Hayek wrote it is ironic that while they generally understood that human
affairs is a 
process, conservatives always tried to bring about change mainly
during election campaigns, while socialists, on the other hand, who generally
thought of process in terms of politics exclusively — and had no
comprehension of the market, were prepared to take the long view and
change the culture — making it possible to elect socialists. This left
conservatives always fighting a losing rear-guard action.
Ah, but they didn’t lose. It is the socialists and communists and
fascists and Nazis who have been “consigned to the dust bin of history.”
Things work out over time through the specific actions which specific
people take within the context of the specific societies in which they find
themselves and one can see only generallywhat effects any individual
person may have had:
When I went to Calgary in 1980 to raise funds for HALT, it had just
successfully completed a campaign to stop construction of a convention
centre there. A certain Ralph Klein had joined the HALT campaign I was
told. A few years later he went on to use his various experiences to further
his political fortunes:Klein became the mayor of Calgary, then became the
Premier of Alberta. This morning I read on the front page of the Regina
Leader-Postthat the Alberta government plans maybe next term to eliminate
the Income Tax, after it pays off the provincial debt. The Alberta
government’s annual surplus is now greater than Saskatchewan’s entire
provincial budget while it spends moreon social programs!
Meanwhile, as you know, HALT died an early death and the
Progressive-Conservative Parties I worked for in British Columbia and
Saskatchewan are both gone. Joe Clark’s federal Progressive-Conservative
Party may die with this federal election (good-riddance!). The NDP in
Saskatchewan, while still in power and despite having totally dominated life
here for half a century, is in trouble nevertheless. One need only look across
the border to see that things in Saskatchewan do not look nearly as good as
they do in Alberta — and they haven’t for decades! Saskatchewan has
exported about a million people (including their descendants) to Alberta and
to BC over the past fifty years. Perhaps the “free enterprisers” stopped in
Alberta and the “socialists” went on to BC, helping to explain the political
complexions of those two provinces.
Maybe my own actions had some small positive effect. Who knows?
Maybe they had some small negative effect. All the Saskatchewan CCF
socialists who fled to Ottawa when Ross Thatcher (Liberal Party) became
the Premier of Saskatchewan in the 1960’s certainly helped Trudeau (Liberal
