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The Road to Serfdom

Friedrich A. Hayek

4.17 · Rating details · 17,962 ratings · 1,141 reviews

A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in England in the spring of 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the so A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in England in the spring of 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate attention from the public, politicians, and scholars alike. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 were sold. In April of 1945, Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this condensation to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best-seller, the book has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States, not including the British edition or the nearly twenty translations into such languages as German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese, and not to mention the many underground editions produced in Eastern Europe before the fall of the iron curtain.

After thirty-two printings in the United States, The Road to Serfdom has established itself alongside the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and George Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relation between individual liberty and government authority. This fiftieth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Milton Friedman, commemorates the enduring influence of The Road to Serfdom on the ever-changing political and social climates of the twentieth century, from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions" in the 1980s and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s.

F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century.

On the first American edition of The Road to Serfdom:
"One of the most important books of our generation. . . . It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning with which John Stuart Mill stated the issue for his own generation in his great essay On Liberty. . . . It is an arresting call to all well-intentioned planners and socialists, to all those who are sincere democrats and liberals at heart to stop, look and listen."—Henry Hazlitt, New York Times Book Review, September 1944

"In the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often—at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough—that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of."—George Orwell, Collected Essays ...more

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Paperback, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 274 pages

Published October 15th 1994 by University Of Chicago Press (first published September 18th 1944)

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Nov 19, 2008 Cami rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, economics, history, libertarian

This book captures the frustration of classical liberals (as opposed to modern liberals) when they see collectivist policies enacted despite the overwhelming evidence that socialism brings about disastrous results.

Having grown up and lived in Austria during World War I and later moving to Great Britain, Hayek was particularly frustrated when he saw Britain and the United States making the same mistakes of the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Hayek argues that collectivism eventually leads to t ...more

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Aug 30, 2008 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook, classics-european, 6-star-books, all-time-favorites, economics-finance

6.0 stars. On my list of "All Time Favorite" Books. One of the most important books ever written and most concise, brilliant, scathing and impressive argument against the "planned economy" that has been, or likely ever will be, written. Hayek, while always being respectful to the adherents of the idea that state control over resources and goals is the right approach, nevertheless absolutely destroys each and every argument and rationale alluded to by such people.

His general thesis that socialis 6.0 stars. On my list of "All Time Favorite" Books. One of the most important books ever written and most concise, brilliant, scathing and impressive argument against the "planned economy" that has been, or likely ever will be, written. Hayek, while always being respectful to the adherents of the idea that state control over resources and goals is the right approach, nevertheless absolutely destroys each and every argument and rationale alluded to by such people.

His general thesis that socialism, communism, fascism will inevitably lead to totalitarianism and the loss of freedom for the individual is demonstrated without skipping logical steps or leaping to a conclusion not supported by the preceding argument. It is powerful, powerful stuff.

His conclusion is that the only way to truly create and just and free society is to re-adopt the "classic liberalism" of the 19th century (more closely linked today with libertarianism). Government should be limited and exist only to (1) protect the people in time of war or national emergency and (2) provide "the rule of law" which means basic rules that apply equally to everyone (i.e.,no special treatment, no unfair treatment)and that do not change and allow competition and the market to decide the success or failure of individuals. This does not guaranty anyone success or failure, but rather guaranties everyone the "opportunity" for success or failure. While such a system is not without flaws that may at times lead to abuses that people of good conscience may find objectionable, Hayek makes a powerful case that it is the only system that provides the opportunity for success to everyone.

Any change to the system that modifies this (i.e., grants special assistance or rules to benefit one group) necessarily hurts another group and this kind of intervention leads to the determination by a small group of people without all necessary factual evidence (as no group can ever be fully informed of all of the variables that go into how a society operates) based on its "opinion" of what the correct result should be. This imposing of the values and morals (which all opinion is derived from) of one person or a group people on society necessarily is done at the expense of the morals and values held by others. Hayek argues that such an action is fundamentally flawed.

HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!

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Dec 25, 2019 Trevor rated it did not like it

Shelves: social-theory, economics, behavioural-economics

I could be wrong, but surely not even the greatest fans of Hayek could believe this is a particularly nuanced book. The central thesis is that everyone that disagrees with Hayek is either a totalitarian or someone who is inadvertently leading society down the road towards totalitarianism. This doesn’t only include Marxists and Fascists – who Hayek equates as identical – nor even members of the Labour party in Britain who might be considered ‘fellow travellers’, but even many of the younger membe I could be wrong, but surely not even the greatest fans of Hayek could believe this is a particularly nuanced book. The central thesis is that everyone that disagrees with Hayek is either a totalitarian or someone who is inadvertently leading society down the road towards totalitarianism. This doesn’t only include Marxists and Fascists – who Hayek equates as identical – nor even members of the Labour party in Britain who might be considered ‘fellow travellers’, but even many of the younger members of the Conservative party too. You see what I mean about ‘nuance’ then perhaps? Not only is everyone else wrong, but any differences between them are as nothing when compared with what binds them in common. There literally can be no nuance.

Decades later Maggie Thatcher would flung down a copy of Hayek’s ‘The Constitution of Liberty’ during a meeting with members of her party and yell, “This is what we believe”. It fits, of course. Both held that there was no alternative and that any deviation from the one true path inevitably leads to destruction and serfdom. ‘Freedom’ is somewhat oddly defined if there is, ultimately, only one available choice.

The later preference for forced choices by radical free market types is perhaps one of the most potent current criticisms of this book. Worth reading in this context is William Davies’ ‘The Limits of Neoliberalism’, particularly in relation to Nudge theory. As the book Nudge makes clear, while it takes free market ideas very seriously, it also believes that people might make better decisions if they were nudged towards them. This ought to otherwise seem problematic if you really believed what Hayek says here. You see, central to his thesis is that such an understanding of what is best for others isn’t possible, in fact, it is fundamentally impossible. The thing that makes capitalism, and radical free market capitalism in particular, such a fantastic system is the fact that ‘experts’ are kept away from decision about what might make the lives of others better. It is hard to no think that Hayek would view these ‘nudges’ as little more than a further step down the road to serfdom.

There are infinitely better criticisms of this book than I’m going to provide in this little review. Some of those include ‘Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste’ and ‘Capitalist Realism’. Why I find this book particularly terrifying is that it really has a distasteful understanding of what ‘freedom’ means. Freedom here is the elimination of every kind of safety net, it means dog eat dog, it means the war of all against each, it means an almost ludicrous extreme of competition, because only in this is the purity of individualism able to be assured. Any restrictions on individualism is understood as inevitably leading to fascism/communism/social democracy, all of which are seen as basically identical – he literally says as much here.

Society is understood as a kind of information exchange where money is the chief form of data and therefore money needs to be protected from any distortion (say, imposed inflation) since money (or prices, rather) allow everyone in society to know which choices they should make that will best suit their needs. The reason why any form of planning is ineffective (and ultimately evil), is because the whole system is so insanely complex that any form of centralised planning inevitably introduces inefficiencies to the entire system. This makes the whole system worse for everyone – but since the planners benefit by keeping their own jobs regardless of the poor outcomes of their plans, those inefficiencies compound. People then are forced to accept products they do not want and this leads to further distortions in the proper price signals within the system which then further multiplies inefficiencies. And because there is no way of seeing what a more efficient system would look like outside the plan, the plan is still held to be the most efficient organisation of the system.

Rather than planning, a system based on the anarchy of economic activity is the only system capable of meeting the needs of the whole of society and of producing freedom at the same time. Since there is no central planner, individuals are able to understand the messages contained in the highly situated contexts they live within and from within the prices of good they observe, and that means they are able to act in ways that meet their needs from within those circumstances. The system is self-regulating, because competition ultimately leads to a situation where the people who are most efficient and best at meeting the needs of those around them are the only people who will succeed. The system also can only exist on increased freedom – to the extent that freedom can be equated with economic anarchy – since any restriction on this freedom will necessarily be imposed upon it from outside (by the dreaded planners who we have already decided will lead us to fascist-communist-collectivism).

Any individual may end up crushed under the driving wheel of progress, in fact, this is inevitable and necessary – for risk cannot be mitigated in the system without distorting the system as a whole. And since competition is the engine of progress, and competition means ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ – then the economic equivalent of Darwinian natural selection is, however regrettable, inevitable.

Thus Hayek presents his vision-splendid of unfettered free markets. His expectation, of course, is that although some people will inevitably be crushed under foot – overall, most people will be better off under this system than under any other system capable of operating. There are occasional nods to the benefits of democracy, but it isn’t at all clear how ‘democracy’ can be exempt from also being seen as yet another collectivist project that undermines his radical individualism. Thatcher’s ‘there is no society, only individuals’ rings in your ears while reading this. Certainly, Hayek imposes stringent limitations upon democracy – democracy clearly can’t place any limits on the radical free market he proposes.

Part of me wants to say that after four decades of living in lock-step with Hayek’s ideal of laissez faire capitalism, and the gross inequality that has produced, and the ecological suicide we are gormlessly heading toward, that perhaps some of those who yelled the loudest that radical free market economics would lead to the promised land should be a little embarrassed now. That certainly has not proven to be the case. As Capitalist Realism makes all too clear – the GFC only proved to his followers that Hayek’s ideas were not implemented stringently enough. And that is the beauty here. Hayek’s ideas are so over-the-top, so utopian (or dystopian, rather) that it is impossible for them to ever be fully implemented – even in Chile under a dictator – and so there will always an escape clause. Even after the Thatcher nightmare there was an escape clause that said, ‘if only his ideas had been more consistently followed…’

I doubt we will move on from these ideas any time soon – they form a solid plank of our current received wisdom, our axiomatic truths. Those who benefit from such ideas are rich beyond imagining and they hold so much power with their wealth that it isn’t in the least bit clear to me how an opposition to these views would be possible to be sustained. And so, we will continue to march proudly over the cliff, each in turn proclaiming our freedom even as we begin our descent under the iron clad laws of gravity. As someone or other much wiser than me once said, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. I guess therein lies Hayek’s greatest legacy.
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Nov 28, 2017 Trish rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: skimmed

I tried to read this several times, beginning back when I almost convinced myself I might be able to understand (read: respect) what Republicans were thinking. I'm sorry to say that is over, at least for now. If we can lie, cheat, and steal our way to power, what difference does it make what is just?

I made some notes before I gave up. Putting them here in case I ever get back to this in time to challenge Paul Ryan personally.

This book has gone through so many editions, it is worth noting which o I tried to read this several times, beginning back when I almost convinced myself I might be able to understand (read: respect) what Republicans were thinking. I'm sorry to say that is over, at least for now. If we can lie, cheat, and steal our way to power, what difference does it make what is just?

I made some notes before I gave up. Putting them here in case I ever get back to this in time to challenge Paul Ryan personally.

This book has gone through so many editions, it is worth noting which one is referenced. Bruce Caldwell, Professor of Economics at Duke University, wrote the introduction to this 2007 edition, published, as ever, by the University of Chicago Press. It is said current Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan gives out copies of this book to his staff when they begin working for him The staff must discuss the book in small groups like bible study because—I guaran-f-ing-tee you—a young and busy staff in D.C. will not know what the heck Hayek is talking about, much less apply it to the U.S. economy in the context of the world.

The ideas in this book began as a memo to the director of the London School of Economics in the 1930s, which then became a magazine article, and then, during WWII, became a monograph of its own. When it was published in the United States—was it 1944?—it became a surprise popular hit, though hated by the intelligensia.

I skimmed the book only. Words like “freedom” are bandied about with great earnestness—freedom from coercion—and I can’t believe we are still talking about this in 2017. No, I am not going to go back and fight these arguments all over again. We spent much of the twentieth century watching one insufficiently great man after another tell us they’ve got our backs.

In the end, after a lifetime of hard knocks, we find that, no, in fact, corporations took care of themselves and cared about us only insofar as we needed enough money to buy their product. We discovered that corporations really needed rules and regulations to do the right thing because they defined their responsibility more narrowly than we did. After all, they were responsible to shareholders, not customers, not citizens who give them space, water, energy, raw materials.

I’m tired of replaying this argument over and over because over and over we discover that corporations don’t actually do the right thing.

p. 20 “If you have any comprehension of my philosophy at all, you must know that one thing I stand for above all else is free trade throughout the world.”

p. 28 “A final criticism has sometimes been called the “inevitability thesis” or the “slippery slope” argument: Hayek is claimed to have said that, once a society engages in a little planning, it is doomed to end up in a totalitarian state….Any departure from the practice of free enterprise, any joke that reason and science may be applied to the direction of economic activity, any attempt at economic planning, must lead us remorselessly to serfdom…” ...more

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Sep 16, 2010 Marcus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: capitalists and socialists

Shelves: economics, non-fiction, political-philosophy

The Road to Serfdom is not an anti-government book, it's definitely not a libertarian or pro-laissez-faire capitalism or even a pro-democracy book. It's purely and simply an anti-socialism book. And, just to be clear, to Hayek, socialism primarily means central-planning. It's chapter after chapter of reasons why socialism, despite it's apparently noble goals, both will not work in the practical sense, and how it tends to lead to totalitarianism.

Hayek's arguments are level-headed and logical. He ...more

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May 21, 2012 Bookshark rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: economics, nonfiction, theory, politics, school

The historical analysis upon which this book depends amounts to nothing more than extremely poor scholarship masquerading as thoughtful contrarianism. Hayek's conflation of Nazism with Socialism merely because they have similar names in German is an example of stupidity on the level of mistaking the PATRIOT Act for patriotism or the Ministry of Peace for peacefulness. This distracting error is unfortunately the foundation of the entirety of his argument. His theory of authoritarianism consists o ...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Jason Holt rated it did not like it

Shelves: neoliberal

There is an old cartoon (found here) which summarizes the logic of this work rather perfectly. Essentially, the government gets involved in your life, they dictate how you live, then they kill you.

The notions in this text are trifling at best.

Hayek never confronts the fact that a lack of some centralized body somewhere making decisions for you does not mean an end to governance. Clearly, businesses govern. They also plan. To take this power away from a centralized and (at least ostensibly) publ ...more

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Sep 02, 2007 Howard Olsen rated it it was amazing

Finally got around to reading this libertarian/conservative classic. It's short, but deep, combining economics, politics, sociology, and a short history of Socialist thought, to create the greatest critique of the collectivist impulse that you can read. Hayek's message is blunt: despite the freedom and liberality that is western man's birthright, there is an inevitable clamor for order and equality that arises from the intellligensia and the wealthy. This clamor leads to the demand-often in the ...more

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Jun 11, 2011 sologdin rated it did not like it

Shelves: nuke-from-orbit-only-way-to-be-sure, fascists-wtf, soviet-empire

Introduced by Chicago don Milty Friedman, who assures us that “the free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy” (xi). Preach it, Brother Milt!

So-called 'collectivism' had been burying purported 'individualism,' apparently, in Padre Fred’s 1944 analysis, but was unexpectedly checked by the time of Frere Milt’s semicentennial celebratory gala binge. Fra Milt is pleased to report that Father Fred was dead wrong in his predictions that colle ...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Mel rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-of-ideas, bastards-of-business

1/2 star not simply for Hayek's preachy, condescending tone, but because this book was the catalyst for the gutting of the State by the flying monkeys of the Chicago School under Milton Friedman. From Pinochet's Chile to Thatcher's Britain to post-Soviet Russia, Hayek's callous version of individualism and "competition" gave a veneer of legitmacy to an explosion of untramelled human greed in which millions of people lost any security of income or employment whilst a few within the charmed circle ...more

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Jan 15, 2009 Jim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy, economics, top-twenty, great-books-group, favorites, capitalism, read-and-reread

This is one of the foundation books for my personal philosophy. Along with his other works, the thought of Friedrich von Hayek is basic to my own individualist world view. In this book Hayek contends that liberty is fragile, easily harmed but seldom extinguished in one fell swoop. Instead, over the years “the unforeseen but inevitable consequences of socialist planning create a state of affairs in which, if the policy is to be pursued, totalitarian forces will get the upper hand.” He asserts tha This is one of the foundation books for my personal philosophy. Along with his other works, the thought of Friedrich von Hayek is basic to my own individualist world view. In this book Hayek contends that liberty is fragile, easily harmed but seldom extinguished in one fell swoop. Instead, over the years “the unforeseen but inevitable consequences of socialist planning create a state of affairs in which, if the policy is to be pursued, totalitarian forces will get the upper hand.” He asserts that liberty has developed from an a posteriori recognition of humans’ inherent limitations – particularly the restrictions of their knowledge and reasoning. Most importantly, no planner or group of planners, however intelligent and well resourced, can possibly obtain and process the countless bits of localized and tacit information required such that a government plan meets its objectives. Only price signals emitted in an unhampered market enable harmony and efficiency to arise spontaneously from many millions of individuals’ plans. Hence government intervention in the plans of individuals, even if undertaken by men of good will, inevitably leads to loss of liberty, economic stagnation (at best) and war and impoverishment (at worst).

While much of Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom focused on correcting erroneous ideas and sloppy thinking that misled (and still mislead) many to support socialistic expansions of government power, that is not all it did. It also reiterated the case for individualism and its economic manifestation—free markets. Since convincing careful thinkers requires such an affirmative case as well as defensive debunking, the book’s diamond 75th anniversary is a propitious time to remember what only individualism provides, so that we will not continue to follow a path of “replacing what works with what sounds good,” as Thomas Sowell described it.

The essential features of…individualism…are the respect for the individual man qua man…the recognition of his own views and tastes as supreme in his own sphere…and the belief that it is desirable that men should develop their own individual gifts and bents.
The attitude of the liberal toward society is like that of the gardener who tends a plant and, in order to create the conditions most favorable to its growth, must know as much as possible about its structure and the way it functions.

The holder of coercive power should confine himself in general to creating conditions under which the knowledge and initiative of individuals are given the best scope so that they can plan most successfully. The successful use of competition as the principle of social organization precludes certain types of coercive interference with economic life. Planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not…planning which is to be substituted for competition.
It is the very complexity of the division of labor under modern conditions which makes competition the only method by which such coordination can be adequately brought about.

Nobody can consciously balance all the considerations bearing on the decisions of so many individuals…coordination can clearly be effective only by… arrangements which convey to each agent the information he must possess in order effectively to adjust his decisions to those of others…This is precisely what the price system does under competition and what no other system even promises to accomplish. The economist's plea is for a method which effects such co-ordination without the need for an omniscient dictator. Recognition of the individual as the ultimate judge of his ends…that as far as possible his own views ought to govern his actions…forms the essence of the individualist position.

What are called “social ends” are…merely identical ends of many individuals…to the achievement of which individuals are willing to contribute…Common action is thus limited to the fields where people agree on common ends. The clash between planning and democracy arises simply from the fact that the latter is an obstacle to the suppression of freedom which the direction of economic activity requires. The more the state “plans,” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.

Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life…it is the control of the means for all our ends. To believe that the power which is thus conferred on the state is merely transferred to it from others is erroneous. It is a power which is newly created and which in a competitive society nobody possesses. So long as property is divided among many owners, none of them acting independently has exclusive power to determine the income and position of particular people.

Contrast…two types of security: the limited one, which can be achieved for all, and which is therefore no privilege but a legitimate object of desire; and absolute security, which…if it is provided for some, it becomes a privilege at the expense of others. Individualism is thus an attitude of humility…the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is at the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.

Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom defended the individual—the only ultimate locus of choice, responsibility and morality—as the appropriate focus of efforts toward human improvement, at a time when failing to keep that focus threatened the entire world. That is a lesson we need to remember now as well, when many do not remember the horrors that can lead to, and so support constantly expanding government powers over its citizens. ...more

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Feb 16, 2010 Mike (the Paladin) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Review written in 2010

The temptation here will be to try and say too much. This is a short book, though it is thickly packed. I won't try to relate here what the author relates in the book. I will try to say a few words about the book and recommend it.

This is the same book that was released in England in 1944, but it is a new edition and thus has a new intro by the author. If you can get this edition I recommend it for the intro. This book was written during (near the end of)WWII and thus will b Review written in 2010

The temptation here will be to try and say too much. This is a short book, though it is thickly packed. I won't try to relate here what the author relates in the book. I will try to say a few words about the book and recommend it.

This is the same book that was released in England in 1944, but it is a new edition and thus has a new intro by the author. If you can get this edition I recommend it for the intro. This book was written during (near the end of)WWII and thus will be in some ways a bit dated. This is not in all ways a bad thing. The author expresses an opinion that the central idea argued against in this book is no longer the main threat to "liberty" or "freedom". This he states as "hot socialism". It might also be called overt socialism. He feels this has been superseded by more subtle forms. I think however this is not totally so. I also think that if read with an open mind the reader will see in action many of the things the author warns of as possibilities. Many have now come about and are fact instead of conjecture of things to come. I'll probably mention one or two as examples below.

A main reason I recommend that you find the newer edition and read the intro is language. Words mean things and words change meaning. It must be remembered that this book is not only aimed at the English, it's aimed at citizens of England in the early and middle twentieth century. In America today the word "conservative" means to most who consider themselves conservatives the conservation of the rule of law and the individual rights laid out in the U.S. Constitution. Historically conservatism has referred to the preservation or conservation of the special rights, powers and privileges of a ruling class. Today in Russia the word conservative means those who wish to conserve the Soviet system (a fact which appealed greatly to some news people in America who were of the politically left persuasion. At the time of and just after the fall of the Soviet Union they seemed to love referring to the Communist party in Russia as the conservatives). So, in this book when Dr. Hayek uses the word "conservative" this school of thought would actually be much closer to socialism and what he refers to as "collectivist thought" than otherwise.

By the same token the "Liberal" today in America tends to mean those who are of a socialist bent. Not so here. The author is using the word in the European, historical way, as in "nineteenth century liberal thought". Dr. Hayek wonders in his intro why Americans Libertarians have allowed the loss of this word to the political left (and indeed have actually begun using it). He believed that it was an essential word for the arguments. When in this book Dr. Hayek uses the word "liberal" and the phrase "liberal thought" the position he's referring to is much closer to American conservatism than liberalism.

There are other ideas and words that will be slightly different or even new to some. Understanding of language is very important here.

In the book's discussion of the world much that is current to WWII will be in the forefront but the ideas are still applicable. His discussion of (for example) the "rule of law" is universal. America was set up under "the rule of law". Our legislature is constrained by our Constitution as to what new laws it can pass and what actions it can take by laws and rules laid out establishing the nation and said legislature. The rule of law is in a very real sense all that stands between any people and despotic and/or totalitarian rule. (Side note, this past year an American legislator said that congress could pass any law it wished with no restriction. This past week the President of the U.S. signed a law that "at least says" the American military can detain any person without warrant, charge or attorney. No Habeas Corpus, apparently no recourse... Yesterday he made an illegal appointment claiming the Senate was in recess, yet the Senate isn't in recess. This is not the rule of law and it will be "more than interesting" to see if it's allowed. If so, we're in trouble.).

I recommend this one. While it isn't the easiest book it's not really difficult either. It simply requires a bit of thought (and willingness to think of course) and understanding of what the author is saying. ...more

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Apr 12, 2007 Jason rated it did not like it

Shelves: economics, political-theory

Hayek creates a facile equation of fascism and communism, and argues that any political or economic system that is not laissez-faire capitalism is tyranny. Hayek's seemingly deliberate misreadings of history left me unconvinced, and very uneasy with the libertarian movement, if this is to be taken as a representative text.

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Oct 03, 2011 Andrea rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: democracy, theory

Hayek is a huge figure in economics and of immense influence on neoliberalism, and reading this I was struck by just how deeply and completely neoliberalism goes as a theoretical framework. I know many would not agree with that (though many would), but Thatcher claimed him as her own and that is enough for me. There are also those conversations in the Mount Pelerin Society with Milton Friedman. It fascinates me that this resonance is true not just of the ideas, but also in the way language is us ...more

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May 11, 2010 Jonny rated it did not like it

Shelves: the-classics-of-political-economy

“We are today living out the dim echo—like light from a fading star—of a debate conducted seventy years ago by men (John Meynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek) born for the most part in the late nineteenth century. To be sure, the economic terms in which we are encouraged to think are not conventionally associated with these far-off political disagreements. And yet without an understanding of the latter, it is as though we speak a language we do not fully comprehend.”
- Tony Judt ‘What is Living and “We are today living out the dim echo—like light from a fading star—of a debate conducted seventy years ago by men (John Meynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek) born for the most part in the late nineteenth century. To be sure, the economic terms in which we are encouraged to think are not conventionally associated with these far-off political disagreements. And yet without an understanding of the latter, it is as though we speak a language we do not fully comprehend.”
- Tony Judt ‘What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy’

Having read Judt’s lecture I was inspired to pick up the Road to Serfdom because it has been so influential and the ideas expressed in it have been so persistent. Many of these concepts have influenced economic policy since the time of Regan/Thatcher and Hayek’s ideas continue to permeate economic policy discussions to this day.

Hayek’s thesis is made clear at the outset and he repeats it ad nauseam throughout the book. Perhaps he makes his arguments so forcefully because at the time of its writing (1944) the ideas expressed in this classic of “libertarianism/market liberalism” were widely seen as being discredited by the Great Depression and the subsequent collapse of all that was classically liberal in European society during the 1930s and 1940s. However, the world did not immediately move in Hayek’s direction. In the years following World War II most Western democracies adopted a great range of Social Democratic policies (progressive income taxes, generous social welfare provisions, and an attitude towards organized labor that saw them as equal partners in a tripartite structure with the state and business) that were generally accepted by the parties of both the center right and left. Hayek’s prominence rose in the 1970’s as neoliberal ideologies became ascendant. It is because of these developments that the main points of Hayek’s will be very familiar to most readers.

For Hayek, the “planner” cannot see the infinite complexities present in the economy and the social world. Therefore, the planner—even the well meaning one—rules trough a kind of authoritarian imposition which distorts the self-correcting mechanisms of the market and often has unforeseen consequences. The origins of the worst authoritarianisms (e.g., Nazism, Stalinism) can be found within all such “planning.” At the outset Hayek admits that by socialism he only means industrial state gigantism associated with the central planning in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Hayek’s point is that whatever undesirable outcomes occur as a result of market social relations—he freely admits that “inequalities of opportunity” exist in capitalist society—things turn out worse when “the state” gets involved beyond the ways in which classical political economy (e.g., Smith, Ricardo) suggests. The state needs to establish a framework in which markets can flourish, but all central economic “planning”—whether done by democrats or dictators leads to “serfdom.” To be fair, in the preface to the 1976 edition he clearly states that he never argues that “any movement in the direction socialism is bound to lead towards totalitarianism” (xxi) although it has unforeseen consequences.

Hayek is uninterested in examining malfunctions and the potential authoritarianism in markets themselves—they exist as a mystically perfect entity. It goes without saying that the realm of liberal freedom ends at the factory’s entrance. As Marx famously quipped, there will be “no admittance except on business.” Apparently, the private tyranny of a boss over their employee is of no concern. Although Hayek and Keynes are often popularly presented as antagonists, Keynes’s identification of the concept of “lack of effective demand” and his examinations of what happens when markets suffer from such deflationary spirals seems much more interested in examining the potential problems with markets as such. Although Hayek may have examined the functioning of markets in his technical economic work, it is notable that in The Road to Serfdom—his most widely cited text—the actual workings of markets are not examined in any detail. At several points in the text Hayek concedes that it is important that people do not starve, otherwise the state has no obligation to attend to the welfare of the less fortunate because to do so would involve the imposition of one universal moral code on the whole of society.
Additionally, I read in Hayek only a lukewarm endorsement of democracy. Hayek claims that “democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom” (p. 70). This is the individual freedom is that found in the marketplace. This explains why Hayek’s disciples such as Milton Friedman could support Augusto Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s. Hayek seems willing to countenance democracy so long as it facilitates the accumulation of private wealth, which for him is the true essence of freedom. The Road to Serfdom is ultimately an extended argument against what Hayek identifies as “collectivism.” Unfortunately, many political discussions have been unable to move beyond this simplistic collectivist/individualist dichotomy. To me, a true democrat sees that the participation of the individual in a collective public sphere constitutes the lifeblood of democratic processes.

Perhaps it is a testament to the contemporary power of neoliberal ideology that when discussing the basic duties of society to make sure that people don’t suffer too much privation he uses rhetoric that would not be out of place in speech given by Tony Blair or Barack Obama. In many respects, we have been living in a world constructed by policy makers under Hayek’s influence. The continual deregulation of the financial markets in the US that caused the 2008 crash in the past 30 years has created an massive amounts of wealth for a tiny sliver on the top of the income bracket while the real wages (adjusted for inflation) of most Americans remained flat even during the boom years. Bizarrely, no matter how spectacular the failures of these policies Hayek’s disciples claim that the problems that resulted from these crises arose from a failure to implement these policies more fully. The failure of their neoliberal utopia to emerge only means they need to push harder for its realization. However much I disagree with Hayek’s thesis, he presents it in a measured and articulate manner that shares none of the hyperbole of much of the current US libertarian movement. I think that if Hayek were alive today he would at least be reasonable enough to see that the Obama administration is a far cry from some authoritarian communist machine hell bent on crushing the system of free enterprise.
...more

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May 02, 2016 Hamidur rated it did not like it

Shelves: non-fiction, politics-economics

Edit: August 2018

My politics has changed somewhat in the couple of years since I wrote the review below. I was somewhat of an anarchist at that time and my position on state control and centralization were pretty much aligned with the book's argument except it came from a socialist perspective. I've changed my position drastically on how centralized or state controlled a socialist state should be but left the review unchanged since it doesn't fundamentally alter my position on the book.

-------- Edit: August 2018

My politics has changed somewhat in the couple of years since I wrote the review below. I was somewhat of an anarchist at that time and my position on state control and centralization were pretty much aligned with the book's argument except it came from a socialist perspective. I've changed my position drastically on how centralized or state controlled a socialist state should be but left the review unchanged since it doesn't fundamentally alter my position on the book.

------------------------------------------
I've recently started reading economics books by liberal/neo-liberal/libertarian-capitalist writers to better understand their points. But I'm finding them not much superior than the arguments I come across from "anarcho"-capitalists and right wing libertarians on the internet.

For one thing, Hayek lumps the Nazis with socialists and communists because they're all "collectivists." Never mind the fact that fascists speak about "class collaboration" when socialists are interested in the class struggle in society. Never mind the fact that one of fascism's central tenet is nationalism and socialism/communism/anarchism are vehemently anti-nationalist ideologies. Never mind how Hitler arrested 11,000 socialists for "illegal socialist activities" in 1936 or how he had special concentration camps just for leftists. Never mind this from Hitler's book where he very clearly says that his intention was only to crush the Left while appropriating their symbols:

We chose red for our posters after particular and careful deliberation, our intention being to irritate the Left, so as to arouse their attention and tempt them to come to our meetings—if only in order to break them up—so that in this way we got a chance of talking to the people— Hitler, Mein Kempf

Facts and history getting in the way of the narrative wouldn't be great for Mr. Hayek, would it? No, this is the same kind of tactic that was used by Friedman in Capitalism and Freedom and it's the same tactic used by neo-feudalist, free market ideologues today: set up a false dichotomy between the free market and a totalitarian state, knock over state control, and claim you've won the argument against evil socialism. The fact that there are socialists who want the workers controlling the means of production rather than the state is not even glanced at because then it becomes difficult to make simplistic, tired arguments.

I'm also amused by how easily these economists make bombastic claims such that the free market is the only way for individuals to be free, without bothering to go into any of those pesky—and rather philosohical—details about what economic freedom really means. Is it simply the freedom to choose which master one works for today? Or is it the freedom for the worker to have autonomy and engage in voluntary associations with his workers rather than be part of a top down, hierarchical structure that is the capitalist workplace?

Another important theme of the book is Hayek railing against central planning. I couldn't help but wonder whether he was aware that one argument leftists make against capitalist workplaces is that they're simply the state writ small, existing as extremely centralized, hierarchical structures with no democratic control. I'll copy what the Anarchist Library wrote on this because it captures the essence of the argument perfectly:

... private property is the state writ small, with the property owner acting as the “sovereign lord” over their property, and so the absolute king of those who use it. As in any monarchy, the worker is the subject of the capitalist, having to follow their orders, laws and decisions while on their property. This, obviously, is the total denial of liberty (and dignity, we may note, as it is degrading to have to follow orders). And so private property (capitalism) necessarily excludes participation, influence, and control by those who use, but do not own, the means of life.

I don't see much difference between this tyranny and tyranny of the state. The only major difference is that one is free to leave and find himself another job. But for the vast majority of the workers, working for a boss is the fate since the system demands a class of workers. One or two individuals might find a better job and might even become a boss themselves but it's not possible for everyone to become a boss. So what freedom is it if you get to choose which master you serve today? Surely, having the freedom to choose one lord over another wouldn't have been that big of a deal to a feudal peasant.

Philosophically void, should be read only to understand that the ideology of libertarian-capitalism/liberalism stands on but a shaky foundation, supported by pseudo-intellectual nonsense from the modern day preachers of capitalism. ...more

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Aug 29, 2014 C. Scott rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Ah, finished at last. This was a bit of a hate-read for me, but I was surprised that I didn't hate it with quite the intensity I expected.

I was able to appreciate Hayek's arguments against full-scale government planning as predicting a lot of what went wrong with the Soviet Union. Still, I am unmoved by his slippery slope argument that any socialist policies inevitably lead to totalitarian government. Give me a break.

Also, this notion that Nazi Germany came about because of socialist policies ad ...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-wouldn-t-mind-owning, favorites, jurisprudence, classics, mind-blown, mr-baer-reccomended, audio, afp

There is something a little awe-inspiring about reading a book and realizing how much of your personal philosophy and intellectual heritage you owe to it. I got the same feeling the first time I read Two Treatises of Government. When I consider the impact this book has had on my life and work, it amazes me it took me this long to read it.
This should be required reading alongside 1984. It conveys the problems of socialism and yet eerily resembles a conversation we could be having today.
Thought- ...more

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Jun 24, 2009 Douglas Wilson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics

What a fine book. What a timely book. Those who want to understand Obamonomics need to read this. Those who have read it already should probably read it again. The political world is divided into two main groups -- those who think controlling everything from the center is a good idea and those who do not. Each side of that divide has its variations, but those are the basic options. Those on the fascist side (control) have the hard totalitarians and the soft totalitarians, but that is basically a ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Aniruddha rated it did not like it

The Road to Serfdom is a book that has divided the post-war divided world. In developed countries that practice capitalism, Hayek's book created a stir although his influence was a shadow of the effect Keynes had on countries. No body said 'I'm an Hayekian now'. Hayek barely finds a place in my economics textbook. This book told me why he was never respected in his life.

With all respect to Hayek and his intellect, this book falls short of being the ultimate attack on socialism it set out to be. ...more

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Apr 09, 2019 Laila Kanon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-non-fiction

Audio-format
This is not an easy thesis to digest but I more or less understood the main arguments and I agree with the author analysis. What so sobering in reflection of the arguments in this book is the realization as to how little we learn from history that socialism is only good in theory but in practice it bring nothing but misery to humanity and it would takes decades to recover from it, if any. Democracy isn't perfect but only in this system of governance that humanity able to thrive and p ...more

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Nov 14, 2016 David M marked it as to-read

Shelves: origins-of-the-present-crisis, know-your-enemies

(going to make an exception to my only-radicals rule. It's always important to know your enemies. It comes recommended by Perry Anderson.)

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Apr 29, 2020 Connor rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This was utter garbage. This was the lowest point of intellectual history; it combined selfish morals with so-called 'logic' and used distorted arguments to justify libertarian capitalism that whenever tried has led to starvation and the deaths of thousands. What is clear from his writings is that Hayek was a dick. He was even worse than his successor Milton Friedman and that is saying a lot! All these so-called libertarian economists prove by their stupid books and arguments is that they just w ...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Amy Sturgis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: political-thought, 20th-century

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was both prophetic and influential in its day, and its message is as timely now as it ever was. He offers a compelling warning that the collectivism required for centralized planning is incompatible with democracy and the individualism on which it's built. In so doing, he provides key insights into economic concepts rarely discussed or understood today in mainstream conversations, such as how the price system works as a means of conveying information, how the rule of ...more

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Dec 16, 2007 Chris Wells rated it really liked it

If "compassionate conservatism" means anything, than it surely means something like this. Hayek's thought no longer qualifies as hardcore libertarian because he believed in government welfare programs, albeit limited ones, as supplementary to the free market system for those unable to participate in it. Central planning was what he was really against, and he has a very convincing argument against putting economic planning in the hands of any government, no matter how benevolent it may seem to be ...more

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Jun 18, 2017 George Mazurek) rated it it was amazing

A must read for every liberal, socialist or communist ;-)

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Aug 04, 2010 Jud Barry rated it it was ok · review of another edition

OK, I'll admit that I finally broke down and read this book because of Glenn Beck. I've heard about this book for so long from conservatives who say that it shows how contemporary liberalism is Hayek's "road to serfdom."

Balderdash. If you read this book, you'll see that Hayek wrote at the end of World War II to warn about the dangers of centralized, planned economies, as opposed to economies based on competition. That's it.

Hayek is not against "big government." In fact, he says a lot about the t ...more

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Apr 16, 2020 Alicia rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Alicia by: Ben Shapiro

Wow! This book from 1944 is a great discussion of the relationship between individual liberty and government authority. Anyone who is enamored with Bernie Sanders and collectivism needs to read this book. Actually, everyone should read this prophetic book. I wish I could hear what Hayek would say about Chairman Mao and communist China.

Quotes worth remembering:

A former member of the Labour party said, “from the point of view of fundamental human liberties there is little to choose between commun ...more

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Mar 31, 2011 William rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics-classical

Hayek, an Austrian who moved to Britain in the 1930s, sounded as clear a set of warnings for Britain and America in 1944 against the dangers of creeping socialism as Alexis de Tocqueville had done for France and America 100 years previously. Hayek saw the danger for Britain contained in the Fabian socialism of H.G. Wells et al. based on how the welfare programs begun in Germany under Bismarck led to the disaster of "National Socialism" under Hitler.

De Toqueville had seen the same trends in Franc ...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Bryana Joy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It took me many months to finish reading Hayek’s classic work on economics and totalitarianism. It certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, but I consider it well worth the effort. Writing during World War II, Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek explores the sinister ramifications of centralized “planning” in the economic sphere and delves into the nature of socialism. He explains why socialized systems are dishonest and totalitarian in nature and warns of a creeping acceptance of collectivist thi ...more

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About Friedrich A. Hayek

Friedrich A. Hayek

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Friedrich August von Hayek CH was an Austrian and British economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought. He is considered by some to be one of the most important economists and political philosophers of the twentieth century. Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate signals which enable indivi ...more

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“Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another. In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved. It certainly does not justify the presumption of any group of people to claim the right to determine what people ought to think or believe.” — 64 likes

“It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now--independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one's own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one's neighbors--are essentially those on which the of an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it already has destroyed then it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to what is collectively decided to be good.” — 49 likes

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