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petrea_mitchell) wrote2024-05-31 07:40 pm
petrea_mitchell) wrote2024-05-31 07:40 pm
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Serfdom and Freedom, part 1
I was intrigued recently by a mention of Joseph Stiglitz's The Road to Freedom, said to be a rebuttal to the neoliberal bible, Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. Intrigued enough to want to read it, except that would mean having to read The Road to Serfdom first to really know what Stiglitz was rebutting.
Well, there I was at Powell's a few days ago intending to spend down a birthday gift certificate, and I wound up picking up both. And like I did with The Wealth of Nations, I feel the need to blog my way through them so that those of you who don't want to actually read them don't have to.
The first piece of good news is that both books combined look to be shorter than The Wealth of Nations. In fact, there's even less to the Hayek than it first appears...
The copy of The Road to Serfdom that I picked up bills itself as "The Definitive Edition", including prefaces from multiple editions, munging together the US and UK text, and adding a few corrections. It begins with an editorial note describing the process, which includes:
Not a great look for a big foundational text to start out by noting that the original author played fast and loose with his sources.
Next up is an introduction by the editor, laying out the political and historical context in which the book was written and initially published. As this introduction tells it, Hayek was pushing back against a widespread fascination with the idea that economies could be scientifically planned, and the notion that the Nazis were essentially capitalists (something which appears to have grown out of the Nazi persecution of Communists).
Next, we finally hear from Hayek himself in the preface to the first edition. He starts:
Thus excusing himself from a lot of the expectations one would have of an ordinary book on economics, like actual data and stuff, but not, IMHO, a duty to get his quotations right.
Next is a preface from the 1956 US edition. Hayek is well into his 50s at this point but is staying curious and open to debate. He emphasizes that the dedication, "To the Socialists of All Parties", is "in no spirit of mockery", but an acknowledgement that the book grew out of discussions with more left-leaning economists and is a continuation of a dialogue with them.
He notes that the interest in planned economies has largely passed. Of the beginnings of the welfare system, he is willing to say that at least some of its aims are "both practicable and laudable", but he has some vague misgivings about some of its proposed mechanisms. It would have been interesting to see what 1956 Hayek made of UBI studies, or the apparent growing consensus among economists that the big lesson of the 20th century is that a country does best with both free markets and a robust safety net.
Next is the preface from the 1976 edition. Now Hayek appears to have taken a hard turn into being the absolutist neoliberal caricature he is usually portrayed as. 1976 Hayek is done listening to anyone but himself, and he has purged himself of the weakness of being willing to compromise in any way.
Introduction #6 is, at long last, the introduction to the original edition. Hayek mostly talks about the situation in Germany, and appears to be pushing back against a prevailing view that accepted that Nazism was bad, but attributed its badness to some inborn deficiency of the German people. Hayek sees the Nazis and Communists as merely rival groups of socialists.
I should note that I was taught in history class that Nazi rule came about because the reparations for World War I humiliated and financially crippled Germany, and that plus the general worldwide malaise of the 1930s made the German people so miserable that they were ready to embrace a charismatic demagogue who told them that they were actually the best people, and started providing convenient scapegoats to unite against. Economic ideology is just irrelevant to the story. So I don't think Hayek is going to be convincing me of anything, but it'll still be interesting to see where this goes.
Well, there I was at Powell's a few days ago intending to spend down a birthday gift certificate, and I wound up picking up both. And like I did with The Wealth of Nations, I feel the need to blog my way through them so that those of you who don't want to actually read them don't have to.
The first piece of good news is that both books combined look to be shorter than The Wealth of Nations. In fact, there's even less to the Hayek than it first appears...
The copy of The Road to Serfdom that I picked up bills itself as "The Definitive Edition", including prefaces from multiple editions, munging together the US and UK text, and adding a few corrections. It begins with an editorial note describing the process, which includes:
At many points in the book, Hayek quotes others, and his quotations do not always exactly duplicate the original. However, only when his misquoting might affect the meaning of the passage is this noted; in any event, what Hayek originally wrote stands.
Not a great look for a big foundational text to start out by noting that the original author played fast and loose with his sources.
Next up is an introduction by the editor, laying out the political and historical context in which the book was written and initially published. As this introduction tells it, Hayek was pushing back against a widespread fascination with the idea that economies could be scientifically planned, and the notion that the Nazis were essentially capitalists (something which appears to have grown out of the Nazi persecution of Communists).
Next, we finally hear from Hayek himself in the preface to the first edition. He starts:
When a professional student of social affairs writes a political book, his first duty is plainly to say so. This is a political book.
Thus excusing himself from a lot of the expectations one would have of an ordinary book on economics, like actual data and stuff, but not, IMHO, a duty to get his quotations right.
Next is a preface from the 1956 US edition. Hayek is well into his 50s at this point but is staying curious and open to debate. He emphasizes that the dedication, "To the Socialists of All Parties", is "in no spirit of mockery", but an acknowledgement that the book grew out of discussions with more left-leaning economists and is a continuation of a dialogue with them.
He notes that the interest in planned economies has largely passed. Of the beginnings of the welfare system, he is willing to say that at least some of its aims are "both practicable and laudable", but he has some vague misgivings about some of its proposed mechanisms. It would have been interesting to see what 1956 Hayek made of UBI studies, or the apparent growing consensus among economists that the big lesson of the 20th century is that a country does best with both free markets and a robust safety net.
Next is the preface from the 1976 edition. Now Hayek appears to have taken a hard turn into being the absolutist neoliberal caricature he is usually portrayed as. 1976 Hayek is done listening to anyone but himself, and he has purged himself of the weakness of being willing to compromise in any way.
Introduction #6 is, at long last, the introduction to the original edition. Hayek mostly talks about the situation in Germany, and appears to be pushing back against a prevailing view that accepted that Nazism was bad, but attributed its badness to some inborn deficiency of the German people. Hayek sees the Nazis and Communists as merely rival groups of socialists.
I should note that I was taught in history class that Nazi rule came about because the reparations for World War I humiliated and financially crippled Germany, and that plus the general worldwide malaise of the 1930s made the German people so miserable that they were ready to embrace a charismatic demagogue who told them that they were actually the best people, and started providing convenient scapegoats to unite against. Economic ideology is just irrelevant to the story. So I don't think Hayek is going to be convincing me of anything, but it'll still be interesting to see where this goes.