Richard M. Reinsch II has a fine Law & Liberty piece on Friedrich Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom.
Still Trudging Towards Serfdom
Friedrich Hayek remarked in the original preface to the 1944 publication of The Road to Serfdom that, “This is a political book.” Hayek was an academic economist who had argued with John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s regarding his Treatise on Money, and published The Pure Theory of Capital (1941), among other earlier works. But now he had become embroiled in a tremendous debate over the nature of government planning and the dismal consequences that he believed everywhere ensued from it. The Road to Serfdom was a kind of cri de coeur, venturing into the dark nature of collectivist logic, whose purported love of new freedoms, Hayek argued, always served to justify expanding control over people, property, incomes, currencies, and career opportunities by a small sect in government who held the whip hand over their fellow citizens.
The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how easily, even in a democracy, collectivist logic can, step by step, work against the interests of voters.
In his introduction to the 2007 edition published by the University of Chicago Press, Bruce Caldwell notes that the book began as a memo by Hayek in the early 1930s to the Director of the London School of Economics, Sir William Beveridge, contesting Beveridge’s well-worn claim that fascism was the dying gasp of a failed capitalist system reacting against socialism. Fascism, Hayek argues, was just socialism in an embedded nationalist framework, embracing statist outcomes through the methods of socialist technique. The capitalists, such as they existed in fascism, were either vanquished or under the direction of the state for its purposes. Hayek’s memo grew into an article in 1938, titled “Freedom and the Economic System,” and then into this book that landed with an unsettling thud on the reading public in both Britain and America in 1944.
While The Road to Serfdom was not an academic text, it was an attempt to state clearly, and with great certainty, that Britain’s leadership class—in its love for planning—was steering the nation in the same direction as Nazi Germany or fascist Italy. To be sure, Hayek argues, Britain in no way resembled or was close to approaching the homicidal mania of Nazi Germany. Yet an intellectual process favoring socialism and planning had been manifest in Britain since he arrived as an émigré in 1931. Once principles are accepted as norms for policy, then their logic begins to run very quickly in official state operations. He who says A must say B.
In his introduction to the 2007 edition published by the University of Chicago Press, Bruce Caldwell notes that the book began as a memo by Hayek in the early 1930s to the Director of the London School of Economics, Sir William Beveridge, contesting Beveridge’s well-worn claim that fascism was the dying gasp of a failed capitalist system reacting against socialism. Fascism, Hayek argues, was just socialism in an embedded nationalist framework, embracing statist outcomes through the methods of socialist technique. The capitalists, such as they existed in fascism, were either vanquished or under the direction of the state for its purposes. Hayek’s memo grew into an article in 1938, titled “Freedom and the Economic System,” and then into this book that landed with an unsettling thud on the reading public in both Britain and America in 1944.
While The Road to Serfdom was not an academic text, it was an attempt to state clearly, and with great certainty, that Britain’s leadership class—in its love for planning—was steering the nation in the same direction as Nazi Germany or fascist Italy. To be sure, Hayek argues, Britain in no way resembled or was close to approaching the homicidal mania of Nazi Germany. Yet an intellectual process favoring socialism and planning had been manifest in Britain since he arrived as an émigré in 1931. Once principles are accepted as norms for policy, then their logic begins to run very quickly in official state operations. He who says A must say B.
6 comments:
There's an interesting article here https://dailysceptic.org/2024/02/16/keir-starmers-coming-revolution-is-more-radical-than-his-opponents-realise/ that suggests that 'Starmerism' (...Britain’s leadership class—in its love for planning—was steering the nation in the same direction as Nazi Germany or fascist Italy.)
Like Toy Blair, Starmer's Rachet means that once authority is given away to miscellaneous judges and bodies it won't be given back. Bonfire of the QUANGOs anyone?
And look how right he was. From the mass immigration, restructuring of the education sector, town and urban planning, health & safety regulation, health provision, welfare provision, justice and court system, the list goes on and on highlighting the mess our collectivist planners have made of everything they have interfered with since the war.
To my shame and regret, I never read him at University. I saw references to him in the books I was asked to read (always as the bad guy) and to have expressed admiration for him would, in 1975, have meant campus ostracism. All of which kind of makes his point.
As does virtually everything else that we see in the news these days.
Maybe I can catch up. Another one for the reading list.
DJ - an interesting article, partly because not many Labour voters are likely to see Starmer in that way. He'll be constrained by many things including those on the benches behind him, but a big one is likely to be his reliance on a complex web of incompetent official bodies with incompetently formulated remits.
Tammly - yes he was spot on. Planning and spending without personal consequences and without much in the way of incentives to do better. A slowly unfolding disaster which now seems to be speeding up.
Sam - the book is worth reading although the gist of it is easily assimilated via general reading, such as this article. I've read it, but don't remember much apart from what is presented here.
“Like Toy Blair, Starmer's Rachet means that once authority is given away to miscellaneous judges and bodies it won't be given back. Bonfire of the QUANGOs anyone?”
Yes.
James - can't see it happening but it's an aspiration we should keep repeating.
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