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Summary: Pick your route...
Comment: This is an important book. But there is a tendency to place it on some kind of pedestal, as some kind of timeless classic and I think that is not correct. It really should be placed in it's historical context.
It was published in 1944. Orwell's 'Animal Farm' was first published in 1945, and '1984' published in 1949. Huxley's 'Brave New World' was published in 1932.
So, Hayek was writing in the middle of the Second World War, a war between Stalinism, Nazism and Western liberal democracy . 'The Road to Serfdom' is one of many contributions to a debate that was taking place in Britain at the time about the usefulness of state economic planning - and the feeling that if the State can be so effectively organised during war time, surely such effective planning could be developed towards peacetime ends.
Hayek shows pretty convincingly, to my mind, that the roots of totalitarian or collectivist societies are all the same - Socialism is, ultimately, as bad as Nazism in that it places the rights of the State ahead of the rights of the Individual. However chaotic a free association of individuals may be, it can never be as oppressive as any form of collectivism.
The key to control is, of course, economic. State control of the economy will stifle free enterprise. A free enterprise based system will always be more creative, more dynamic and more capable of progress in any form than a collectivist system.
After the Second World War, Hayek's theories did not immediately hold sway and we saw a period of relatively stable and equitable economic development. However, when there was a return to more extreme laissez-faire ideals (1980s), we again see the gap between rich and poor opening up - not only between nations but within nations as well.
Laissez-faire economics (I am not an economist - this is purely from what I see around me) will always favour the rich (i.e. those with capital).
Internationally, the rich countries claim that 'laissez-faire' is the only acceptable form of economic development and force poorer countries to remove trade barriers. The rich countries then come in, undercut local initiatives, take whatever they want and then leave (see, for example, 'Globalization and Its Discontents', 'The Shock Doctrine', 'The New Rulers of the World' etc).
Nationally, the gap between rich and poor in America (for example) is now as huge as it was before the Great Depression (see 'The Wrecking Crew' by Thomas Frank). The middle classes, the most entrepreneurial class, is being increasingly squeezed as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
It seems, at times, that we are seeing the Road to Serfdom by a different route - a return to some kind of feudalism, where most of us will, indeed, be serfs.
Hayek is still really important in exposing the roots of totalitarian states and the inevitable consequences of collectivist control of the economy and the danger to the individual. However, Hayek is by no means unique in this (see Orwell - who described himself as a 'Democratic Socialist' - amongst many).
But besides the dangers inherent in a collectivist totalitarianism, there are clearly also huge dangers when laissez-faire liberalism is taken to an extreme degree. It will ultimately favour a very small number of individuals at the expense of the many. You simply end up with a different form of totalitarianism.
We don't need an even more powerful American plutocracy to see that, as Thomas Frank points out ('The Wrecking Crew'), extreme laissez-faire is ultimately toxic to democracy.
It seems to me that Hayek's analysis of totalitarianism may be right, but his predictions and his alternatives are not. It is still a really important book.
As for the Russian oligarchs mooring their yachts off Corfu...
(P.S. For an interesting extreme laissez-faire dystopian novel, see 'The Space Merchants' by Frederick Pohl and C M Kornbluth).
Customer Rating:
Summary: A cobbler should stick to his last
Comment: This book usually comes highly recommended. A 'classic' by a Nobel prize winner. Hayek was in fact an economist, but for the purposes of this book he assumed a political commentator's stance. His thesis is that Socialism is slavery, that the fascist Right and the fascist Left are two sides of the same coin, and that where there is dirty work to be done, dirty men will come forward to do it. Now you might say that's a no-brainer and wonder how it merits the 'classic' tag. Well you won't find the answer in the book. Overblown and in places pompous, you could be forgiven for thinking the author was being paid by the line. What is it with academics that one word won't do when four or five can be squeezed out instead? Perhaps they think verbosity succours the thesis. First published in 1944 and still going strong, The Road to Serfdom suffers primarily from being blinded by the times it was written in, and the way the world has changed since. Socialism is indeed slavery, but if Hayek had stuck to being an economist he might have foreseen the last gasp of the gold standard, the rise of globalism, fiat money, and fractional reserve banking. For debt is also slavery with the neat twist that the debtor usually can't wait to sign himself into bondage. The first step on the road to serfdom was simply the abolition of hard-asset backed currencies - after that, it was downhill all the way.
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Summary: An interesting read, at least from a historical perpsective
Comment: I read this in conjunction with a number of "pro-socialism" books. While I disagreed with much of what Hayek had to say here it was nevertheless an interesting read, and an insight into right-wing economic thinking.
The basic premise of the book is to assert a necessary relationship between socialism and totalitarianism. Obviously the necessity of this link has subsequently been disproven by cases such as Sweden. And his case against the use of propaganda within socialist society can now be equally clearly drawn against capitalist states. The basis of his case was German National Socialism (Nazism). He emphasised the socialist aspect of that regime but I felt that the nationalist aspect of it was underplayed as he tried to make his case against socialism.
He also seriously underplayed the claimed rationale for socialism and made no serious attempt to explore socialist doctrine, although his discussion about collectivism and central planning was interesting (even though such planning may not be essential to a socialist system). He made some small noise about welfare systems and such but frankly these were all but lost in the noise.
Other writers in that period such as Popper and Russell managed to reach some similar results without the overt hostility, and they on the whole were considerably more prepared to discuss hybrid systems and search for compromisal solutions to the problems raised both by pure socialism and pure unfettered capitalism. I'd recommend reading these and other authors for a more balanced thesis.
The book is at least well thought out and cohesive - much more so perhaps than the typical Macarthyist thinking that borrows its conclusion without its reasoning.
That this book was written at the tail of WW2 should not be forgotten. This book, while seriously flawed, is very much a product of a world in chaos and in a state of rapid change. It is that, moreso than its message that makes this a compelling read.
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Summary: A terrible book espousing a vile philosophy
Comment: It is my belief that this text is one of the most abhorrent in the history of political philosophy and that despite the very best intentions (a defense of liberal democracy) by Friedrich Von Hayek, is fundamentally flawed in its arguement and damaging in its impact.
The attack on totalitarian form of governments is logical and articulate, but it is when he turns to socialism that it all falls apart, to an extent I initially thought he was being satirical till the horrible truth dawned. Hayek's uncompromising libertarian views make a huge leap of logic in linking basic socialist reform, such as the establishment of the welfare state, to totalitarianism, even likening Stafford Cripps, a decent hardworking Chancellor whose sole goal was to see the realisation of the Beveridge Report, with Joseph Stalin. Of course this makes perfect sense, likening a man who slaved away to try and stamp out inequality and poverty in Britain and provide a safety net for those on the edges of society with a murdering tyrant responsible for millions of deaths.
He does not even consider the essential nature of the welfare state as a protection from those in society that are less fortunate, and that cutting back on it just to lower taxes would only benefit the rich while leaving the average hard-working man with no social security, no free healthcare and no private pension.
Then theres the chapter that he likens socialism with Nazism. True, Hitler's party was named the National Socialists, but it wasn't so, merely claimed to be to stir up working class support. Though both do promote economic planning, that is the only similarity. The ideology is completely different. Hitler was a fiersome anti-socialist who rounded up and socialists and sent them to concentration camps! He identifies Bolshevik socialism as the opposite of Nazism (talk about straight from the horses mouth). Fascism is a corporatist philosophy that views property completely differently, it assumes racial superiority and promotes imperialist empire building. Hayek's link between the two is as tenuous as you can possibly get, a clear example of Godwin's law ie the groundless comparison between Nazism and the object of your criticism to discredit it.
Of course the most evil thing about this text apart from the selfish, heartless, morally disgusting philosophy it spouts is the way it influenced the neo-liberalism of Margaret Thatcher. That's right, the tyrant whose reign was characterised by doubled unemployment, civil unrest, TWO recessions attributable to monetarism, unelected Quangos, regressive taxation, a massive widening in the rich-poor gap, the start of the credit card culture, the poll tax riots, degradations of social occupations, the destruction of british industry, the slashing of workers rights, the selling of state companies for a rediculously low price, botched privatisation of the infastructure, doubled crime and the creation of a broken, selfish society was operating following the gospel according to Hayek!
Yes, as you may have guessed, I am a socialist, but I am also a passionate defender of democracy. To me, Hayek creates a bogeyman picture of the best vehicle for equality and opportunity the world has: democratic socialism. As a result people fear this model and are driven to a selfish and damaging alternative. Hayek thinks that he is standing up for freedom and benefitting the people but he couldn't be more wrong. What use is a small state if people are unemployed and starving? what use are cheap taxes if vital institutions are controlled by greedy profiteering corporations who care less about the people than their prophet margins?
Hayek is not a Karl Popper, mouting an intelligent attack on Marxism, he is a ranting right winger who thinks he is making a blueprint for a libertarian heaven when instead he is pointing towards the hell of a broken society. Do not be fooled by his arguements, what he is promoting is a "survival of the richest and strongest" philosophy that cares not for the needy, the unemployed, the sick, the empoverished or the disadvantaged but merely for those on the top of society. Read it by all means, but do not as many do blindly accept the arguements made. It is a truly vile book.
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Summary: Ultimately disappoints
Comment: This is one of the greatest simple anti-state capitalist manifestos you will find, its punchy, its pacey, lots of utopian eulogising of what Hayek thought were much malinged and misunderstood market forces.
However for any sensible and clear sighted reader this book is bound to disappoint, Hayek treats very different ideological and political forces as essentially similar, it has the combination of promise and threat that most market populism has (market forces will deliver/market forces will strike back) and just doesnt seem to take issues like unemployment or other consequences of unmitigated market forces that seriously or treats them with a kind of unreality.
It is a book, I suspect, which will ultimately prove most pleasing to anyone searching for a pretty plain and simple world view with clear cut heroes and villains, much like its mirror opposites in some socialist and conservative literature.
However that said it is well written and deserves to receive a wide readership, in fact I would say the very socialist or (welfare) liberal circles who Hayek protrays as either villains or the fatally conceited "useful idiots" of villains could benefit from reading it, while, like myself, they are unlikely to agree.
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