So I just finished listening to the Audible version of Road to Serfdom by F.A Hayek. This is mainly a review of what the book was about and the points where I felt it was well-written versus points where I felt it could have been better. So if you’re curious about the book, stick around!
My General Opinion of Road to Serfdom
First of all, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time prior to coming across this post, you know that I am unabashedly conservative. So I already was inclined to agree with Hayek’s points in Road to Serfdom. That said, conservatives and liberals alike could benefit from giving this book a chance.
Hayek was writing during a time when liberal meant someone who was for limiting the scope of government and its actions, whether democratic or not. This was the European nineteenth century meaning and something he makes clear because, even back then, collectivist/socialist proponents were changing the meaning of the word, which made it necessary to define terms. So if you are a liberal who still believes in this in some form or another, you’ll probably find you can see common ground with Hayek on the points he makes.
The book is, on the whole, a critique of collectivism (in which Hayek included socialism, communism, and to a lesser degree it seems, the welfare state). His main focus is on socialism as that was what England was combating at the time that he was writing the book. However, his arguments against the points made by those in staunch support of socialism hit at the heart of the arguments for the more extreme forms of collectivism as well.
The author uses a combination of historical and logical arguments with some economical arguments as well. I appreciated the systematic way he broke down the points. It was much easier to follow that way, and each chapter focused on one major point that Hayek found a logical or historical issue with in the collectivist argument. This makes it incredibly easy to keep track of what the topic is and to focus on the ones you may wish to learn more about if you were inclined to use the book for a research project and only needed one area.
My general opinion was that the points were well-made, the arguments against socialism/collectivism clear and accurate, and the book itself incredibly timely for America in particular at a time when self-proclaimed socialists and communists are openly advocating these ideas in our government. It gives a very clear look at the issues with the very things being proposed but it does so without acting as if there is no basis for people thinking the system might be a good idea.
He admits openly that those who start the system either by being the leaders or by supporting them may often do so with a legitimate concern toward solving some issue they feel cannot be left to solve itself in the course of a free market/competitive society’s workings. They are, to some degree, usually seeking a form of justice for the classes they are championing. This acknowledgment that those who start the system may have the best intentions is, I think, far more balanced in approach than some other writers on the conservative side who presume that every advocate for socialism or a planned economy is automatically power hungry. Hayek’s view is level in this regard even as he criticizes the system. I appreciated that, and it is for this reason that I think that even those who disagree with conservatism could find some common ground in Road to Serfdom if they will give it a chance.
The Things I Thought Could’ve Been Better
While I do agree with all of Hayek’s general points, I do feel he could have done better in providing more concrete evidence particularly. He had more quotations and citations than may often be found in similar books today, but it seemed to me that he also oversimplified the situation in Germany, which he often points back to in supporting various points. His overall conclusions and some of his points are accurate, but the reality of the situation in Germany under Hitler was more nuanced than he makes it out to be. This seems to be a common complaint from readers based on what I heard from the foreword, afterward, and readers’ opinions that were included in the front and end matter of the audiobook.
The only other issue I had with Hayek’s Road to Serfdom is that he did little to provide for the opposite side of the argument, which he so clearly supports. While here and there he contrasts the two systems to make his points, he does not fully go into the merits of a competitive society and how it might solve the issues he sees the advocates of a planned society trying to solve through collectivist means. This is mostly because the book is meant to be an argument against collectivism, not a defense of some other system. Still, the argument for what he felt was a better alternative would have been both informative and useful. Nonetheless, the absence of such an argument in no way renders the book invalid as the book accomplishes exactly what the author set out to accomplish. As a result of the lack of an argument for some better alternative, however, I would say that this book has to be supplementary reading to other books that do cover the topic of competitive market systems in their entirety.
