Diamonds to be had - but some serious mining is required.

books:


	• The Road to Serfdom F. A. Hayek University Of Chicago Press, 1994 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 183 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Diamonds to be had - but some serious mining is required.

I really felt I *must* read this book as Hayek is required reading for those who know that any form of collectivism (socialism, communism, you name the variety) is a bad thing. It takes more than a shallow understanding of the overall picture to see this, which is why so many are clamoring for socialized medicine. (Though, of course, they'd never call it that.)

The reason I only give Hayek 4 stars is because he's just plain tough to read. He's wordy, long-winded, and uses entirely too many 75-word sentences. His is one of the few books that when I turned the final page I thought: "I'm so glad THAT is over!"

Make no mistake - this is good stuff - but it could have been written in a much less complicated and convoluted manner. I really think that the "Reader's Digest" version may be a viable alternative.

I consider myself an accomplished reader, but this book was pushing my limits. It really isn't a terribly difficult to understand subject, Hayek just makes it that way.

As I say - good stuff. Fans of classic political and social theory will want to slog through this book. For those of us just as interested but not as fanatic, check out the other suggestions for alternatives to this book.

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An Essential, if difficult, read

This epic academic work boils down to the pre-cursors and result of political power. Not easy reading (else I would give it more stars), but essential reading for any student of human behavior and how men use political power.

Van Hayek saw firsthand the slide of well intentioned "progressive" thinking into controlling fascist dictates. The lessons learned are univeral because they are derived from human behavior. And since the events are two generations before ours, the reader can draw conclusions free from the coloration and rancor of personalities known in our time.

Von Hayek notes the arrival of the "progressive" (socialist) age was heralded as the end of economic man. The reality on the end of economic man is more like the emperor's new clothes: the "progressive" era is "a change in a state of affairs that never existed, to a direction in which we are not moving."

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Wartime Hysteria Results in Distorted Thinking!

The Road to Serfdom. F. A. Hayek
(The University of Chicago Press, 1944, 1994.)

This book was written in horror by a witness to both WWI and WWII. Hayek saw the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and Fascism in Italy. He learned from this experience how dangerous governments can be. A major theme in his discussion is that both governments grew out of a "socialist" impulse. That is, the seemingly good intention of the government to intervene in the economy to help mistreated workers, the unemployed, and the poor. But, he warns, once governments start down the path of regulating economic activity, there is no stopping them. The sure result will be totalitarian systems with societies organized like militaries.

Of course, a mind wrapped up in fear and revulsion cannot be expected to be as detached and objective as it might be otherwise. Hayek is no exception. His claim that societies must choose between a free market economy, with open competition, or risk slip-sliding into Stalinistic "socialism," borders on hysteria.

In the years since WWII, by applying the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, the US government, and several European governments, have disproven Hayek's thesis. Governments can intervene in the economy to soften the impact of competition, and enjoy fantastic growth and material success, without substantial loss of individual freedom.

Although history has shown that Hayek was flat wrong, his arguments continue to be one of the central pillars of conservative "thought" in the US. Indeed, it fits right in with the literature on "Social Darwinism." That is, the doctrine that in unbridled competition, the fittest move to the top, and the fodder settle on the bottom. "Fitness," of course, is measured by wealth.

Sharing the hypocrisy of like-minded "Libertarians," Hayek is not opposed to all government intervention in the economy. He would like government to establish a "framework" of laws within which free competition could flourish. Something like the Queensberry Rules for boxing. His laws would protect private property, build roads between markets, perhaps support public sanitation, and defend the nation against invasion. But that is about all.

Advocates of this line of thought share a similar value pattern. They tend to value preserving the ideal of the "free market" no matter how many people suffer as a result of the system. In other words, the ideological purity of the economic system is more important to them than the adverse consequences that system will have on people in practice.

Capitalism in Nineteen Century Britain and the US is the ideal of "individual liberty" that Hayek and his kind have in mind. Writing with tenure in a plush professorship, Hayek is willing to accept the sacrifices other people will have to make to realize his social ideal.

But a more objective view of the choice Hayek offers might question which is worse, wage slavery and deprivation under the rule of Robber Barons, or being a cog in a totalitarian machine?

Out of his understandable horror at witnessing two world wars, Hayek sets up a false antinomy: either free market competition, or a totalitarian society. But time and post-war experience have shown that government power can be used for good, and still fall far short of becoming a dictatorship.

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Challenging, but worth it!

The Road to Serfdom is a book that you see recommended on many reading lists, and for good reason. Hayek shows the reader, from many different directions, why socialism is doomed to failure. He carefully explains why socialism in its pure form leads, inevitably, to totalitarianism. Hayek's illustrations and explanations are quite clear.

I found myself somewhat challenged by Hayek's writing style. Make no mistake, this can be a somewhat difficult book to read. Keep in mind though, that it is a book that should be read a little at a time and pondered upon. The first chapter seemed to be the most difficult. If you can make it through the first chapter, then you are home free.

In the end, I was fascinated by this book. Hayek's ability to see in 1944 what became apparent only many years later to most of his contemporaries, is remarkable. Even though this is no easy read, its more than worth the effort.

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Staying on the path of liberty

Fredrick Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" echoes Lord Ackin's dictum: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." Writing during World War II, Hayek criticized the trend towards central economic planning. Hayek demonstrates the inability of planned economies to rationally allocate resources where there is fundamental disagreements among members of society in matters of religious or moral beliefs, taste, or ethical codes. He describes how inefficiencies in centralized planning inevitably leads to economic chaos, which in turn can be used as justification for further concentration of power in the hands of the central planners. Ultimately, this leads to the creation of a pervasive bureaucratic infrastructure that can be used by totalitarian regimes such as Hilter's in Germany or Stalin's in the USSR to control the populous.

The Road to Serfdon is not, as some have suggested, an indictment against all governmental regulation of economic actititivity. Hayek identifies several areas were govenmental controls are beneficial, for example in controlling the pollution from factories, John Maynard Keynes critized the work as inconsistant, suggesting that Hayek's allowance for any government intervention would place it on the slippery slope towards the road to serfdom.

Hayek's style in The Road to Serfdom is not elegant, but is readable. Although a Nobel laureate for his work in monetary theory, The Road to Serfdom is far from an academic economic analysis. His arguments tend to be empirical and intuitive, using analogies and examples, rather than strictly grounded technical logic. Hayek himself called the work a political pamphlet. The Road to Serfdom is interesting as an influential historical document, as a critique of centralized planning, and more generally as a warning against the concentration of economic and political power.

The Road to Serfdom shares many of the ideas found in the work of Hayek's friend Karl Popper. In Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper suggests that the key question of political philosophy is not "who should rule", but rather "how do we limit the power of those who rule." Hayek recommends keeping economic power out of the hands of politicians as one essential requirement.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

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