Von Hayek's The Road To Serfdom

Multiple composers wrote an argument describing how to improve the lives of European workers, including how their lives changed over the course of the nineteenth century. Malthus and Ricardo stated the benefits of having a laissez-faire government in the early 1800’s. Marx and Engels desired a revolution, aiming towards communism. Throughout document five, six, and seven it was examined that a balanced and controlled industry would benefit the most from this structure. Each author was extremely bias, yet the change they described was massive as the lives of the workers began to change. A laissez-faire government would be beneficial for the workers, yet the freedom

In The Non Sequitur of the “Dependence Effect” von Hayek critiques Galbraith’s argument (in The Dependence Effect) that the means of production must be controlled by the state. Galbraith, a socialist, argues that consumer demands are manufactured - by the very companies that create products to meet those same demands. Because these wants are created, rather than intrinsic, Galbraith contends, they are not urgent or important. The completion of Galbraith’s syllogism provides that ultimately the state should own the means of production to

As times go on you have to remember back to a time without the government as we know it. While you think back to this time, just think to yourself that these ideals and morals did not just come from thin air. Textbooks such as Charles Sackery’s Introduction to Political Economy assist in our quest to find two philosophers. Economic philosophers such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and John Maynard Keynes all had ideas that may have influenced our economy but only two can move on to the next round of this show.

The Road to Serfdom a book written by Friedrich Hayek, a British philosopher and economist, was written after the second world war in response to Germany’s fascism, and the growing concern of Communism. His objective with this book was to provide a solid argument against the growing popularity of socialism and why it is not as effective or beneficial for the people as capitalism. So why the title The Road to Serfdom? First let’s look at what serfdom is. A serf was is an agricultural laborer bound under a feudal system to work on his lord’s estate with little to no liberties. Hayek is seemingly trying to argue that serfdom is a byproduct of socialism. With the return in popularity of socialism in the past year or so in America, this book is a very good

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz is a well known American economist, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on asymmetric information. Even though he is a brilliant man he did not get any expensive or special schooling in his early education. He went through a public school system in his hometown Gary, Indiana. Later he earned his bachelor degree from Amherst College. He initially went to Amherst instead of Harvard because his guidance counselor believed it would be a better fit for him, Amherst being a smaller school. Another factor of why he went to Amherst instead of a Harvard or Princeton was because his brother also went to Amherst which was a deciding factor for Joseph. However because of his great intellect and economic prowess he eventually went on to Columbia and later MIT. He is a descriptive writer with a publishing record of over 300 articles and numerous books on various economic issues. He was born on February 9th, 1943 and is 74 years old. He has had three wives, two ending in divorce, and in total four children. Stiglitz been an incredible influence on the economic field of study and has given much to the world in terms of knowledge and breakthroughs.

Hayek acknowledged trade cycles as monetary authorized by the government, a semi-monopoly is created and basic money is controlled. He was convinced in order to keep the economy in good condition, it was important to have a limited democracy. Hayek's theory of business cycles and the role of monetary policy create a boom and bust cycle. The booms and busts develop when the central bank independently decides to cheapen credit, and expand the supply of loanable funds.

Hayek argues that the foundations of individualism go back to a root from classical antiquity and Christianity. And he sees the transfer of power from the state to the individual as the basis of western civilization. People in the past experienced dramatic elevation of material comfort and development of science and technology, thanks to the granting of individual freedom. Unconscious and unintended aggregate of individual actions outweighed the idea of central planning. Yet when socialism appeared, there emerged a great utopia that socialism could be combined with democracy. Hayek opposes this naive interpretation because socialism seeks equality through “restraint and servitude.” A planned economy in socialism, as well, would not produce the most efficient output and creativity simply due to a lack of price mechanism and thus a lack of information. When the allocation of resources is unpredictable and often false, and when the economic policy is imposed by force, the government is accumulating greater centralized power that weighs much more than individual wills. Even though Hayek says the government has the duty to ensure the competitiveness of the market, he would

In his teen years he began studying at the Wharton school of finance at University of Pennsylvania. He then went on to Columbia University to receive his master's degree. While going to school there he met an influential value investor Benjamin Graham. Buffett was influenced

Hoppe acknowledged that Hayek was the most prominent Austrian economist within academia, but stated that Hayek was an opponent of the Austrian tradition which led from Carl Menger and Böhm-Bawerk through Mises to Rothbard. Austrian economist Walter Block says that the "Austrian school" can be distinguished from other schools of economic thought through two categories - economic theory and political theory. According to Block, while Hayek can be considered an "Austrian economist", his views on political theory clash with the libertarian political theory which Block sees as an integral part of the Austrian

John Maynard Keynes was a well-known British economist, and is credited with the establishment of modern macroeconomics. One must remember that the concept of macroeconomics already existed, but Keynes’ addition includes a “systematic approach to aggregate economic phenomena.” (CITE SNOWDON/VANE P 13) While The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money might be his most famous work, he also had two other important works released before it. The first was The Economic Consequences of the Peace in 1919, arguing that the Versailles Treaty would lead to another war in Europe. The second, released just six years before General Theory, was A

Jeffrey David Sachs One of the most youthful tenured economics professor ever at Harvard university (at age 28), Sachs got to be referred to for his part as a guide to Eastern European and developing country governments during the transition from communism to a market system or during periods of economic crisis. Hence he has been known for his work on the challenges of economic development, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, debt cancellation and globalization.

According to Hayek, in the first time, Central planning is very difficult or impossible some

Dr. Arthur Laffer was born in Youngstown, Ohio on August 14, 1940 to Amelia and William Gillespie. Both of his parents had an educational background in economics and this motivated him to pursue a career in it. Before going to Yale University to earn a B.A. in Economics, Dr. Laffer went to University of Munich and was majoring in Mathematics, but later he changed his major to economics. In order to further satiate his interest, he did his MBA and got a full scholarship to do his PhD in economics at the Economics school of Stanford University.

Both Hayek and Keynesian have different ideas and ways of dealing with the economy and both believe they are superior to one another. Classical economic theory is the concept of a laissez-faire economic market. A laissez-faire economic market is most commonly known as “free market,” (Econ Stories, 2010, Jan. 23). It requires little to no government control. It also gives individuals the freedom to their own self-interests and wants. This guarantees that economic resources are targeted to the individuals who want them and businesses in the marketplace. Classical economics uses the value theory. The value theory encompasses a range of approaches to understanding how, why, and to what degree the object holds value and how much it is desired by the individual or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else, to determine prices in the economic market and how to manipulate them. The value of an item is determined based on that item’s individual production output, technology and wages paid to produce the item. (Vitez, O., January 2016).

For Haldane, Hayek’s insights “laid bare the perils of over-active policy if one assumed omniscience”, throwing the need for radical epistemological reconfiguration intp sharp relief. Here, they highlight instead his description of uncertainties caused by the ‘dispersal of knowledge’. This is not Knightian Uncertainty, nor does it claim to be, but it is pertinent that this is the groundwork laid. The battle to eliminate Knightian Uncertainty at the top starts with that of collation and gathering of information to reduce less pernicious Uncertainty at the bottom.