Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944) was written during the Second World War but Hayek was really worried about what would come next. He feared that wartime planning would spill over into the peacetime economy and destroy hard won freedoms. David explores where Hayek’s fears came from and asks why he worried that democracy would only make the problem worse. He also considers what makes Hayek such a politically influential and divisive figure to this day.

Free online version of the text:

• https://archive.org/details/TheRoadToSerfdom/page/n7/mode/2up

Recommended version to purchase: 

• https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-road-to-serfdom/f-a-hayek/9780415253895

Going Deeper: 

• Geoffrey Hawthorn on Hayek and his overcoat for the LRB 
• F.A. Hayek, ‘Individualism: True and False’ 
• Andrew Gamble, Hayek: The iron cage of liberty (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996)
• Stephen Metcalf in The Guardian, ‘Neoliberalism: The Idea that Swallowed the World’ 
• Hayek vs. Keynes
• Matt Ridley, The rational optimist: how prosperity evolves (London: Fourth Estate 2011)

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