Analysis of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom Term Paper

Analysis of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom - Term Paper Example Ultimately, Hayek believes that these two states and others did not intend to go down this road to serfdom; however, he thinks, it is the natural result of a certain philosophy and a particular concept of freedom. These inconsistent ideas make possible the kind of unjust distribution and allocation of resources resulting in the tyrannical socialist state: where conflict is unstopping, economic principles are ignored, and suffering is taken to be the norm. Hayek intended the content and theories in this work not only to apply to the climate in which he wrote it but to the condition of societies as they exist decades and even centuries into the future. Hayek begins his work with a worry: that socialism and central planning is essentially a â€Å"road to serfdom† and that if one goes along this road, one will be traveling down the same road as the most brutal totalitarian states of the 20th century. Citing Hitler’s 1941 proclamation that â€Å"basically National Socialism and Marxism are the same†, Hayek begins his work with that basic theme. ... Using this thrust of the argument, Hayek analyzes the central planning aspect of many economies in the world. If societies might be better off using a spontaneous order, then what is the purpose of a central plan, Austrian economists might argue. The idea of spontaneous order is inherent in the â€Å"invisible hand† economic proposal in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nation; however, Hayek elaborates on the likelihood of acting on more complete information in the case of spontaneous order, whereas the centralized authority operates on a limited set of information, attempting to make decisions affecting the economy. Hayek’s second chapter deals with something he calls â€Å"The Great Utopia†, which is a reference to the socialist state that utilizes central planning. The most important part of this section is the argument that socialism and communism together are â€Å"an illusion† (Hayek 165). That is, they are merely the first step in a process that ul timately ends in fascism and tyranny. This is the lack of agreement on the ends but an agreement on the means.  Ã‚