[facedown]

An exceptional book, though not exactly light reading.

[festus]

This book is a must read IMHO. It puts the entire economic/class/welfare question into its true perspective.

[oblomov]

Thank you for posting this. Unfortunately, it seems that we are going to learn of the grim consequences of socialist policy, the hard way.

[P.O.E.]

I'd put it on the "must" reading list, not just on the the "recommended" list.

[EGPWS]

What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.

Worth repeating.

Perhaps someday it will sink in to the masses.

[BipolarBob]

BTT I'll look for it. Thanks for posting.

[rabscuttle385]

Found the book in image form on mises.org. Scary but eerily parallel to events in our own nation. I think that we are around step 9, curiously just before "the strong man is given power" in step 10 (would that be Hillary in 2008?).

Found this quote from the book in Wikipedia: "The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule."

I didn't know about this book until this post on FR . . . now I may have to find a copy and read it.

[Old_Mil]

Sounds like an excellent read, unfortunately it will have to wait till this summer. I found the dedication...

Dedicated “To the Socialists of All Parties”

...particularly interesting and something that we should keep in mind as we move into the primary season.

[cornelis]

Hayek had an uncanny psychological insight into the political wiles of human predators. OTH, maybe that's normal for economists.

The Road to Serfdom gives eyes to the oppressed. I'd have to read it again for signs that teach us freedom.

[theBuckwheat]

A really great book. Hayek was from Austria, not England

see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

[hedgetrimmer]

The road to serfdom is paved by "free trade".

[bubman]

Great book. BTW Hayek was not english but Austrian born. Either way what he wrote is prescient today.

My conclusion on observing the left in the west really comes down not to ideology but to class. The left under their guise to 'help the disenfranchised" will invevitably pave the way to totalitarianism. all movements of liberation have offered the masses the same: liberation from tyranny, a new social order where the new man will be freed from the tyranny of servitute, history, class, race, etc.

But the 'struggle' is never ending. the war of liberation is perpetual. the left is always preparing for war and as a result those who do not support the movement are branded as enemies of the revolution and so on. Then the cycle of tyranny continues.

What the left despises is a free citizenry that left to it's own devices, will not follow the perscribed marxist plan. Thus they find refuge in institutions such as the judiciary, media and the academia just to name a few, that is at arms length of the democratic process. Offering them leverage to push through an agenda that may not be accepted in an open ballot. Abortion, gay marriage, stem-cell research and so on.

I suggest you pick up Robert Bork Slouching's Towards Gomorrah, The Theory of Moral Sentiment by Adam Smith. Anything by Locke & Voltaire just to name a few. Hayek is part of the same tangent of voices as others that warn us again and again that tyranny lurkes around the corners of history.

[true_blue_texican]

bttt

[sauropod]

It is a great book.

[spunkets]

Bump for an excellent book.

[fella]

Sounds very much like Herbert Spencer's essays from a hundred years earlier and collected by Truxtun Beale in "The Man Versus The State".

[longtermmemmory]

bump to encourage all to read this book

(we need a "booklist" bump list)

[kalee]

ping

[beckett]

The Road to Serfdom, a slim volume, masterfully outlined Hayek's major arguments against socialism. The Constitution of Liberty, written some fifteen years later, provides probably the most complete presentation of Hayek's thought on economics and politics, and is an excellent choice as the other book that must be read if only two of Hayek's works are to be chosen.

[FreedomPoster]

One of my favorites. I in particular like his comparison of Nazis and Communists. See the 3rd quote on my FReeper profile page, the 2-paragraph one.