I recently finished Hayek's Road to Serfdom. This book was complied from essays and thoughts that Hayek had encountered during the Second World War As such it can be a bit dry since he spends time refuting some popular thinkers of his day, who now have been forgotten in our day and age. Generally though Hayek wrote in response to the dangerous Ideas emanating from Germany that he felt had embedded themselves into Western thought and by extension English and American thought.

I fear I have little constructive thoughts to add to a book that is so well known, however, since when has that ever stopper a blogger? I think the most interesting facet of the book involves Hayek talking of the "Great theory horrible implementation" argument in regard to Socialism/Communism. He takes the Sacred Planner who will order everything equitable in the socialist society and shows how this takes the freedom to from the common man. Sure the common man no longer has to deal with the perceived randomness of the Market forces or the perfidies of corporate interest, but instead must deal with capricious bureaucrats who decide from on high how he or she will live.

In general you could say it is the non-fiction version of George Orwell's 1984 in that it was a reaction to the totalitarian tendencies in post world war II socialism. Whereas Orwell created and imaginary dystopia, Hayek wrote a much more conventional critique, write down to having footnotes and citations. Like Orwell, this Hayek is troubled by the similar results of the self proclaimed antitheses of Fascism and Communism, but Hayek reminds us that both these horrid systems germinated from western Utopian strains of Western civilization. Some people claim that the political spectrum is not a line but instead a circle, but with Fascism and Communism right next to each other. I suppose this is a nice to keep the traditional right left dichotomy, but it seems unduly complicated. I much prefer the Multi-Axis Model as it seems offer a more accurate view of modern ideologies than a model based up where people sat in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791.

The Good

A nice overview of the failings of a fully planned society and how it destroy individual choice and freedom. Likewise it raises the point the totalitarian tendencies found in fascism were quite popular in the Democratic West in the time around the second world war.

The Bad

the book can be quite dry, especially the last quarter when Hayek goes into detail regarding socialist thinkers, that were popular during his time, but have thankfully been consigned to the dust bin of history.