The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2) [Kindle Edition]

F. A. Hayek (Author), Bruce Caldwell (Editor, Foreword, Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate, widespread attention. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 books were sold. In April 1945, Reader’s Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this edition to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best seller, the book has sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone and has been translated into more than twenty languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.

With this new edition, The Road to Serfdom takes its place in the series The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek.  The volume includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought.  Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added helpful new explanatory notes.  Supplemented with an appendix of related materials ranging from prepublication reports on the initial manuscript to forewords to earlier editions by John Chamberlain, Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom will be the definitive version of Hayek's enduring masterwork.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 3101 KB
• Print Length: 283 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (March 15, 2007)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002AS9YTI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,982 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #22 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Current Events > Ideologies > Radical Thought
  • #79 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Business & Investing > Economics > Theory
  • #93 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Business & Investing > Economics > Economic Policy & Development

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars those who predict correctly deserve to be read, July 13, 2010

By 

Siegfried Sutterlin "a diplomatic and economi... (midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2) (Kindle Edition)

In 1979 my wife and I had a delightful conversation with Hayek in Freiburg, Germany. He said that Thatcher had contacted him twice for his endorsement for her election campaign but that he could not do so since "I am not a conservative." Hayek always viewed himself as a 19th cent. liberal and would most likely have the same view of Glenn Beck who misrepresents not only the historical reality of the Progressive Reforms but also, sad to say, Hayek's positions. A study of the Freiburg School of Economists, the Ordoliberals as it is also called, of which Hayek as well as Roepke, were major members, would solve Beck's predicament. See also the last chapter of Hayek's "Constitution of Liberty" in which he explains why he is not a conservative.

Unfortunately, Hayek, while under the overwhelming events of the 1940s, did not and could not anticipate the massive cost shifting in the private sector of the U.S. economy that violates true capitalism. Collectivism is rampant in America's PRIVATE sector. Though he predicted nearly all major events during his lifetime, he did not foresee the use of the Fed's monetary policy to subsidize and reward the mischief of the parasitic private sector activities on Wall Street, the massive rewards for having done so and all the private sector socialism for the rich which books like David Cay Johnston's "Free Lunch", among many, have exposed. Johnston shrewdly uses the moral philosopher, Adam Smith, to fault all the parasitic exploitors of the taxpayers direct or indirect subsidies to hoodwink the masses as well as the massive thefts on Wall Street that have essentially caused slumerica from coast to coast.

In re to the "Road to Serfdom" it is a masterpiece of objective economic-political analysis. It is also a tour de force, written with passion, conviction and justified concern. Published in '44 while Hayek taught economics at the London School of Economics, he shrewdly observed that the British government and economic planners were falsely conceptualizing post-war policies to retain war-time centralized control. After all, so it seemed, war-time production was boosted tremendously under central governmental control of the economy. So why not retain and expand it after the war is over to boost the living standard.

This was either spelled out or implied in various White Papers or reports which drew inspirations from the theory of Hayek's chief opponent, John Maynard Keynes. Hayek warned that such dangerous policies, which he thought emulated too much German National Socialist economic policies, would fail and jeopardize liberty.

Unfortunately, his warnings were disregarded by the British post-war governments and the subsequent evolution of the British economy relative to the German one tells the story. The British centralized, nationalized industries as well as the Bank of England, passed the Town and Country Planning Act, created a national health system, etc. while the Germans decentralized, freed the central bank from political control, denationalized industries and restored private initiatives, relatively speaking. The British developed the British economic disease while the Germans pulled off one of the world's most stunning economic miracle. It was all in compliance with Hayek's profound analysis and prediction. One could almost cynically says that the British in enacting National Socialist economic policies fought the Nazis to have the right to adopt Nazi economic policies. Compare for example, the British nationalizing the Bank of England much like Hitler taking over the German central bank in '38 or, for more shocking comparison, read the British labor party platform of '45 and compare it with the socio-economic policies advocated in the l921 Twenty-Five Point Nazi party program.

Beyond this, Hayek's book is also a wonderful analysis of how knowledge pulsates throughout the economy, how economic progress is achieved, how, above all, liberty can be preserved and how the "worst wind up on top" (the title of chapter ten) of a political hierarchy. This chapter can be used to explain in part the rise of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Saddam Hussain, Castro, and so on down to even LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, Sharon and Bush, Jr., etc.

This book has had a long life and deservedly so. All undergraduates and anyone interested in profound philosophical-economic analysis should read it, especially those interested in preserving liberty and preventing serfdom. One of the primary elements for this, according to Hayek, is to deny centralized planning. Ironically, Hayek's chief opponent, John Maynard Keynes who influenced post-war centralized economic planning tremendously, reviewed the book favorably before his death and and said something to the effect that morally and philosophically he found himself in agreement with nearly all of it and not just in agreement but in heartfelt agreement. Too bad the politicians did not heed the change of mind Keynes had just before he died. Had they followed Hayek, the corrosive consequences of politicized Keynesianism in terms of the inflation, centralized planning and other results could have been prevented. By l969, Nixon publicly stated "we're all Keynesians now." In effect America's economy outkeynesianized Keynes since Keynes did not advocate deficit spending during boom times but the political pressures of the producer and seller to stimulate demand for their products along with the ulterior motives of the politicians caused deficit to become rampant even during boom times.

George Orwell, a socialist, was also favorably impressed by this book and most likely was inspired by it when he wrote in 1948 his famous "1984."

But by l974, Hayek received, belatedly, the Nobel Economics Prize (though he shared it with Gunnar Myrdal) and wise scholars and graduate students in communist nations in Eastern Europe started to disseminate and read this book with vigorous enthusiasm. Though it is not well known, this book, along with others Hayek wrote, did more to erode Communism than anyone or anything else. By the early l990s, several editorials in the Wall Street Journal paid tribute to Hayek and the favorable impact his publications had on eroding communism.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The map to liberty, September 29, 2010

By 

Kelly L. Norman "li'l rock & roller" (Plymouth, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2) (Kindle Edition)

A recovering Marxist, I learned about this book when I began to read "Reason", "Liberty", and other libertarian journals. It's not the easiest thing to read, but Hayek's challenge to the socialists of his day helps to explain how the West has developed into more and more of a socialist culture where imagined needs for security seem to outweigh the desire for liberty. I have another edition of this book in paperback; I use the iPhone Kindle application, which means smaller pages. In a work this dense, that is definitely a good thing.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Road, May 1, 2010

By 

John King (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2) (Kindle Edition)

My, self made, bumper sticker reads "unwillingly going down "The Road To Serfdom". If you want to know what happens to your freedoms under socialism read this book. Whoever is "Pro Choice" read this book and decide which is more important government programs or the right to choose because if the scenario were reversed you would be making that "choice" at the voting booth. READ THE BOOK.