The Road to Serfdom endorsed substantial state welfare and fiscal programs

Evidence

Upon its initial publication, most of the book’s reviewers acknowledged that Hayek’s argument countenanced a substantial role for the government. A. C. Pigou observed in the Economic Journal that Hayek thought that the state should do a “great deal,” John Davenport pointed out in Fortune that his argument was compatible with a “fi scal policy aimed to eliminate the worst features of boom and slump,” the American Mercury noted his advocacy of a “guarantee of minimum standards of living,” and the Po liti cal Science Quarterly drew attention to his statements in favor of a “comprehensive social security or ga ni za tion.” If “a list were made of all the forms of purposive direction which are blessed in the course of the book,” the Economist observed, “it would be seen that Professor Hayek does not want to go back, but quite a long way forward.” Even Keynes recognized the book’s openness to public investment, writing Hayek in private correspondence that he found himself “in agreement with virtually the whole of it; and not only in agreement with it, but in a deeply moved agreement.” Hayek himself used radio addresses and pop u lar interviews to draw attention to the positive aspects of his program, urging that “security against severe privations” was an essential part of any government that sought to sustain itself. Like Frank Knight, he worried that a society that failed to fulfi ll these basic needs would inspire uncontrollable levels of pop u lar discontent. “I would rather have a little planning now to prevent much worse planning, and possibly authoritarian controls, later,” he told one interviewer. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 232

Categorization

• XREF: The canonical ‘Neoliberalism as laissez-faire’ narrative that Burgin’s whole book is complicating — Hayes’s MPS milieu and the subsequent policy capture story. — connects to: Hayek denied that The Road to Serfdom opposed all government intervention — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 229
• SEED: The misreading of The Road to Serfdom as pure anti-government polemic is a durable essay topic — how a nuanced text with caveats got flattened into its slogan and weaponized.