Just in case you might not know it, there is another person by the name of Hayek, and it’s not Selma. Meet an economist who saw one of his works printed in the Reader’s Digest Condensed series in 1945. 1945, you gasp?
Yep. 1945. End of WWII. Economy emerging from wartime. Major changes in the sociology of the country. Women, many widows, in the work force in stunning numbers when compared to prior demographics of the American workforce.
Now, what on earth could a book like this have to do with you? Well, take a deep breath and ponder what happens when (1) 70% of the new jobs are in government, (2) more and more of our industrial base exits to once third-world countries, and (3) average government salaries are above those in the private sector. Just how can a country defend itself without the industrial capacity to manufacture war materiel? It doesn’t, i.e., we don’t. Oops, again! Isolationism is one thing, so-called globalism is another, but this is neither. This is insanity.
One old definition of that mental condition is going about the same process again and again only to expect a different outcome. There is only one outcome when more people depend on the government than on themselves. It is an extension of what we saw in the Middle Ages, and Hayek had it right!
Why would you be interested in just one of the books written by an economist born in 1899… whose work spanned more than a half century… an Austrian who eventually worked in both New York and Chicago? Let’s delve into Hayek. Once we do, I’ll bet you will be compelled to learn even more.
The book I cite? The Road to Serfdom. If you think a widely circulated 1940s book could not be germane to the present, think again. Currently, a projected 19-volume set of Hayek’s works is in the pipeline. Thus, as we teeter on the precipice of financial doom made slippery by a growing bent toward socialism, we return to one Friedrich A. Von Hayek. With the facts on our side, we can fuel a movement to overturn the current pattern endemic in our federal government — more and more intrusion into Americans’ everyday lives.
You would have thought we had learned something years ago. Surely, we saw what happened to the leaders bent on socialism. Dare I mention the Soviet Union? Ah, but that is another problem. World history is not taught as it once was, and often it is an elective course instead of a required one.
A more critical problem is our own history. US History is getting short shrift in our schools, and that is not to say that it is not being taught. It’s just that the precepts and tenets of the US Constitution are not focused in the texts. Editing has abbreviated and dulled the fires of liberty within history curricula, and our kids are really at risk because of that.
If you doubt that, get your hands on a text from the 1950s. There is a difference, folks, and many of you would see it at a glance. True, more and more history amasses each decade, but there are red flags that cannot be ignored. History is a great teacher, IF we appreciate it in its true form — as fact. Sadly, an increasing level of editorializing has taken root in these books.
I am a firm believer that every student should take US history in three parts: (1) The Federalist and the US Constitution; (2) Military history; (3) Personal Liberty – the critical importance of citizen involvement.
Thirty-five years ago, Hayek shone on the world scene. When the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics went to Hayek, interest in the Austrian school was suddenly and unexpectedly revived.
Peter Klein states that when Hayek came to the The University of Chicago, he found himself among a dazzling group: the economics department. Led by Knight, Milton Friedman, and later George Stigler, it was one of the best anywhere, and Aaron Director at the law school soon set up the first law and economics program.
Hayek’s writings were taught to new generations, and Hayek himself appeared at the early Institute for Humane Studies conferences in the mid-1970s. He continued to write, producing The Fatal Conceit in 1988, at the age of 89. In 1992, at the age of 93, Hayek died in Freiburg, Germany, where he had lived since leaving Chicago in 1961.
Hayek’s book, The Road To Serfdom, is available on Amazon.com for around $9, just about the cost of a lunch out. Skip the lunch. Pack a sandwich. Buy the book. You won’t be sorry.