The Road to Serfdom

The Road to Serfdom
The relentless pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegoneblogspot.com – Thursday, February 2, 2012

“Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas” Lord Action

Friedrich August von Hayek was much more than a Nobel Prize-winning economist. He was also a philosopher and a prophet. Thanks to the Heritage Foundation, I have read an abridged version of Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom.” Here are poignant excerpts from his book.

“I have spent about half my adult life in my native Austria, in close touch with German thought, and the other half in the U.S. and England. In the latter period, I have become increasingly convinced that some of the forces which destroyed freedom in Germany are also at work here…

“There were many features which were then regarded as “typically German” which are now equally familiar in America and England, and many symptoms that point to a further development in the same direction: the increasing veneration of the state, the fatalistic acceptance of “inevitable trends,” the enthusiasm for “organization” of everything (we now call it “planning”)…

“The supreme tragedy is still not seen that in Germany it was largely people of good will who, by their socialist policies, prepared the way for the forces which stand for everything they detest. Few recognize that the rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies...

“Most of the people whose views influence developments are in some measure socialists. They believe that our economic life should be “consciously planning” for the competitive system… In order to achieve their ends, the planners must create power – power over men wielded by other men – of a magnitude never before known. Their success will depend on the extent in which they achieve such power. Democracy is an obstacle to this suppression of freedom which the centralized direction of economic activity requires…

“Our generation has forgotten that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom… But when economic power is centralized as an instrument of political power it creates a degree of dependence scarcely distinguishable from slavery…

“The Road to Serfdom: “There can be no doubt that the most of those in the democracies who demand a central direction of all economic activity still believe that socialism and individual freedom can be combined. Yet socialism was early recognized by many thinkers as the gravest threat to freedom…

"Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict with socialism: “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,” he said. “Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom,” he said. “Democracy attaches all possible value to each man,” he said in 1848, “while socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude”…

George H. Kubeck – This book is a classic. It is available @$4.95. - 5 copies $15.00. Telephone orders: (800) 426-1357