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The purpose of this course, The Road to Serfdom: Despotism Then and Now, is to educate students about these contemporary dangers and arm them with the intellectual ammunition that they will need to oppose them and champion freedom instead. The totalitarian socialists of the early 20th century understood that they could not succeed unless they first discredited the ideas of freedom. The only way to stop their intellectual descendants (“the totalitarians in our midst,” as Hayek would call them) is to counter their totalitarian ideas. Hayek was a hero of society for putting his career as a renowned economic theorist on hold (for most of the rest of his life, it turned out) to lay out one of the most articulate arguments for a free society ever made. We must revisit and strengthen these arguments if we are to choose capitalism and freedom over socialism and serfdom.
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Capitalism too promises fedreom from physical want’. In fact the primary argument for capitalism is that it offers so many opportunities to be free from physical want. If capitalism didn’t do so all of its philosophical appeal articulated by people like Rand wouldn’t be worth the paper its printed on.As for parallels, the fact is Hayek was writing in a different age when there was a real debate between capitalism and socialism with socialism getting the upper hand in many of the arguments. The health care bill is a reform, not a revolution. And its a rather modest reform at that.
no that is not true, i believe it was the native americans who conquered the north africans in world war 2.
Someone out there in Von Mises land has to tell Tom Dilorenzo about the Catholic Answers forum that just started discussing the civil war. The argument got started off quickly with opinions about the reason for the war and Abe Lincoln’s attitude. Oh I wish Tom D would get in on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!