Quotes on Friedrich Hayek's _The Road to Serfdom

Quotes on Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Milton Friedman* (Economics, U. of Chicago)

" . . I think the Adam Smith role was played in this cycle [i.e. the late twentieth century collapse of socialism in which the idea of free-markets succeeded first, and then special events catalyzed a complete change of socio-political policy in countries around the world] by Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom."

*Nobel Prize winner in Economics.

Alan Brinkley* (History, Columbia)

"The publication of two books .. helped to galvanize the concerns that were beginning to emerge among intellectuals (and many others) about the implications of totalitarianism. One was James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution .. [A second] Friedrich A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom .. was far more controversial -- and influential. Even more than Burnham, Hayek forced into public discourse the question of the compatibility of democracy and statism .. In responding to Burnham and Hayek .. liberals [in the statist sense of this term as used by some in the United States] were in fact responding to a powerful strain of Jeffersonian anti-statism in American political culture .. The result was a subtle but important shift in liberal [i.e. American statist] thinking."

*Brinkley is a leading authority on intellectual currents in 20th century American politics.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.* (commentatory, The Washington Post)

".. the publication of Friedrich A. von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in 1944 [is rightly seen] as the first shot in the intellectual battle that was to turn the tide in favor of conservatism [i.e. non-statist liberalism]."

*Dionne is a well-known popular writer on contemporary intellectual trends in American politics.

H. Stuart Hughes

"The publication ten years ago of F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was a major event in the intellectual history of the United States ... it marked the beginning of that slow reorientation of sentiment -- both in academic circles and among the general public -- toward a more positive evaluation of the capitalist system which has marked the past decade [between 1944 and 1954]".

Thomas Sowell* (Hoover Institute)

"The 20th Century looked for many decades as if it were going to be the century of collectivism .. Anyone who would have predicted the reversal of this trend .. would have been considered mad just a dozen years ago. Innumerable factors led to [the reversal of the rise of collectivism], not the least of which was the bitter experience of seeing 'rational planning' degenerate into economic chaos and Utopian dreams iturn into police-state nightmares. Still, it takes a vision to beat a vision .. An alternative vision had to become viable before the reversal of the collectivist tide could begin with Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States. That vision came from many sources, but if one point in time could mark the beginning of the intellectual turning of the tide which made later political changes possible, it was the publication of The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek ..".

*Sowell is a leading historian of economic thought, and an internationally recognized authority on the problems of race, politics, and culture.

Margaret Thatcher (British Prime Minister, 1979-1990)

".. the most powerful critique of socialist planning and the socialist state which I read at this time [the late 1940's], and to which I have returned so often since [is] F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom." (Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power, New York: Harper Collins, 1995, p. 50).

"Our inpiration was less Rab Butler's Industrial Charter than books like Colm Brogan's anti-socialist satire, Our New Masters . . and Hayek's powerful Road to Serfdom, dedicated to 'the socialists of all parties'. Such books not only provided crisp, clear analytical arguments against socialism, demonstrating how its economic theories were connected to the then depressing shortages of our daily lives; but by their wonderful mockery of socialist follies, they also gave us the feeling that the other side simply could not win in the end. That is a vital feeling in politics; it eradicates past defeats and builds future victories. It left a permanent mark on my own political character, making me a long-term optimist for free enterprise and liberty ..". (Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, New York: Harper Collins, 1993, pp. 12-13.)

Milton Friedman* (economics, U. of Chicago)

"My interest in public policy and political philosophy was rather casual before I joined the faculty of the University of Chicago [in 1946]. Informal discussions with colleagues and friends stimulated a greater interest, which was reinforced by Friedrich Hayek's powerful book The Road to Serfdom, by my attendance at the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, and by discussions with Hayek after he joined the university [of Chicago] faculty in 1950. (Milton & Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs, Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 333.)

*Nobel Prize winner in economics.

Barry Goldwater (U.S. Senator)

" ... during my years in the Senate, I was much influenced by the work of Professor F. A. Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom". (Barry Goldwater, Goldwater, 1988, p. 110)