Synopses & Reviews
An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics,
The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—
The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate, widespread attention. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 books were sold. In April 1945, Readers Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this edition to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best seller, the book has sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone and has been translated into more than twenty languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.
With this new edition, The Road to Serfdom takes its place in the series The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. The volume includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added helpful new explanatory notes. Supplemented with an appendix of related materials ranging from prepublication reports on the initial manuscript to forewords to earlier editions by John Chamberlain, Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom will be the definitive version of Hayek's enduring masterwork.
Review
"In my opinion it is a grand book. . . . Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement."
John Maynard Keynes
Review
"A version of a recognized classic text that provides a full and rich context from which to understand its emergence and eventual powerful impact on the course of events and ideas in the twentieth century. . . . The University of Chicago Press and Bruce Caldwell have done an excellent job in dressing up this classic book for both the general reader and scholars in a variety of disciplines and the hiostory of ideas." Steven Horwitz
Review
"It takes courage, or something like it, to declare one's offering 'The Definitive Edition'. . . . I have no hesitation, though in describing this as an excellent edition." EH.Net
Review
andldquo;Hayek scholars will be grateful for this collection that shows how his seemingly disparate work in economics, methodology, psychology, and legal theory is actually part of an integrated whole, unified by the idea of spontaneous order. Brilliantly selected, well-organized, and concisely explained, this is a very strong addition to the Collected Works series.andrdquo;
Synopsis
In addition to his groundbreaking contributions to pure economic theory, F. A. Hayek also closely examined the ways in which the knowledge of many individual market participants could culminate in an overall order of economic activity. His attempts to come to terms with the andldquo;knowledge problemandrdquo; thread through his career and comprise the writings collected in the fifteenth volume of the University of Chicago Pressandrsquo;s Collected Works of F. A. Hayek series.
The Market and Other Orders brings together more than twenty works spanning almost forty years that consider this question. Consisting of speeches, essays, and lectures, including Hayekandrsquo;s 1974 Nobel lecture, andldquo;The Pretense of Knowledge,andrdquo; the works in this volume draw on a broad range of perspectives, including the philosophy of science, the physiology of the brain, legal theory, and political philosophy. Taking readers from Hayekandrsquo;s early development of the idea of spontaneous order in economics through his integration of this insight into political theory and other disciplines, the book culminates with Hayekandrsquo;s integration of his work on these topics into an overarching social theory that accounts for spontaneous order in the variety of complex systems that Hayek studied throughout his career.
Edited by renowned Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell, who also contributes a masterly introduction that provides biographical and historical context, The Market and Other Orders forms the definitive compilation of Hayekandrsquo;s work on spontaneous order.
About the Author
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, was a pioneer in monetary theory and a leading proponent of classical liberalism in the twentieth century. He taught at the University of London, the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg.
Bruce Caldwell is the Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and author of
Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century. He is past president of the History of Economics Society and the general editor of
The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, copublished by the University of Chicago Press.
Bruce Caldwell is the Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and author of
Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century. He is past president of the History of Economics Society and the general editor of
The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, copublished by the University of Chicago Press.
Bruce Caldwell is the Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and author of
Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century. He is past president of the History of Economics Society and the general editor of
The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, copublished by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Editorial Forewordand#160;Introductionand#160;and#160;
THE MARKET AND OTHER ORDERSand#160;Prologue: Kinds of Rationalism (1965)and#160;
Part I. The Early Ideasand#160;Oneand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Economics and Knowledge (1937)Twoand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Facts of the Social Sciences (1943)Threeand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945)Fourand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Meaning of Competition (1948)
and#160;Part II. From Chicago to Freiburg: Further Developmentand#160;Fiveand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)Lecture I. Freedom and the Rule of Law: A Historical SurveyLecture II. Liberalism and Administration: The
RechtsstaatLecture III. The Safeguards of Individual LibertyLecture IV. The Decline of the Rule of LawSixand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Degrees of Explanation (1955)Sevenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Economy, Science and Politics (1963)Eightand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Rules, Perception and Intelligibility (1962)
and#160;Part III. A General Theory of Orders, with Applicationsand#160;Nineand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Theory of Complex Phenomena (1964)Tenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Notes on the Evolution of Systems of Rules of Conduct (1967)Elevenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Results of Human Action but Not of Human Design (1967)Twelveand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Competition as a Discovery Procedure (1968)Thirteenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Primacy of the Abstract (1969)and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Appendix: The Primacy of Abstractandmdash;DiscussionFourteenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Errors of Constructivism (1970)Fifteenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Nature vs. Nurture Once Again (1971)Sixteenand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Pretence of Knowledge (1975)and#160;Appendix Aand#160;and#160; New Look at Economic Theoryandmdash;Four Lectures Given at the University of Virginia, 1961Lecture I. The Object of Economic TheoryLecture II. The Economic CalculusLecture III. Economics and TechnologyLecture IV. The Communication Function of the Marketand#160;Appendix Band#160;and#160; Economists and Philosophersandmdash;Walgreen Lecture, University of Chicago, 1963and#160;and#160;Index