Road To Serfdom Quotes

• Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

  Lord Acton

  Wisdom, Freedom, Mean

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.19, VM eBooks

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  Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Patriotic, Equality, Differences

  "Discours prononcé à l'assemblée constituante le 12 Septembre 1848 sur la question du droit au travail". Oeuvres complètes, Volume IX, p. 546, 1866.

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• The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Planning, Individual, States

  1944 The Road to Serfdom.

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• By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Government, Giving, Democracy

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• It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program - on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off - than on any positive task.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Law, People, Envy

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• Socialism can only be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Practice, Politics, Socialism

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• Two-thirds of a century after [The Road to Serfdom] got written, hindsight confirms how inaccurate its innuendo about the future turned out to be.

  Paul Samuelson

  Two, Hindsight, Century

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• The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest "functionaire" possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Liberty, May, Libertarian

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• Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life that can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Economic, Ends

  Ludwig Von Mises (2008). “Planning for Freedom: Let the Market System Work : a Collection of Essays and Addresses”

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• What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Mean, Our Generation, People

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 7 : Economic Control and Totalitarianism, 1940 - 1943.

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• The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Progressive, Individual, Policy

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Chapter 16: "Conclusion", 1944.

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• The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Mean, Liberty, Principles

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 10 : Why The Worst Get On Top, 1940 - 1943.

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• . . I think the Adam Smith role was played in this cycle i.e. the late twentieth century collapse of socialism in which the idea of free-markets succeeded first, and then special events catalyzed a complete change of socio-political policy in countries around the world by Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.

  Milton Friedman

  Country, Thinking, Ideas

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• .. the publication of Friedrich A. von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in 1944 is rightly seen as the first shot in the intellectual battle that was to turn the tide in favor of conservatism i.e. non-statist liberalism .

  E. J. Dionne

  Intellectual, Battle, Favors

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• We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Stupid, Done, Foolish

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Front Cover Friedrich August Hayek, 1944.

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• Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarianism which horrify us follow of necessity

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Mean, Individual, Ends

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• From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Steps, Idealist, Fanatics

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Chapter 4: "The 'Inevitability' of Planning", 1944.

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• In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Mean, Doe, Minorities

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• Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Believe, Mean, Men

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 7 : Economic Control and Totalitarianism, 1940 - 1943.

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• We shall all be the gainers if we can create a world fit for small states to live in.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  World, Fit, States

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 15 : The Prospects of International Order, 1940 - 1943.

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• ...in the negative part of Professor's Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often - at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough - that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of.

  George Orwell

  Giving, Politics, Negative

  George Orwell, Ian Angus, Sheila Davison (1998). “The Complete Works of George Orwell: I have tried to tell the truth, 1943-1944”

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• Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.

  Leon Trotsky

  Mean, States, Sole

  "The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?"by Leon Trotsky, translated by Max Eastman, (ch. 11), 1936.

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• If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  People, Assuming, Settling

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich von Hayek, Ch. 15 : The Prospects of International Order, 1940 - 1943.

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• It is one of the most fatal illusions that, by substituting negotiations between states or organized groups for competition for markets or for raw materials, international friction would be reduced. This would merely put a contest of force in the place of what can only metaphorically be called the "struggle" of competition and would transfer to powerful and armed states, subject to no superior law, the rivalries which between individuals had to be decided without recourse to force.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Powerful, Struggle, Law

  "The Road to Serfdom". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Ch. 15 : The Prospects of International Order, 1940 - 1943.

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• The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Important, Liberty, Libertarian

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