Talk:The Road to Serfdom

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Contents 1 NPOV: Recent edits 2 POV 3 NPOV dispute 4 "Originally published..." 5 Freedom/Serfdom 6 Hayek argues central planning must of necessity be tightly-coupled

[edit] NPOV: Recent edits

The recent changes to this page have dramatically changed it from a set of statement of facts to an argument against Hayek's views. For instance:

• "The Road to Serfdom is a highly controversial book" - certainly it was controversial when it was first published. Nowadays, I'd like to see a source for this.

Not controversial today? Are you implying socialism no longer exists today? Because any socialist, by the nature of his views, automatically disputes Hayek's claims.

• "This would be disputable enough in itself" - an encyclopedia article should aim to present views, not say if they're "disputable" or not.

Well, a disputed view is a disputable view...

• The whole thing with Soviet Russia, while it might be a valid argument, is nonetheless an original argument. Someone else must have made it at one point, can we actually get a source for it?

I'll try to look for one, because it certainly seems a rather glaring error on Hayek's part. But, at any rate, it seems reasonable that we should at least mention this fact even without a reference.

• Regarding Nazi Germany, Hayek specifically backs up his argument by pointing to German government figures prior to WWII that shows government spending as a large proportion of the economy. Thus, "the majority of Nazi Germany's economy was in private capitalist hands" just isn't true. It's also an original argument, as above.

- RedWordSmith 19:34, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

The majority of Nazi Germany's economy was in private capitalist hands. Merely having a lot of government spending is not enough to make a country socialist (and government spending is not a "socialist" thing in and of itself - governments had a lot of spending thousands of years before socialism was ever invented). By Hayek's standards, all countries in the world prior to (and following) WW2 were "socialist". -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 20:09, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As Ludwig von Mises first realized, economy of Nazi Germany was a case of de facto socialism even while means of production were nominally in private hands. Private ownership means nothing if the owners are denied their inalienable rights to use their property as they see fit, i.e. sell it, hire/fire workers, reinvest rents/profits etc. Nazi Germany did just this when they applied price controls, severely reprimanded owners for petty mistakes made in accounting, and made four-year plans. George Reisman elaborates on these points in his Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. jni 07:16, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, the US has some price controls (in agriculture for example) and severely reprimands owners for petty mistakes in accounting. Would you call the US a 'socialist' country today? Most of the points above that you make about private ownership were allowed in Nazi Germany. Also the 'four-year plans' were much more similar to the New Deal than to Stalin's Five Year Plans. Yet was the US 'socialist' in the 1930's? Certainly not, as again, the definitions of private ownership were not violated. The Nazis did not nationalize most German companies. Fascism, after all, is a 'sham revolt,' in which a nation's true socio-economic elites are not displaced but a totalitarian system is set-up to cement their socio-economic status. Anyway, I started the 'criticism' section of the "The Road to Serfdom" entry in an attempt to make people aware that not everyone agrees with Hayek, as the article had seemed before, with only Churchill's and Keynes's comments supporting the book.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.20.72.214 (talk • contribs) 16:57, July 12, 2006.

I see your concerns, and, on hindsight, I certainly agree that I have to rephrase most of my edit. But I also believe Hayek's more dubious historical claims (regarding the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) should be mentioned as such. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 20:09, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is my definite impression that Serfdom is not nearly as controversial today as it was when it was first published; certainly socialism is still a strong political philosophy in the world today, however, to that extent, Hayek is no more controversial than any other critic of socialism (and there are lots of them). Simply stating that Hayek criticizes socialism should be enough to imply that socialists don't like this book. The Russian thing should stay once we find a good source for it, because, again, it's an obvious counterargument — but because it's such an obvious argument, someone must have made it before, and Hayek's critics should be named if their opinion is going to be in the article. I'm afraid I don't see how you can simultanously agree that majority of pre-Nazi Germany's economy was under government control and still say that the economy was run by capitalists. It's true that "government spending is not enough to make a country socialist" — but remember that Hayek was arguing against central planning more generally as well, and high government spending is (one) indicator that the government is directing a lot of economic activity; also, it's a bit hard to have a socialist economy without a certain level of government spending. At any rate, I think that improvements to the language of this article could change things quite a bit, so I look forward to seeing what you do with it. - RedWordSmith 21:32, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] POV

I am quite disturbed by what I found here. If you have some valid criticism, cite it, but the wikipedia is not to have an editorial bias, especially not to the exclusion of needed info. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 12:18, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV dispute

I'm going to be removing the header soon, unless someone objects. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 20:53, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. This is Hayek's book, so I don't see any problem in that this article describes his POV. Few wikilinks are good enough for opposing views, there is no need to duplicate material that exists in other socialism articles here. jni 07:16, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Be aware that this article is subject to POV reverts, have a look at this edit, or this one. While we can remove the dispute, we cannot insure it won't be needed again when such edits are reinserted... I'll wait a bit longer, and remove it, but... I'd ask that you keep an eye on this page :)

[[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Wants you to vote!]] 10:51, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Originally published..."

This article claimed it was originally published in September 1944 by Chicago but looking at this page from the IEA suggests otherwise:

"The Road to Serfdom was published in March 1944 and, despite wartime paper shortages, it went through five reprints in the UK in 15 months. In spite of this, owing to wartime paper rationing, the publishers, Routledge, were unable to keep up with demand..."

www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication43pdf?.pdf

Johnbull 16:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Freedom/Serfdom

Is the title of the book The Road To Serfdom a responsive play on the title of another book that advocated socialism/totalitarianism called The Road To Freedom?

72.82.179.237 05:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hayek argues central planning must of necessity be tightly-coupled

User:Johnbull wanted me to provide some examples to back up my introductory sentence that "Hayek argues in The Road to Serfdom that central planning must of necessity be tightly-coupled..." Here are some relevant quotes from The Road to Serfdom (page numbers from University of Chicago 1976 paperback edition, my underline emphasis):

• (pg. 64) "An economic plan, to deserve the name, must have a unitary conception. Even if a parliament could, proceeding step by step, agree on some scheme, it would certainly in the end satisfy nobody. A complex whole in which all the parts must be most carefully adjusted to each other cannot be achieved through a compromise between conflicting views."

• (pg. 67) "The delegation of particular powers to separate agencies creates a new obstacle to the achievement of a single co-ordinated plan. Even if, by this expedient, a democracy should succeed in planning every sector of economic activity, it would still have to face the problem of integrating these separate plans into a unitary whole. Many separate plans do not make a planned whole---in fact, as the planners ought to be the first to admit, they may be worse than no plan.

• (pg. 155) "We have seen that agreement on that complete ethical code, that all-comprehensive system of values which is implicit in an economic plan, does not exist in a free society but would have to be created."

137.82.82.133 22:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Johnbull, you either have a tin ear for language or you are being remarkably disingenuous. The "... need not be so" is supported by the whole rest of the paragraph and sourced therein -- Sweezy, Stafford Beer, and Simon and Ando. Beer and Simon and Ando don't reference Hayek explicitly (as far as I remember), but their TECHNICAL work speaks to the "tightly-coupled" issue. Please show some courtesy and stop MUCKING ABOUT with someone else's contribution. BTW the adjective is "marxist", not "marxian" which does not augur well for your command of english.--137.82.82.133 23:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The "need not be so" is stating as fact someone's opinion, which you can't/won't except but is nevertheless the case; I am merely correcting your mistake. Paul Sweezy's Wikipedia article claims he is a Marxian economist and the Wikipedia article for that kind of economics explains the differences between the labels "Marxist" and "Marxian", which you are evidently ignorant of. Perhaps that does not "augur well for your command of english [sic]".--Johnbull 23:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Touche on "Marxian" -- I just went to the dictionary to check whether it was valid usage, but was not quick enough to delete or otherwise apologise for my mistake. (Yes, arrogant sarcasm is always a weapon that can cut both ways.) My criticism of your focussing on a single phrase in the introductory sentence of my paragraph remains, however. The "need not be so", I regard as a highly reasonable usage justified by the rest of the paragraph, interpreted as "there are other possibilities or considerations" I didn't write "Hayek argues ... but this is definitely false." The key word is "need not." It is a fact (a la Simon and Ando) that hierarchial nearly-decomposable systems in economics refute Hayek that central planning (or control) must be tightly-coupled.--137.82.82.133 00:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I think your most recent edit is fine.--Johnbull 00:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Good! -- agreement after dispute. Best Wishes, 137.82.82.133 00:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)