The Economist's Cookbook

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  • "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design."

    - F.A. Hayek

...what about Hayek?

Posted by The_Chef On 1:31 PM 0 comments

So as an undergrad last year in my Austrian Econ class, Dr. Tony Carilli assigned for us, among other scholarly articles, the Reader's Digest summary of Hayek's famous, or perhaps infamous depending on your views, work The Road to Serfdom. Well being the free market hound that I am, I have been reading through the actual book.

So I asked myself "are we on this road to serfdom?"

Now the answer is not something that I have at this time as I have not finished the book and dare not begin an analysis of this question until I have fully finished TRS but I wanted to note a few things that I have picked up on. I wish to address one here.

Hayek's analysis of the shift away from the radical socialists of the early 20th century to the gradual "progressives" that we see today is exactly what I see and what scares me. As Hayek states in his introduction of the 1969 printing of the book there is a feeling "toward piecemeal change."
Whether because of ignorance or active planning, we see this effect in modern American society. The drive to socialize the economic activity of the country's citizens is still quite alive and well. This includes the vaunted National healthcare plan that is coming, whether we want it or not. This, among a series of what I see as violations of the government contract which we agreed to in the Constitution, is one of the reasons that I think we are on slowly sliding into neo-socialism as I'll call it.
-Jon

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