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The Road from Serfdom: The Economic and Political Consequences of the End of Communism
An interpretation of recent history and a prescription for the future link the collapse of communism to the global failure of this century's concepts regarding collectivism. 20,000 first printing. Tour.
- GenresEconomics
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Robert Skidelsky
68 books135 followersLord Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He is the author of the The World After Communism (1995) (American edition called The Road from Serfdom). He was made a life peer in 1991, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1994. He is chairman of the Govenors of Brighton College
Robert Skidelsky was born on 25 April 1939 in Harbin, Manchuria. His parents were British subjects, but of Russian ancestry. His father worked for the family firm, L. S. Skidelsky, which leased the Mulin coalmine from the Chinese government. When war broke out between Britain and Japan in December 1941, he and his parents were interned first in Manchuria then Japan, but released in exchange for Japanese internees in England.
From 1953 to 1958, he was a boarder at Brighton College (of which he is now chairman of the board of governors). He went on to read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and from 1961 to 1969, he was successively research student, senior student, and research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1967, he published his first book, Politicians and the Slump, Labour Government of 1929-31, based on his D.Phil dissertation. The book explores the ways in which British politicians handled the Great Depression.
During a two year research fellowship at the British Academy, he began work in his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley (published in 1975) and published English Progressive Schools (1969). In 1970, he became an Associate Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University. But the controversy surrounding the publication of his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley - in which he was felt to have let Mosley off too lightly - led John Hopkins University to refuse him tenure. Oxford University also proved unwilling to give him a permanent post.
In 1978, he was appointed Professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick, where he has since remained, though joining the Economics Department as Professor Political Economy in 1990. He is currently Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.
The first volume of his biography of John Maynard Keynes, Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920, was published in 1983. The second volume, The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992) won the Wolfson Prize for History. The third volume, Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946 (2000) won the Duff Cooper Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Arthur Ross Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations.
Since 2003, he has been a non-executive director of the mutual fund manager, Janus Capital and Rusnano Capital; from 2008-10 he sat on the board of Sistema JSC. He is a director of the Moscow School of Political Studies and was the founder and executive secretary of the UK/Russia Round Table. Since 2002, he has been chairman of the Centre for Global Studies. In 2010, he joined the Advisory Board of the Institute of New Economic Thinking.
He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, "Against the Current", which is syndicated in newspapers all over the world. His account of the current economic crisis, Keynes: The Return of the Master, was published by Penguin Allen Lane in September 2009. A short history of twentieth-century Britain was published by Random House in the volume A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles edited by Jonathan Clark in January 2010. He is now in the process of writing How Much is Enough? The Economics of the Good Life jointly with his son Edward Skidelsky.
Robert Skidelsky was born on 25 April 1939 in Harbin, Manchuria. His parents were British subjects, but of Russian ancestry. His father worked for the family firm, L. S. Skidelsky, which leased the Mulin coalmine from the Chinese government. When war broke out between Britain and Japan in December 1941, he and his parents were interned first in Manchuria then Japan, but released in exchange for Japanese internees in England.
From 1953 to 1958, he was a boarder at Brighton College (of which he is now chairman of the board of governors). He went on to read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and from 1961 to 1969, he was successively research student, senior student, and research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1967, he published his first book, Politicians and the Slump, Labour Government of 1929-31, based on his D.Phil dissertation. The book explores the ways in which British politicians handled the Great Depression.
During a two year research fellowship at the British Academy, he began work in his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley (published in 1975) and published English Progressive Schools (1969). In 1970, he became an Associate Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University. But the controversy surrounding the publication of his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley - in which he was felt to have let Mosley off too lightly - led John Hopkins University to refuse him tenure. Oxford University also proved unwilling to give him a permanent post.
In 1978, he was appointed Professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick, where he has since remained, though joining the Economics Department as Professor Political Economy in 1990. He is currently Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.
The first volume of his biography of John Maynard Keynes, Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920, was published in 1983. The second volume, The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992) won the Wolfson Prize for History. The third volume, Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946 (2000) won the Duff Cooper Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Arthur Ross Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations.
Since 2003, he has been a non-executive director of the mutual fund manager, Janus Capital and Rusnano Capital; from 2008-10 he sat on the board of Sistema JSC. He is a director of the Moscow School of Political Studies and was the founder and executive secretary of the UK/Russia Round Table. Since 2002, he has been chairman of the Centre for Global Studies. In 2010, he joined the Advisory Board of the Institute of New Economic Thinking.
He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, "Against the Current", which is syndicated in newspapers all over the world. His account of the current economic crisis, Keynes: The Return of the Master, was published by Penguin Allen Lane in September 2009. A short history of twentieth-century Britain was published by Random House in the volume A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles edited by Jonathan Clark in January 2010. He is now in the process of writing How Much is Enough? The Economics of the Good Life jointly with his son Edward Skidelsky.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 6, 2010
A review of the failure of communism in the late 80s, and a critique of contemporary economics in general. I read this in 1997, a couple of years after it had first been published. Leafing through it again in 2010 brings to mind that this would now be an interesting historical read, as well as economic.
October 20, 2022
In 1944, with the West allies of the Soviet Union in the fight against Fascism, economist Friedrich Hayek warned about the dangers of socialism and collectivism in The Road to Serfdom, ‘an intellectual attack on socialism’ whose main message was that central planning and public ownership would lead slowly but inevitably to totalitarianism.
Just over 40 years later, with communism collapsing in eastern Europe, economist Robert
Skidelsky’s The Road from Serfdom, sets out an optimistic view of a post-communism future.
He argues that collectivism – the belief that the state knows better than the market – has been the most egregious error of the twentieth century. Its extreme manifestations were in Communism and Fascism… belief in the superior wisdom of the state breeds pathologies which deform, and at the limit destroy, the political economies based on it.’ (p ix)
Skidelsky reminds us that in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1933 ‘millions of peasants were murdered or died of starvation…’ (p54) ‘The crimes of Communism, while just as horrendous as those of Fascism, were less vivid to the imagination of the democracies. To this day, the Western Public has virtually no visual images of Stalinism except those produced by Soviet propaganda films.’ (p70)
Skidelsky regards ‘the end of Communism, the rolling back of the frontiers of the state, the globalization of economic intercourse, as the most hopeful turn of the historical screw which has happened since 1914.’ (p ix)
Although written almost 30 years ago, in 2022 with totalitarianism ascendant in Russia and communist China confronting the West, the issues set out in The Road from Serfdom remain as relevant today as they were in the 1990s. Skidelsky asks the enduring question, first posed by Czech prime minister Václav Klaus, ‘how far the state should regulate the lives of free and responsible individuals.’ (p x)
Skidelsky presents a balanced exploration of the arguments for free-market capitalism and the role of government policy. He highlights four grey areas ‘which make it difficult to distinguish between state activity which supports a liberal society and state activity which undermines it’(p20) including regulation; public goods; preserving democracy and corporatism.
While Hayek was a staunch defender of free-market capitalism, and is often presented as a critic of Keynesiam economics, Skidelsky reminds us that Keynes policies for responding to the production requirements of WW2 were endorsed by Hayek (p74), and that Keynes lauded, in almost Hayekian vein, individualistic capitalism as embodying “the most secure and successful choices of former generations” and being “the most powerful instrument to a better future.” (p72)
Some of Skidelsky’s lessons from history seem more relevant as predictions.
The observation that wealthy urban civilizations are civilizations in decay with discontented masses in thrall to degenerate plutocrats, and doomed unless they find the means of renewal, could almost be a prediction of the decline of American democracy under Trump and the sycophantic Republicans.
With governments in 2022 globally resorting to inflation to reduce the value of the mountains of debt that have been accumulated, Skidelsky reminds us of Keynes insight that “A government can live for a long time ... by printing paper money ... It is the form of taxation which the public finds hardest to evade and even the weakest government can enforce...” (p117-8).
Some of Skidelsky’s predictions are tainted by the optimistic thread throughout The Road from Serfdom. His conclusion in 1994 that ‘The prospect today is not for a reassertion of Soviet might, but a further unravelling of Russia and the Soviet Union’s successor states’ (p97) is misplaced. Instead we are witness to Russia’s overt aggression in Ukraine and Syria and covert aggression - both hybrid warfare with attacks on pipelines, and cyber warfare with attacks on democratic processes.
There are two significant gaps.
Firstly, The Road from Serfdom focuses on communism in the Soviet Union and eastern European. Although he touches on China in his final chapters, Skidelsky mainly ignores the role of communism in China and its growing economic impact globally.
When he does refer to China he seems his arguments are contorted with contradictions. Skidelsky both argues that China is ‘post-communist’ but at the same time holds that liberalization [in China] ‘has simply postponed the day of reckoning from the last major survivor of the collectivist nightmare.’ (p181)
In addition, Skidelsky does not adequately address the role of market failure as a catalyst for government intervention. Without government regulation or taxes, people and corporations are not paying the true market price as no allowance is made for ‘common goods’. As a result, we have congestion, pollution and life-threatening levels of carbon emissions.
Related to this, can be added behavioural biases, often exploited by corporations, that result in people making sub-optimal decisions – including obesity, failing to save for retirement, and ‘dark nudges’.
Refreshingly, rather than merely presenting an informative critique, Skidelsky also puts forward some policy guidelines. He proposes that public spending should not exceed 30 per cent of national income - an ‘anti-collectivist’ rule – as
(1) excessive public spending makes the economy less efficient and less productive; and
(2) there is a limit to tax tolerance (p192)
Skidelsky’s The Road from Serfdom is a rewarding book to read for those seeking greater context for the economic debates occurring today as well as those interested in economic history.
Just over 40 years later, with communism collapsing in eastern Europe, economist Robert
Skidelsky’s The Road from Serfdom, sets out an optimistic view of a post-communism future.
He argues that collectivism – the belief that the state knows better than the market – has been the most egregious error of the twentieth century. Its extreme manifestations were in Communism and Fascism… belief in the superior wisdom of the state breeds pathologies which deform, and at the limit destroy, the political economies based on it.’ (p ix)
Skidelsky reminds us that in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1933 ‘millions of peasants were murdered or died of starvation…’ (p54) ‘The crimes of Communism, while just as horrendous as those of Fascism, were less vivid to the imagination of the democracies. To this day, the Western Public has virtually no visual images of Stalinism except those produced by Soviet propaganda films.’ (p70)
Skidelsky regards ‘the end of Communism, the rolling back of the frontiers of the state, the globalization of economic intercourse, as the most hopeful turn of the historical screw which has happened since 1914.’ (p ix)
Although written almost 30 years ago, in 2022 with totalitarianism ascendant in Russia and communist China confronting the West, the issues set out in The Road from Serfdom remain as relevant today as they were in the 1990s. Skidelsky asks the enduring question, first posed by Czech prime minister Václav Klaus, ‘how far the state should regulate the lives of free and responsible individuals.’ (p x)
Skidelsky presents a balanced exploration of the arguments for free-market capitalism and the role of government policy. He highlights four grey areas ‘which make it difficult to distinguish between state activity which supports a liberal society and state activity which undermines it’(p20) including regulation; public goods; preserving democracy and corporatism.
While Hayek was a staunch defender of free-market capitalism, and is often presented as a critic of Keynesiam economics, Skidelsky reminds us that Keynes policies for responding to the production requirements of WW2 were endorsed by Hayek (p74), and that Keynes lauded, in almost Hayekian vein, individualistic capitalism as embodying “the most secure and successful choices of former generations” and being “the most powerful instrument to a better future.” (p72)
Some of Skidelsky’s lessons from history seem more relevant as predictions.
The observation that wealthy urban civilizations are civilizations in decay with discontented masses in thrall to degenerate plutocrats, and doomed unless they find the means of renewal, could almost be a prediction of the decline of American democracy under Trump and the sycophantic Republicans.
With governments in 2022 globally resorting to inflation to reduce the value of the mountains of debt that have been accumulated, Skidelsky reminds us of Keynes insight that “A government can live for a long time ... by printing paper money ... It is the form of taxation which the public finds hardest to evade and even the weakest government can enforce...” (p117-8).
Some of Skidelsky’s predictions are tainted by the optimistic thread throughout The Road from Serfdom. His conclusion in 1994 that ‘The prospect today is not for a reassertion of Soviet might, but a further unravelling of Russia and the Soviet Union’s successor states’ (p97) is misplaced. Instead we are witness to Russia’s overt aggression in Ukraine and Syria and covert aggression - both hybrid warfare with attacks on pipelines, and cyber warfare with attacks on democratic processes.
There are two significant gaps.
Firstly, The Road from Serfdom focuses on communism in the Soviet Union and eastern European. Although he touches on China in his final chapters, Skidelsky mainly ignores the role of communism in China and its growing economic impact globally.
When he does refer to China he seems his arguments are contorted with contradictions. Skidelsky both argues that China is ‘post-communist’ but at the same time holds that liberalization [in China] ‘has simply postponed the day of reckoning from the last major survivor of the collectivist nightmare.’ (p181)
In addition, Skidelsky does not adequately address the role of market failure as a catalyst for government intervention. Without government regulation or taxes, people and corporations are not paying the true market price as no allowance is made for ‘common goods’. As a result, we have congestion, pollution and life-threatening levels of carbon emissions.
Related to this, can be added behavioural biases, often exploited by corporations, that result in people making sub-optimal decisions – including obesity, failing to save for retirement, and ‘dark nudges’.
Refreshingly, rather than merely presenting an informative critique, Skidelsky also puts forward some policy guidelines. He proposes that public spending should not exceed 30 per cent of national income - an ‘anti-collectivist’ rule – as
(1) excessive public spending makes the economy less efficient and less productive; and
(2) there is a limit to tax tolerance (p192)
Skidelsky’s The Road from Serfdom is a rewarding book to read for those seeking greater context for the economic debates occurring today as well as those interested in economic history.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews