Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek) (Hardcover)

~ (Author), (Editor) "An odd pairing it seems at first, the conjoining of 'socialism' with 'war'..." (more)
Key Phrases: competitive socialism, intellectual coercion, socialist managers, New York, Collectivist Economic Planning, Ludwig von Mises (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Edited by Caldwell (economics, Univ. of North Carolina), this collection of papers by Hayek, the 1991 Nobel laureate in economics, critiques socialism and state planning in the 1930s and 1940s. Hayek is best known for his popularly written 1944 attack on socialism, The Road to Serfdom. His writings in this volume are fuller and more technical arguments against socialism and state planning, even in wartime, because he considered them inimical to a free society; Hayek also offers a vigorous defense of the free market as the bulwark of both economic and political freedom. His extended, lucidly written introduction (in contrast to his dense style) deals with the debate during the late 19th and early 20th centuries on the merits of socialism. Recommended for academic libraries with large collections in economics.?Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Throughout the twentieth century socialism and war have been intimately connected. The unprecedented upheavals wrought by the two world wars and the Great Depression provided both opportunity and impetus for a variety of socialist experiments. This new volume in The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek documents the evolution of Hayek's thought on socialism and war during the dark decades of the 1930s and 1940s.

Opening with Hayek's arguments against market socialism, the volume continues with his writings on the economics of war, many in response to the proposals made in John Maynard Keynes's famous pamphlet, How to Pay for the War. The last section presents articles that anticipated The Road to Serfdom, Hayek's classic meditation on the dangers of collectivism. An appendix contains a number of topical book reviews written by Hayek during this crucial period, and a masterful introduction by the volume editor, Bruce Caldwell, sets Hayek's work in context.

Socialism and War will interest not just fans of The Road to Serfdom, but anyone concerned with the ongoing debates over the propriety of government intervention in the economy.

"When he wrote The Road to Serfdom, [Hayek's] was a voice in the wilderness. Now the fight [has] been taken up by people all over the world, by institutions and movements, and the ideas that seemed so strange to many in 1944 can be found from scholarly journals to television programs."—Thomas Sowell, Forbes

"Intellectually [Hayek] towers like a giant oak in a forest of saplings."—Chicago Tribune

"Each new addition to The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, the University of Chicago's painstaking series of reissues and collections, is a gem."—Liberty on Volume IX of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek

F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, taught at the University of London, the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg. Bruce Caldwell is professor of economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (June 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226320588
• ISBN-13: 978-0226320588
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,371,105 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marginally Important, January 22, 2008

By	D. W. MacKenzie (New London CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The essays in Socialism and War (SAW) are first rate. However, you can find most of the essyas from part one in Individualism and Economic Order (IEO). Parts two and three contain essays from Hayek that are hard to find elsewhere. Parts two and three are useful for those who want to dig deeper into Hayek's work, for serious historians of Hayek's economic thought. This is the work that led to Hayek's Road to Serfdom. The second and third parts are also useful for those who want to read up on Hayek quickly- these are as short an easy as Hayek's work gets.

We owe much thanks to Bruce Caldwell for keeping Hayek's work in publication and accessible. This being said, the most important essays here were already available in IEO. Few of us really need both SAW and IEO, but we few who do appreciate his efforts.