lifestyle leader

One of the hot topics of the week is evaluating the merit of Hayek's Road to Serfdom. I read this book about two years ago now, and I have to say I agree almost entirely with Tyler Cowen's re-assessment of the thing. 

I was surprised by the book: it was not nearly as extreme as I was expecting. In fact, it lays out what to modern eyes are highly reasonable arguments for why the central planning that was dominating the world at the time was doomed to fail. His primary target was the extreme central planning of the fascist and communist states, but his arguments applied equally to the government-planned wartime economies of the Allied powers. 

The book I read immediately afterwards was one by J. M. Keynes. Many of those who currently cite the Road to Serfdom to back up their political views might be surprised to learn that Keynes shared Hayek's fundamental concerns. He agreed with the book's argument about the dangers of central planning; where he differed was in the degree of the response. That Keynes' proposed "middle way" is now considered to be at the Left end of the spectrum speaks volumes about how much society has changed in the past 70 years.

Moreover, that Hayek's predictions failed to materialize is a testament to the degree to which we've internalized many of his arguments in the book. I would argue that the same can be said for Marx. The extremes that both men were railing against no longer exist as credible threats to our society, despite what some will have you believe. In re-reading these texts, their arguments would almost seem quaint were it not for the recognition that the problems were, at the time, very real. 

The flip side to all of this is that this particular book has lost much of its relevancy to the problems we are dealing with today, much in the same way that many of Marx's writings are of little use in addressing contemporary issues. That may not please the self-styled radicals at either end of the ideological spectrum, but for the rest of us it is very good news indeed.