Last year I read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom for the first time. This week I've been reading it again, at odd moments. Two things come to mind. First, he nails the dangers of socialism, by whatever name it decides to appropriate for itself, liberalism, collectivism, progressivism. Second, that man was smarter than me. The second is a particularly difficult admission for me to make, as ever since I got a law degree, like all lawyers, I've been dead certain of my unique cleverness. ( I only suspected it before the degree.)
I recommend the book, particularly in these times when politics seems to look less like the art of the possible based on facts and shared objectives, and more like a simple craft of invective and accusation, based on some sort of weird tribal association and nothing more.
1 comment:
It's a great book and a good reading!
If Marx and Engels (a son of rich industrialist) wrote their political Manifesto, and Marx wrote his Capital, than Hayek's [and Orwell's] book(s) was a must in the course of the political [economy], history, and current (1944) events.
Can economical systems be named or labeled precisely according to all elements?
It's disturbing to see how consuming some forms of socialism are towards its citizens; it's a shame to observe a poverty which extreme capitalism produces.
Road to Serfdom is a great work for thinking-
"Rams march and beat drums,
Skin for the drums give rams."
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