Would anyone like to share their thoughts on The Road To Serfdom?
Sorry if this topic has come up in the past, I did a search but I didn't find much.
To be honest, I actually got bored about halfway through. Have you read it yet?
I haven't read it in a while so my memory may be pretty foggy. There were some interesting insights into Nazism and Communism that I recall and how the ideology spread from the universities to others as well as some essays about state power. I also recall Hayek's advertisement of a welfare state despite having spent the first few hundred pages about the horrors of centralized government. I then learned that Hayek is seen by Austrians as more of a Social Democrat than a libertarian. There's still a lot of valuable insights from the text. I'd recommend it.
If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH
I made the mistake(?) of reading Block's critique (PDF) of Hayek and that book before I got to the book itself. Completely lost interest in it (as well as Hayek himself kinda) after that.
You can follow a discussion I had about it starting here.
Yes, I read it two years ago. Most of it went over my head and the rest wasn't very relevant to my political beliefs or to the political beliefs I was encountering in day to day life, since very few people are proper socialists anymore.
I was thinking of lending it to a friend who is a proper "total equality through state control of industry" socialist (despite the fact he has never, to my knowledge, read Marx or any other state socialist thinker) because I thought it might challenge his world view without hitting him with the "let's privatise the police force!" stuff. I just wanted to refresh my memory of the book before I gave it a shot.
Is your purpose to convert him or to broaden his perspective? Economics in One Lesson might be a better means to broaden his worldview.
I actually read this awhile ago, but skimmed through it recently. I do agree with GotLucky that it was pretty boring. Nevertheless, there are some important takeaways.
In particular, I found quite interesting the point Hayek makes in one of the early chapters, that, in its early days, socialism was understood to be unequivocally authoritarian. In fact, its pioneers and early proponents were sympathetic to it precisely because they recognized it as a means of squelching the burgeoning ideas of liberalism. It was only received favorably after a ton of propagandizing it as the means to "economic freedom", allowing its supporters to claim the moral high ground. After that, anyone who wasn't in favor of socialist policies could easily be painted as selfish. This is exactly what we're seeing today: statists have to increasingly intensify the propaganda campaign every day. If they relent, wealth redistribution, the keystone of socialism, may be (correctly) viewed as profoundly immoral and totally unjustifiable.
And, as already pointed out, Hayek's ambivalent feelings toward central planning pervade the book. He warns of its evils, yet constantly advocates a mixed economy - the groundwork for the very system he's worried will emerge.
Hayek simply does not have the conceptual clarity that Mises had. My perception based on what I've read of Hayek is that he was wrapped up in being perceived as an academic by his peers - I'm familiar with this phenomenon in other fields and a propensity to always qualify every statement on the basis of vaguely hinted "advanced considerations" is symptomatic of this. Of course, it is not the calling of every academic to elucidate and systematize but some academics fall into this bad habit of obfuscating everything they say in the most arcane jargon of their specialization, which I view as symptomatic of perpetually confused thinking.
Clayton -
Gman1944:anyone who wasn't in favor of socialist policies could easily be painted as selfish. This is exactly what we're seeing today: statists have to increasingly intensify the propaganda campaign every day. If they relent, wealth redistribution, the keystone of socialism, may be (correctly) viewed as profoundly immoral and totally unjustifiable.
I like the way Joseph Sobran puts it in the Liberty and Economics bio documentary of Mises:
"There's a three word lexicon that explains the tax economy: 'need, greed, and compassion.' 'Need' now means wanting someone else's money, 'greed' means wanting to keep your own, and 'compassion' is the sentiment of the politician who wants to arrange the transfer."
As Block says in his essay: "in making the case against socialism, Hayek was led into making all sort of compromises with what otherwise appeared to be his own philosophical perspective – so much so, that if a system was erected on the basis of them, it would not differ too sharply from what this author explicitly opposed."
John James:As Block says in his essay: "in making the case against socialism, Hayek was led into making all sort of compromises with what otherwise appeared to be his own philosophical perspective – so much so, that if a system was erected on the basis of them, it would not differ too sharply from what this author explicitly opposed."
Bingo!
As a Hayekian I would say its great if a little to generous to the people he was trying to persuade. But understandable under the circumstances. In the same way that the calculation argument is not a libertarian argument nor is The Road to Serfdom. I think they can be seen as two sides of the same coin.
@Gman1944 ''Hayek's ambivalent feelings toward central planning'' Hayek is not at all ambivalent towards central planning. Central planning has a quite specific use in economics. It is the top down detailed control of economic life by a group of experts. Treating society like a train set or puzzle to be solved. Hayeks concessions are not just ad hoc. They are in principle compatible with a competitive order while economic planning & redistribution is not. In the link below the message is pounded home pretty clearly - planning for competition good, planning to replace competition bad.
While I am here I will take the chance to promote my latest youtube upload
Basically a fictionalised Hayek explaining to a group of Americans why planning for full employment & government planing in general is a bad idea.
Yes, I suppose you are right. I will bring it up next time the topic arises. Thanks for the help, everyone.
Faustus:@Gman1944 ''Hayek's ambivalent feelings toward central planning'' Hayek is not at all ambivalent towards central planning. Central planning has a quite specific use in economics. It is the top down detailed control of economic life by a group of experts. Treating society like a train set or puzzle to be solved. Hayeks concessions are not just ad hoc. They are in principle compatible with a competitive order while economic planning & redistribution is not. In the link below the message is pounded home pretty clearly - planning for competition good, planning to replace competition bad.
Ya, when you put it like that it's clear I was imprecise.
All the same, Hayek's prescriptions for government intervention, while subtle and likely well-intentioned, betray the thesis of the book. He's attempting to make clear that socialism doesn't just lead to tyranny, it is tyranny; and that if it's proponents understood its implications they'd recoil in horror. Yet he doesn't understand the implications of a "mixed" economy - namely, that there is no such thing. Intervention breeds more intervention, and so a "mixed economy" is essentially one in which the market's role becomes increasingly diluted, and the role of the state greater and greater. It leads to increasingly centralized government power, and creates the very behemoth he's trying to warn against.
I will say two things on Hayek's behalf - first of all, I think his theory is more "realistic" in a way that Rothbardian theory is not. Rothbard is just too removed from the social facts as they are to be relevant to present questions of social order. Second, it is conceivable that there is a "natural order" role for something that could be called "government" - a society consisting of city-states funded by property taxes, for example, could conceivably be extremely laissez-faire. Minarchists are not necessarily as misguided as one might first think. The problem is with identifying "-archy" with the modern behemoths (USG, UN, UK, EU, etc.) that dominate our lives and our paychecks.
I am currently reading it. It has some good points but I also feel like Hayek keeps saying the same things over and over.