39 thoughts on “The Road To Serfdom”

    1. Bob-1,

      The key weakness of Ayn Rand is that she saw Objectivism as All or Nothing. Many of her closest followers were banished from her presence for even sight deviations from Objectivism thought as she saw it. So that she disagreed with Dr. Hayek is not surprising.

      Its also well known she hated Libertarians even more then Marists because they only accepted part of her world view. I expect if she was still around she would be flaying Paul Ryan alive for claiming to be a follower of Objectivism while still going to Church.

      1. It was worse than that. Economists of the Austrian school would show up at her rallies and suggest ways to make her arguments more clearly.. she’d throw ’em out.

        The sad truth is that Ayn Rand really couldn’t shake her authoritarian upbringing.

    2. All people are flawed and have flawed ideas. But as Isaac Asimov would point out, there is the flawed and then there is the less flawed (he referring to scientific thought but the concept can be generalized.)

      Both Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek have shared ideas that are less flawed than the hairbrained juvenile thinking of contemporary socialists (of any flavor.)

      1. Ken,

        True and there are elements of her philosophy which are good. But it was unfortunate she was so hostile to those that questioned any part of it.

        1. Which is why their thesis, which is the same for both F. Hayak and A. Rand (that decisions belong with the individual and not the tyrants) is the issue and not their personalities.

          It would be foolish to argue from authority when there are such better options.

          1. Ken,

            Yes, but too many folks prefer to follow a “guru” rather than take the time to actually understand the real issues involved.

      2. At least the marxists actually tried to implement their system. It failed at some things and succeeded at others. They managed to defend their homeland from Nazi Empire and Imperial Japan forces which were much larger and better equipped than the Imperial Germany and Empire of Japan forces the Czars faced and lost to. Yes the Soviets managed to win what could have become a multiple front war. This was only possible because of the tremendous boost in industrial production capacity and improved educational system which started with more technical schools and eventually to more universities. You can easily see this if you read the backgrounds of Tsiolkovsky and Korolev. The combination of industrial and knowledge power enabled them to produce the highly technological weapons they needed to defend themselves against aggressors.

        Where they failed was at winning the peace after the war actually ended. Their perceived need for a continuous investment in an increasingly expensive military apparatus tied most of their resources to the defense industries. Their central planning structure failed to predict evolving consumer needs. Most of the time the regime was brutal and tyrannical as revolutions often are. I have little doubts that if that idiot Ayn Rand ever came to power her regime would be nothing but tyrannical as well.

          1. Korolev was denounced as a “wrecker”. It happened to a lot of people doing R&D which was not seen as directly conducing to immediate applications. They were considered to be wasteful bourgeois dilettantes. Korolev and his group wanted to build rocket planes. Stalin wanted conventional weapons so he could win WWII. The regime was brutal to anyone not following Stalin’s orders so Korolev was sent to do forced labor in a mine in Siberia until Tupolev got him out of there to work in his design bureau in prison camp conditions but certainly better than the mine where people dropped dead like flies all the time. The Tupolev design bureau at that time worked on the Tupolev Tu-2 and Petlyakov Pe-2 bombers. The purges were conducted just before WWII started, not in the middle of WWII. Korolev was assigned to Tupolev’s team a couple of years before Operation Barbarossa started.

            I do not think the purges were justified. There are other ways to reallocate resources other than shooting people or forcing them to work in a labor camp. However it is important to remember how things actually happened.

          3. Also, he wasn’t “paroled” until 1944, which sounds to me like he spent WWII as a prisoner. Yes, they used him as intellectual slave labor, but that hardly mitigates what happened. The labor camps are an inevitable outcome of such a system.

          4. Chris,

            Yes, the biggest mistake Hitler made was starting a war with Russia. Left on its own Stalin would have run it into the ground in a few years, or there would have been a revolt. Instead Hitler just gave Stalin an enemy to focus the country on and justify his policies as “emergency” measures. The Cold War served the same purpose which is why Stalin started it with his ever increasing provocations in Europe and Asia.

            But then this is the key weakness of dictators, they are only able to gain power by focusing their followers on fighting “an enemy”, a tactic which triggers not only the competitive instinct most folks have, but also distracts the followers from looking at their leader and their policies too closely.

  2. Suppose, in a situation somewhat like Gerald Ford’s ascendency, we suddenly ended up with a non-ideological President who wanted to quickly familiarize themselves with different ideologies. The new President’s staff insists that the President only has time for one book, but it really will be studied — the book can be The Road To Serfdom, any other book by Hayak, or any book by Ayn Rand. Which Hayak or Rand book would you want the President to read?

    1. Sorry – I meant, the President wants one book from you folks, one book from The Daily Kos folks, one book from Religious Right, etc.

      1. “Well, if it were Obama, I wouldn’t give him Atlas Shrugged — he’d just use it as an instruction manual.”

        You mean he isn’t already?

        1. No, he’s using Animal Farm.

          It’s a much shorter work. And really a -very- simple, readable book. Taken at face value.

    1. You mean bringing up the fact that some of Ayn Rand’s ideas might contradict Hayek doesn’t completely invalidate everything the man wrote? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

  4. Far from making no sense to him, it would make him hiss and hold his cape up before his face before he caught on fire.

    1. The problem there, Trent, is that, Nazis or no, Hayek, being a native German-speaker, constructs complex sentences which are difficult for the typical American, whose mother tongue is an English shallowly understood, to comprehend.

    2. I’ve read the unabridged version which led me to “The Fatal Conceit” which led me to the best of Hayek which is “The Constitution of Liberty”. I found all of them very readable and informative. I recommend them all.

  8. BTW, in the above-referenced cartoon, the written captions go by fast, so read quickly or pause it.

    1. Off topic: good to hear you’re still in the land of the living! How’s the book coming along? I tried to leave a comment on your blog, but it was closed for comments.

      1. mm,
        yes, still alive, been busy with a new TBCC engine project. The book (on Exvironmentalism) manuscript is done, and I’m having it edited. Haven’t found a publisher yet, but Rand has provided me with some good leads (thanks, Rand!). Plasma Wind blog is in stasis, but I’ll prob get back to some more postings soon, esp. as pertains to the new engine concept. Thanks for asking!

  9. Here’s a question to ponder.

    If the Austrian school of economics is so good, how come not a single one of them had the sense to move to Colorado or Arizona and start a for-profit two-year technical university called [i]The Austrian School of Economics[/i], running TV and radio ads with testimonials from former students? Don’t they have any business sense?

      1. I think Trent is Austrian or something like that.

        Anyway, Hitler was famous for making bad decisions. But Kurt Godel and Erwin Shrodinger, were two men famous for not being able to decide at all, and they were both Austrians. So, consider that.

        I read somewhere that if you read Shrodinger’s Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik, you’re like Indiana Jones, but if you read Mein Kempf, you’re like Jake and Elwood.

    2. how come not a single one of them…

      The whole point is freedom to choose. Are you suggesting that nobody with this ideology is successful? How about people that follow but do not proclaim; are they all failures?

      Failure is not just ok it is essential, unless it is a central failure that affects all which is what you want to avoid.

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