Road to Serfdom: With the Intellectuals and Socialism

In "The Road to Serfdom" and "The Intellectuals and Socialism", Hayek explained the enduring appeal of socialist ideas. Socialism satisfies people’s desire to impose order on the world through central direction rather than allowing an order to develop through individuals’ autonomous choices. Socialism has particular appeal to intellectuals – the teachers, journalists and other commentators who pass comment on public policy without any special expertise on economic matters, whom Hayek termed ‘the second-hand dealers in ideas’. Once the logic of planning has become accepted throughout society, the only solution to the inevitable failure of socialism will be the imposition of a more comprehensive plan. Hence, planning leads to a process by which individual freedom is incrementally eroded – the road to serfdom. The two papers, together with the forewords and introduction, are still so relevant today as we seek a freer world, whilst surrounded by an intellectual establishment, both in the UK and EU, that is largely hostile to freedom and capitalism.

Author Biography

Friedrich August Hayek (May 1899 – March 1992), born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek and frequently known as F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian, later British, economist and philosopher best known for his defence of classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Gunnar Myrdal) for his “pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and … penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena”. Hayek was a major political thinker of the twentieth century, and his account of how changing prices communicate information which enables individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics.