Paperback cover. University Of Chicago Press (March 30, 2007)
Written in 1944 by Friedrich Hayek, the central argument is that comprehensive socialist planning (of the kind that replaces, instead of supplements competition), is incompatible with classical liberalism and inevitably leads to the oppression of the individual and the establishment of a totalitarian state.
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Classical liberalism was responsible for the rise of Western Civilization to prominence; where it was abandoned, totalitarianism took its place. The heart of classical liberalism is Individualism: a man's own views and tastes are supreme in his own sphere and that he should develop his own individual gifts and bents at his discretion. Classical liberalism transformed a of society from a rigid hierarchical system to one where men could attempt to shape their own life. Where classical liberalism took root, so too did the rise of science, commerce and the development of complex economies.
The material improvements to Western society enabled its members to take notice of long-existing imperfections in their society. Their demand to resolve them conflicted with the slow development of liberalism and resulted in a movement to completely abandon the existing liberal regime in favor of a socialist one. Where the question under the liberal regime was how best to make use of spontaneous forces in an individualist society, the question under a socialist one was how best to collectively and consciously direct all social forces to deliberately chosen goals.
Though socialist ideas did not originate in Germany, they were perfected there and then spread to the rest of Western Civilization.