!: The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2)

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Sep 02, 2010 21:46:02

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate, widespread attention. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 books were sold. In April 1945, Reader’s Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this edition to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best seller, the book has sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone and has been translated into more than twenty languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.

With this new edition, The Road to Serfdom takes its place in the series The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. The volume includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added helpful new explanatory notes. Supplemented with an appendix of related materials ranging from prepublication reports on the initial manuscript to forewords to earlier editions by John Chamberlain, Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom will be the definitive version of Friedrich Hayek's enduring masterwork.

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±1±: Best Buy This review is of the unabridged audio version, but the my feelings on the work as a whole applies to the audio and printed versions.

Hayek has been placed on a lofty perch by people that I don't think actually read or understood this book. The Road to Serfdom is one of the most logically thought out and presented arguments against planned economies I have ever heard by a long shot. Friedrich Hayek can't hide his age or German heritage with his older, turn of the century writing style, but is still accessible to anyone with a High School reading comprehension level (something in short supply these days) and a good understanding of European history. I enjoyed his unemotional, serious, and analytical approach to something that today can't be discussed without sarcastic vitriol. Being a German who later moved to England he was uniquely qualified to discuss the subject as he had first hand experience with the clash of political ideas that defined the first half of the Twentieth Century.

What I enjoyed about this book the most is that I thought it was going to be one thing but it turned out to be something very different.
1.) This isn't a book about economic theory. Hayek supposes that the reader understands the difference between free markets, controlled markets, Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. What the book is really about is the political and social conditions that go hand in hand with these theories. His assertion is that controlled, or planned, economies ultimately rely on the subverting of personal freedoms and the subjugation of liberty to work. Then he actually EXPLAINS WHY! Using history instead of hysterics he methodically lays out how even well meaning Utopian socialism can lead to totalitarian fascism.
2.) From the outset of the book the author, like Milton Friedman, defines the idea of what a "classic liberal" is. He does this, not only because "liberal" is the proper nomenclature for ideologies like Capitalism, democracy, freedom of speech, etc; but because he says, right in the Forward, that he DOESN'T LIKE CONSERVATIVES. He says he finds them backwards and too interested in "mystical" things. Later, he also defends regulation by government as necessary for creating a stable environment within which free markets can grow and succeed. More than once he objects to complete laissez faire.
3.) Unlike Milton Friedman, in Hayek's work I found an absence of the categorical distrust of government that is indicative of "conservative" literature. Hayek of course champions free market capitalism , as well as democracy and independence of thought, but in a way that avoids emotion soaked nationalism. Which seems fitting since he illustrates how easily out of control nationalism also leads to fascism.
4.) Hayek is a humble person with a great intellect that allows him to explain a subject. He doesn't badger the reader with self aggrandizing proclamations that he knows "the truth" or that his work is going to save the world from a grave calamity that is just around the corner. He is eloquent, informed, and persuasive in an educated way that makes theatrics unnecessary. Next to the merits of his arguments, I find the method of his argumentation to be just as important.

I would rank this work up there with Common Sense and the Federalist Papers as important books to read; and like the Federalist Papers or the Christian Bible as a work that is far to often referenced to by people that don't seem to have grasped the work as a whole. on Sale!