The financial world we live in is just as wild, if not more, than the mountains and woods we walk through. We are told that the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but we can feel that something is wrong. My unique financial background and survival passion make Financial Survivalist and excellent place to learn and share.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek



F. A. Hayek was a world renowned and highly decorated economist. After serving in WWI he decided that he would spend his life working for a better world. He began to study with a focus to learn what causes society to degrade as far as it had durring WWI.

After WWII, he was inspired to write The Road to Serfdom by his dislike of the current British economic thought.

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which included the labor of serfs occupying a plot of land owned by a lord of the manor in return for protection and justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence. (Wiki) Essentially the "lord" gave them security and use of land in exchange for their servitude. However, they were not free to leave, to own, or to better their position.

The title "Road to Serfdom" is very appropriate. The book is about economic cycles and how man finds himself traveling the road to serfdom again and again. There is no on off switch for the light of freedom. It's more like a dimmer switch.

Freedom is gained through great sacrifice and much bloodshed. It is claimed by individuals that desire freedom more than life. However, as time goes on people forget. They forget how important freedom is and they begin to desire security more and more.

Slowly but surely they rely upon the government (the lord) more and more to provide for them. They expect the government to give them security, housing, jobs, healthcare. And of coarse those things aren't free. So in exchange they give up their right to better themselves (through burdensome taxes), privacy (through searches like TSA) and eventually out right freedom.

This is a difficult book to read because there is a lot of extravagant and intellectually stimulating verbiage. He after all was a very well educated and extremely intelligent economist. However, if you can understand the book, it gives you great insight into our current condition; where we are and where we are headed.

This definitely on my must read list especially for anyone who isn't sure how they feel about all the government intervention in to our economy. It's a great book anyone that is interested in politics or economics.

8/10 stars




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