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Summary: By the ignorant, for the ignorant
Review: The cretinous and almost wholly fallacious drivel spouted by Hayek in this crypto-fascist piece of vicious propaganda is only matched by the rancid spewings that stain this reviews page. Hayek cares and knows as much about liberty as Adolf Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet and all the other murderous friends of the capitalist class, to whose collective member Hayek's salivating and lice-ridden lips remain firmly clasped. This is a dismal and pernicious book which any sane mind would simply ignore. I only deign to commment on it because of the malign influence it has on our troubled world. Self-evidently, its central theses are palpably and obviously utter nonsense. The way in which they are repeated by contributors to this reviews page fills me with both rage and a deep pity. Let's take three of them. First, any attempt at economic planning will result in the whole economy being planed. Fact: most contemporary capitalist economies plan substantial parts of their economies, both domestic and military. Reagonomics is now officially described as a form of military Keynesianism. But still in those economies markets remain. Second, any planning will lead to totalitarianism. Ergo, the US, Britain, Japan must all be totalitarian economies. This is not a conclusion many people would accept. Third, any attempt at redistributive intervention will lead to fascism. Ergo, US and British welfare states before 1976 were fascist. What sort of nonsense is this? To believe there is any worth in it is clearly the mark of an insane mind. But there is a serious point here. The notion that liberty and capitalism are intertwined is a seriously false doctrine. I take human freedom to be the ability to make up one's mind and live one's life free from constraint. Now, where does power lie in capitalist societies? With the owners and controllers of the means of production. Where do the majority of the people in the world spend most of their lives? In work. They depend for their lives on these owners and controllers. They tell them what to do in the workplace, they have the final say in how much they are paid, they have the final say in how much they work and for how long. They can put people in situations of danger and extreme stress if they so want to. This prevents people from doing many things they would rather be doing, each day of their lives. What freedom do they have from these constraints? None. This is really a truism. But for the contributors to this page, capitalism doesn't have any constraints. And, no doubt, capitalist states do not intervene in the economies and lives of people across the globe either, bombing and mudering their populations if necessary. Capitalism is benign, friendly, wonderful and liberty-preserving. Again, I do not know if their belief is properly described as ignorance or insanity.
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Summary: Every socialist must read this book!
Review: I have been waiting for a book like this for a long time and I didn't know there would be one that was already written for half a century. Mr. Hayek dedicated this book "to The Socialists of All Parties". He couldn't have described it better. In "The Road to Serfdom" he demonstrates in detail the great utopia of the socialist thought. He thoroughly describes every flaw in the collectivist thoughts and shows how only individualism can achieve the goals stated by collectivists. In the other way, he proves that a socialist government will always promise "the road to freedom" but can only deliver "the road to serfdom". A must read!
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Summary: Old and Abstract But Amazingly Relevant
Review: While Hayek wrote this during a different era and under seemingly unique circumstances, his critique, analysis, and appraisal of collectivism is still very much relevant and compelling. Admittedly, the book is quite difficult to read, given the fact that terminology has evolved and the context has long faded. However, a reader genuinely interested in a critique of collectivism during its peak influence in the early part of the 20th century, could do no better than to engross himself in Hayek's work. Two passages in particular that struck me as incredibly insightful were: (page 235) "There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which Anglo-Saxons justly prided themselves and in which they were generally recognized to excel. The virtues these people possessed -- ... were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one's neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority. Almost all the traditions and institutions in which democratic moral genius has found its most characteristic expression, and which in turn have molded the national character and the whole moral climate of England and America, are those which the progress of collectivism and its inherently centralistic tendencies are progressively destroying."; (page 257) "Least of all shall we preserve democracy or foster its growth if all the power and most of the important decisions rest with an organization far too big for the common man to survey or comprehend."
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Summary: THE definitive argument against government
Review: A better argument against "the socialists of all parties" could not be made. In this masterpiece, Hayek lays out brilliantly and convincingly why ANY attempt to centralize decision making with government is at best a small step down "The Road to Serfdom." Hayek skewers the--even now--widespread notion that society can legislate its way to a better world. Supporters of both "the right" and "the left" can't help but see their faulty logic countered by the reasoned arguments of this book.
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Summary: This book so cool for our times
Review: I read this thing 30 years ago and was impressed but somewhat skeptical. Today I realize how powerful it is. The "Road" is PARTIAL economic planning. The "Road" leads to serfdom under the state. For there is no such thing as a PARTIAL economic plan. All partial plans have to lead to total planning and the destruction of all liberties. It is a particularly good treatise for today's liberal's who see no danger in just a little regulation and planning. It will make convert's, even though published in 1944.
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Summary: A masterpiece in the defense of individual liberty
Review: Hayek's classic demonstrates the profound dangers of the collectivist vision of a controlled society, whether it be communist, fascist, socialist, regulatory, redistributionist, or another interventionist variation. He persuasively argues that the role of government should be sharply limited to ensuring basic rules of law that maximize individual liberty and opportunity. Free persons not subject to government interference and control will self-organize market economies and social arrangements most consistent with economic advancement, human progress and freedom. A brilliant, inspiring, and extremely important contribution to understanding the essential elements of a free society.
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Summary: Excellent summary of capitalism's superiority.
Review: Drawing on sociological, historical and psychological evidence, Von Hayek summarizes the reasons why capitalism will always be more successful delivering on its promises than will socialism. He doesn't flinch from the charges of injustice and inequality that socialists level against capitalism, but answers their charges by pointing out that the charges against capitalism that they make either are not peculiar to capitalism or that these conditions would be far worse under socialism. He logically explains the attractiveness of socialism to the majority of Europe's current literati and other intellectuals; and why, without impugning the sincerity of their beliefs and concern for humanity, their hopes and trust in the ability of socialism to create a better and brighter world for the people's of the earth is naive and premature. Von Hayek was a man ahead of his time. At a time when even "the best and the brightest" of the United States leaned heavily on solutions of Marxist origin to intractable global and national problems, Von Hayek recognized that "their cures" could only kill the patient and that any solution would have to be grounded in the recognition of the problems and limitations of human nature and its immutability. It is especially pleasurable to read this book after the fall of the Soviet Union and the failure of socialsm proved by history.
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Summary: A must read for U.S. Constitution student
Review: F.A.Hayek puts in to simple words the frustrations many of us have with what libreals believe is best for America in general and each of us in particular. I found myself in each chapter thinking "that's right", or "how clear is his warning of the distructive path America is on". Please dear God, let each of our congressman, state leaders, local government officials, and teachers discover Mr Hayek's Road to Surfdom; better yet, each of us as Americans can insist our founding fathers principals for success are followed when we go to the polls. Ron Steele Moab Utah
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Summary: this is the response to comunnist manifesto
Review: Road to Serfdom is , no question about, the most impostant book against all forms of totaliarianism. Is the response to the "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx.The book is dedicated to "socialist of all parties" and that's exactly the kind of people who should read it, no matter if they are socialists, communists, fascists, social democrats or wathever. Hayek puts them on the same league: the enemies of open society, as his friend Sir Karl Popper said.
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Summary: The most underrated book of the 20th Century
Review: Few people are aware of The Road to Serfdom. As a result, the same errors have been repeated over and over again. Each socialist party claims that it has finally got it right. Read Hayek and you will realize that socialists can never get it right. Hayek saw beyond the empty rhetoric that is thrown in our faces again and again by politicians who have no idea of how to implement their utopian fantasies. The Road to Serfdom is a book in defense of freedom, and to this day has not only never been refuted, but no attempt has been made to refute Hayek's carefully laid out argument. Read it with an open mind and you will see his logic is dead on.
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