[Loud Mime]

Hayek’s writings are very educational, and depressing when you realize he is warning us of present day politics.

[cripplecreek]

Our generation has forgotten that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves. When all the means of production are vested in a single hand, whether it be nominally that of ‘society’ as a whole or that of a dictator, whoever exercises this control has complete power over us. In the hands of private individuals, what is called economic power can be an instrument of coercion, but it is never control over the whole life of a person. But when economic power is centralized as an instrument of political power it creates a degree of dependence scarcely distinguishable from slavery …

[Skepolitic]

Since about August 2008 we’ve been on the road to serfdom described by Hayek. I recall that, about a year and a half ago, I told a group of friends that you don’t really need to read the newspaper. The individual news items might be unique and interesting, but their pattern is already reasoned out and predicted by Hayek. And it was George Bush who took Serfdom exit. Obama took a left turn on Serfdom Road and hit the gas.