Strolling Down the Road to Serfdom
BROCKWAY, GEORGE P.
The Dismal Science STROLLING DOWN THE ROAD TO SERFDOM BY GEORGE P BROCK WAY In the Preface to their best seller Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman write, "We are still free as a people to...
...But it has been astutely widened by apologists for big business and by the just-folks demeanor of President Reagan, and deepened by the misguided anti-labor Presidential campaign of Gary Hart...
...Nor would he approve of the merger movement and the consequent concentration of power in sprawling conglomerates...
...The Friedmans share with Marx a longing for the state to wither away, but Hayek is having none of that...
...Another theme of current interest in Hayek's book is his concern over the tendency of legislatures to turn hard questions over to independent public authorities...
...members of the strongest trade unions whose income was many times theirs.' I suggest that the "white-collar proletariat," hitherto most visible in countries like India, will become a growing and destabilizing factor in our public life as computerization and conglomeration steadily reduce the need for "middle management...
...A different example of irresponsible delegation is the willingness of Congress to give the President power to commit military forces to action, and indeed to launch a nuclear strike, without carefully defining limits to that power...
...Hayek's concern is also a central topic in Theodore J. Lowi's widely read The End of Liberalism...
...The Social Democrats were further weakened, Hayek says, by a split that appeared in the labor movement...
...Hayek is well worth reading, both for what he says and for what he doesn't say...
...He disputes, without naming him, his fellow countryman Joseph A. Schumpeter (who is at present being touted by neoconservatives as a foil to Keynes), rejecting "the myth...
...I have also seen such changes occur at less rarefied levels...
...To them," Hayek writes, "and not without some justification, the more prosperous sections of the labor movement seemed to belong to the exploiting rather than to the exploited class.' This is a problem that American labor leaders have yet to solve...
...His book was actually greeted with qualified praise by Keynes, as Robert Heilbroner tells us in The Worldly Philosophers', but endorsements like the Friedmans' have established his reactionary "image...
...It is said, by the way, that Hart appealed especially to the so-called Yuppies—young, upwardly mobile professionals . I venture to think that Hayek's analysis of what happened in Germany is closer to what is happening here...
...And strong as he is in his insistence on private property, he thinks that the case for inheritance may not be supported with "the same necessity.' I have quoted Hayek extensively because his reputation is that of an extreme, devil-may-care, laissez-faire conservative...
...I suppose he would therefore welcome a good deal of the current deregulation, but he would appear not to have been a knee-jerk deregulator...
...How all this came about is told in fascinating and chil ling detail by F. W. Mai-sel in a little book entitled Great A meri-con«/poj7(CondidoPress,Box27551, San Diego 92128...
...Hayek would thus not be sympathetic with the notion, advanced by both neoliberals and neoconservatives, that factories should be allowed to pollute as they please, so long as they pay a fee for the privilege...
...If he is right, this fact should give pause to our Atari Democrats, who want to set up a committee to decide which industries we should foster and which we should abandon and in general to plan how to use our resources...
...As Robert Lekachman has pointed out, such committees are more likely to be run by big business than by idealistic planners...
...This is not, I think, an instance of the notorious syndrome whereby flaming youths turn into reactionary elders ("When old age came over them I With all its aches and qualms, I King Solomon wrote the Proverbs I And King David wrote the Psalms...
...The laggers were understandably disillusioned about the Social Democrats and became ready to acquiesce in, if not support, the National Socialist program...
...It is attained by collusive agreement and promoted by public policies...
...He writes that "no single economic factor has contributed more to help [the Nazis] than the envy of the unsuccessful professional man, the university-trained engineer or lawyer, and of the 'white-collar proletariat' in general for the...
...That was a mistake...
...In the same way, control over our money, and hence over our economy as a whole, has been surrendered to the Federal Reserve Board...
...monopoly is frequently the product of factors other than the lower costs of greater size...
...One of these appears in his analysis of the failure of the Social Democrats to stop Hitler...
...In addition, Hayek quotes with favor from the New Deal report of the Temporary National Economic Committee: " 'The superior efficiency of large establishments has not been demonstrated...
...There are other interesting themes in The Road to Serfdom...
...He is against monopoly as well as against the "monster state," and in his last chapter, he writes (anticipating E.F...
...Since Hayek's book was published 40 years ago, it would seem that we have been "speeding" down that road at a remarkably sedate pace...
...Schumacher), "It is no accident that on the whole there was more beauty and decency to be found in thelife of the small peoples...
...but Hayek argues that the socialist emphasis on comprehensive planning predisposed the German electorate in favor of grandiose schemes like Hitler's...
...that...
...John Dewey, whose Human Nature and Conduct showed strong elements of philosophical idealism, became famous for the contrary theory of instrumentalism that appealed to his admirers...
...The Dismal Science STROLLING DOWN THE ROAD TO SERFDOM BY GEORGE P BROCK WAY In the Preface to their best seller Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman write, "We are still free as a people to choose whether we shall continue speeding down the 'road to serfdom,' as Friedrich Hayek entitled his profound and influential book...
...The split in our labor movement was opened, as I suggested last year ("Voodoo on the Primary Trail," NL, April 30,1984) by the Vietnam War...
...He also believes that "To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition...
...He holds, too, that the state should be concerned in "the extremely important problem of combating general fluctuations of economic activity and the recurrent waves of large-scale unemployment which accompany them...
...he merely wants the state to act responsibly...
...Maisel may upset the sensitive by his espousal of a conspiracy theory of American banking...
...Lowi notes (as does Lekachman in the comment cited above) that ill-defined regulatory commissions tend to be co-opted by the industries they regulate...
...competition is spontaneously eliminated by technological changes...
...But Ralph's readers—starting with those in an extension writing course in Berkeley—praised him for the warmth of his characterizations, and he became more interested in people and less in abstract theory...
...Both men describe the irresponsibility that results from the delegation of undefined powers...
...Jimmy Carter appointed Paul Volcker chairman of the Fed...
...The change is not always in a conservative direction...
...nevertheless, it's hard to fault his facts, and I'm not even prepared to say he's wrong about the conspiracy...
...Looking first at the latter, we find that he is far from advocating the sort of libertarian—that is, practically nonexistent— state the Friedmans envisage...
...Harry Truman allowed his Secretary of the Treasury to dissolve the agreement with the Federal Reserve that had held the prime interest rate down to 1.5 per cent during the War...
...Though Hayek's main thesis is objection to a comprehensively planned economy, he recognizes that "the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong...
...Much of Hayek's later work, however (e.g., his attack on John Kenneth Galbraith...
...For various reasons, certain unions and certain categories of workers were able to achieve remarkable economic gains, while others were left far behind...
...One of the most delightful books I ever published was Little Britches (1 was never good at titles) by Ralph Moody...
...When these agreements are invalidated and when these policies are reversed, competitive conditions can be restored.'" In another place Hayek says, "It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us...
...Rather, it is an instance of a common, albeit little noticed, progression whereby a great leader becomes misled by his followers...
...I regret to have to admit that three Democratic Presidents played crucial roles in the surrender: Woodrow Wilson, who admitted he knew nothing about banking, signed the Federal Reserve Act...
...I must confess that praise like the Friedmans' put me off reading The Road to Serfdom until now...
...We have heard much of the trahison of the Communists...
...Should you feel that t he bankers running the Federal Reserve, far from being conspirators, are idealistic public ser-vantswhohave, in Hayek's phrase, "devoted their lives to a single task," there is still reason to be wary of them, for "From the saintly and single-minded idealist t o the fanatic is often but a step.' Single-minded conservatives please copy...
...No one reading the series would guess Little Britches was begun as a polemic against the Social Security system...
...Hayek emphasizes the dictatorial arrogance that ensues...
...see "Rereading Galbraith," NL, June 13, 1983), does exhibit a hardening conservatism...
...It was the first of several memoirs of family life...
...He is, for example, willing to consider "restricting the allowed methods of production, so long as these restrictions affect all potential producers equally and are not used as an indirect way of controlling prices and quantities...
...Marx became more violent and conspiratorial at least in part because his most vocal supporters were conspiratorial...
Vol. 68 • July 1985 • No. 9
