Question

What is The Road to Serfdom is all about by Hayek?

Answer 1

The history of liberal thought. It was especially responsible for initiating an significant discussion on the relationship between political and economic freedom. It turned the author into an intellectual of world renown. It set a new paradigm on what it means to be an intellectual dissident. It cautioned against a new form of despotism promulgated in the name of emancipation. And although it appeared in 1944, it still has a marked influence. Without learning its teachings, no one should find himself well-schooled in modern political ideas.

What F.A. Hayek saw, and what most of his contemporaries ignored, was that any step away from the free market and towards government policy usually reflected a compromise of human liberty and a step towards a sort of dictatorship — and that is true in all times and places. He illustrated this against any argument that regulation of government was really just a way of growing social welfare. Hayek said preparation by government would make society less livingable, more violent, more despotic. Socialism in all its ways is against liberty.

Nazism, in nature, is no different from Communism. At home, if under a different guise, the very forms of government that England and America were supposedly fighting abroad were being enacted. Further steps along this path, he said, can only end in the abolition of successful freedom for all. Capitalism,, is the only economic structure consistent with human dignity, wealth, and democracy. We empower the worst people in society to manage what they don't understand, to the extent that we move away from that system.

Misesians may be disappointed that Hayek did not go far enough in the course of his argument and made too many compromises. Even so, anyone who loves freedom can not but feel a sense of gratitude that this book exists and continues to be an important part of today's debate.