Product Description

Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11503 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
'This book has become a true classic: essential reading for everyone who is seriously interested in politics in the broadest and least partisan sense.' - Milton Friedman

'This book should be read by everybody. It is no use saying that there are a great many people who are not interested in politics; the political issue discussed by Dr Hayek concerns every single member of the community.' - The Listener

'This book has become a true classic: essential reading for everyone who is seriously interested in politics in the broadest and least partisan sense.' - Milton Friedman

'This book should be read by everybody. It is no use saying that there are a great many people who are not interested in politics; the political issue discussed by Dr Hayek concerns every single member of the community.' - The Listener

From the Back Cover
The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history. With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny. Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when The Road the Serfdom was first published.

About the Author
Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) was born in Austria. An eminent economist and political philosopher, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974.

Customer Reviews

Liberalism Redux
The thesis of this book is quite a simple one. No one person or group of people can possibly have enough knowledge to effectively run an economy. No-one is able to collect and make use of sufficient information even about the past, let alone the present. Any attempt, therefore, to plan the future is bound to fail. Hayek goes on to postulate that this failure must result in the rule of a dictator as a last desperate fallback to take command of the spiralling chaos. The experience he had in mind, of course, was Nazi Germany whose fate he saw as ineluctable from the birth of the German welfare state in the late 19th Century. The command economy signifies the submission of the individual to the dictates of the planners in whose hands is concentrated the power that was once dispersed among many industrialists. The individual is thus reduced to the condition of the serf who ends up without even the power to sell his labour to a higher bidder.

This is a defence of private property, and the responsibility of the individual for his own fate whatever it may be. It is not libertarian; it does not wish to whittle down the power of the state to a bare minimum. However, aside from the legislation of basic standards, it argues for the exclusion of centralised power from the quick of economic life and the enabling of choice even to the poorest. It is a fundamental text of what was once called liberalism, and is as relevant today as it ever was.

Secure a minimum income for everybody
This book has been heavily criticized by the left, and with reason, for it saws the legs under their table.

Hayek's book is a frontal attack on the socialist dream of a centrally planned economy, which should wipe out the cyclical swings in a free market system.
For Hayek, a centrally planned economy is a synonym for slavery.
Hayed argues rightly that the replacement of free enterprise and competition by collectivism equals he abolition of democracy.
As L. Trotzky remarks (quoted in this book): 'In a country where the sole employer is the state, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle - who does not work shall not eat - has been replaced by a new one - who does not obey shall not eat.'

A centrally planned economy creates a totalitarian system where the end justifies the means, which in other words means a denial of all morals. Moreover, the individual is not respected as a man but becomes a cog in an enormous bureaucracy, where tolerance is not tolerated.

For real liberals (like B. Russell) power has been the archevil; to the strict collectivist it is a goal in itself.
Hayek is by any means not a pure liberal, because he insists that every state should provide a system of social insurance wth a minimum income for all.

Hayek's warnings have been gravely vindicated by the gruelng inhumanity of the totalitarian regimes, created after World War II.

This is a great book about liberty and independence, truth and intellectual honesty, peace and democracy and respect for the individual qua man.
A must read.

The most important book you will read
Written in 1944, in clear, modern English, this book must be one of the all time classics. In a forensic but highly readable analysis, Hayek explains that social justice is the goal of all systems, Socialism, Liberalism etc, and that they are just different approaches as to how to achieve it. He then shows how Socialism despite its very good intentions inevitably leads to the opposite of its goal. Liberalism is seen as the only genuine method to achieve true social justice. It is one of the most rigorous deconstructions of political thought I have ever read and is worthy of a law court, yet remains hugely readable.