest for and occupy positions of power, and rise to the top.