Rating: 
Summary: A great book
Review: I would have given this book 5 stars, but for the last third of the content. The majority of the book, Mr. Hayek presents a convincing case for individual liberty, and the price mechanism, (unfettered by government interference), being the best transmitter of dispersed knowledge. The last third of the book, however, Mr. Hayek seems to ally himself with the "collectivists" in promoting public housing, public education, etc., something he had railed against earlier in what he dismissively called "social justice". That doesn't seem consistent. For those looking for a more concise book, I'd recommend "The Road to Serfdom", which is a lot shorter, and competely consistent, across the board. Next up for me...Thomas Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions", and Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom".
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: I would have given this book 5 stars, but for the last third of the content. The majority of the book, Mr. Hayek presents a convincing case for individual liberty, and the price mechanism, (unfettered by government interference), being the best transmitter of dispersed knowledge. The last third of the book, however, Mr. Hayek seems to ally himself with the "collectivists" in promoting public housing, public education, etc., something he had railed against earlier in what he dismissively called "social justice". That doesn't seem consistent. For those looking for a more concise book, I'd recommend "The Road to Serfdom", which is a lot shorter, and competely consistent, across the board. Next up for me...Thomas Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions", and Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom".
Rating: 
Summary: Put Hayek in the classroom!
Review: If this book, or preferably the easier-understood "Road to Serfdom", were made mandatory reading in American high schools, the entire left wing of American political culture would evaporate within twenty years. Hayek pulls open the trappings of the socialist and left-wing ideology and reveals to the world that there is, in fact, NOTHING that can result from such ideas except tyranny.
Rating:
Summary: Evolution has proven more effective than planning.
Review: It's been a couple of years since I read this book, but I still carry some of Hayek's insights with me.
Probably the most important insight in my own personal life runs to the effect that the gap between the wisest among us and the most foolish among us is not as great as the most sophomoric among us think. It is, unfortunately, the last who suffer the cravings of power the most and wish to run our lives for us. This is my paraphrase, Hayek was much more polite.
He also said that English Common Law was a vastly superior system to any system designed by any single legislator or group of legislators because the incentives for individual judges are more directed toward proving their wisdom in the case at hand, in relation to similar decisions rendered by their colleagues present and past--their peer group--whereas the audience which legislators desire to impress are not their own peers and are not truly paying attention to the nature of their legislation and its consequences beyond the immediate moment whether the legislator is trying to impress a king, an oligarchy or the mass of the people. The Common Law had, and still has, a tendency to enshrine the customs of the people, yet evolved customs have shown a tendency to continue to adjust to the will of the people and, thereby, move the opinions of judges along with the changes required by the age in which they are rendered.
Public opinion may desire these changes to be made more quickly, but my study of history shows that society only needs to do two things quickly: (#1) catch and (#2) punish those citizens and non-citizens who attempt to improve their lives at the expense of others.
Rating:
Summary: Evolution has proven more effective than planning.
Review: It's been a couple of years since I read this book, but I still carry some of Hayek's insights with me.
Probably the most important insight in my own personal life runs to the effect that the gap between the wisest among us and the most foolish among us is not as great as the most sophomoric among us think. It is, unfortunately, the last who suffer the cravings of power the most and wish to run our lives for us. This is my paraphrase, Hayek was much more polite.
He also said that English Common Law was a vastly superior system to any system designed by any single legislator or group of legislators because the incentives for individual judges are more directed toward proving their wisdom in the case at hand, in relation to similar decisions rendered by their colleagues present and past--their peer group--whereas the audience which legislators desire to impress are not their own peers and are not truly paying attention to the nature of their legislation and its consequences beyond the immediate moment whether the legislator is trying to impress a king, an oligarchy or the mass of the people. The Common Law had, and still has, a tendency to enshrine the customs of the people, yet evolved customs have shown a tendency to continue to adjust to the will of the people and, thereby, move the opinions of judges along with the changes required by the age in which they are rendered.
Public opinion may desire these changes to be made more quickly, but my study of history shows that society only needs to do two things quickly: (#1) catch and (#2) punish those citizens and non-citizens who attempt to improve their lives at the expense of others.
Rating:
Summary: Why Hayek is so Historically Correct!
Review: One should read Diamond's historical text "Guns, Germs, and Steel" to understand why thorough the anchaint history of man's developement, Liberty and individualism resulted in the progress of civilization. Read both books similtaneously! skiplem
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, timeless classic
Review: The Constitution of Liberty is "a comprehensive restatement of the basic principles of a philosophy of freedom" (p. 3). It is often considered the magnum opus of Hayek's political writings, even if The Road to Serfdom is perhaps better known.
The Constitution of Liberty has three parts. In the first part Hayek defines the concept of liberty, namely as "absence of coercion" (ยง1.1), with coercion occuring "when one man's actions are made to serve another man's will, not for his own but for the other's purpose" (p. 133). The only kind of coercion acceptable is that by the state that is intended to prevent more severe coercion (including fraud and deception) between individuals (p. 144). Government should not pursue policies intended to achieve greater material equality, since involuntary redistribution involves coercion of some, and is thus in violation of liberty.
In the second part, Hayek explores some of the characteristics of the legal system of a country where freedom reigns: people must be ruled not by the whims of other people, whether an autocratic ruler or a democratic majority, but by laws that apply equally to everyone. In part three Hayek explores some of the applications of his theory (taxation, Social Security, central banking, education, labor unions, etc).
Part 1 is brilliant and timeless-Hayek at his absolute best. Part 3 is somewhat dated, but here and there some gems of persuasion can definitely be found, particularly in the chapters on social security and taxation.
Rating:
Summary: You don't have to be a socialist, even at 20
Review: There is an old saying "If you are not a socialist at 20 you don't have a heart. If you are not a conservative at 40 you don't have a brain". Many people who are young at heart feel that the dreadful alternative to left-liberalism is some kind of cynical, crusty conservatism. Some conservatives reinforce that impression by their rigid and authoritarian views. The best part of this book is the essay at the end titled "Why I am not a conservative" because it dissolves that confusion of thought. Differences within the "non-left" arise especially in two areas: (a) the use of state power to enforce moral principles and (b) the domain of economic policy. In each case the nub of the issue is the extent of state intervention that is appropriate. Some economic liberals may need to be reminded that we do not live by bread and technology alone. Our lives gain meaning and purpose from the myths, moral values and traditions which constitute our non-material heritage. Economic liberals may sometimes appear to have little interest in these spiritual and cultural matters but this is not entirely true and the impression arises because they seldom see these things as part of the agenda of state policy. Here a basic principle is at stake because they do not aim to impose religious or cultural values, instead they wish to sustain "a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends", as Hayek put it. Turning to economic policy we find much conservative apprehension about the push for wholesale deregulation and privatisation. Socialists and many conservatives share a distrust of capitalism due to their failure to appreciate the function of markets and the nature of competition in the marketplace. Over the last century or two, liberals of the classical (non-socialist) variety were forced into ad hoc alliances with conservatives to resist the socialist thrust of the Left. Consequently market liberalism became identified as a reactionary movement and hence the importance of this essay as a corrective to that view. Due to the compromises required for the liberal/conservative alliance in practical politics, the spirit of classical liberalism has languished to the point of death because no major political party in the Western world sustained it in a pure form. The Rule of Law is a principle that conservatives might be expected to hold dear. But Hayek drew attention to "the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty". Some conservatives tend to share with socialists a willingness to recruit the power of the state to coerce others where the liberal would allow freedom of choice. Conscription for military service is a case in point. In this book Hayek addresses a wide range of social and political issues to provide alternatives to traditional socialist and conservative views. But the real sting is in the tail, in the essay which relaxes the crippling requirement for young people to go through a phase of socialism to demonstrate that they have a heart.
Rating:
Summary: Read This Book!
Review: This book is brave and timeless. I picked up this book foolishly thinking I would be reading an analysis of the US Constitution. What I recieved was an education in the importance of liberty as the highest virtue.
Rating:
Summary: Shows why there is no elsewhere elsewhere
Review: This is a book that can be right in ways that confound all expertise, a basic text of political economy, brilliant enough to summarize all the mistakes of the twentieth century while they were still happening. With an author born in Europe, aware of a society with classes based on great wealth, where culture was largely the activity of a few thousand incredibly intelligent people, but, due to a bestseller of his own, exposed to the dynamic economic growth of postwar America, teaching in an offbeat center like the University of Chicago, concerned about liberty, law, "The Decline of Socialism and the Rise of the Welfare State," Social Security, and utterly convinced of his main point: the necessity for taxation to pay for whatever benefits a government can contrive. Most people are still far from appreciating the economic basis for THE CONSTITUTION OF LIBERTY by Hayek, which stands as a political argument so solidly made, it has a quality that might be considered crazy. Published in 1960, the amounts of money being discussed in this book are ludicrously small for people who do not live in China. In an economic system which was striving to become global in character, Hayek was concerned about majority thinking on incomes reaching some maximum limit, which might be imposed by progressive taxation (which was worse then in America and Great Briton than it is now), as an end to economic growth. "Where this may lead is illustrated by a recent proposal, only narrowly defeated, of the National Planning Commission of India, according to which a ceiling of $6,300 per annum was to be fixed for all incomes (and a ceiling of $4,300 for salary incomes). . . . Can there be much doubt that poor countries, by preventing people from getting rich, will also slow down the general growth of wealth? And does not what applies to the poor countries apply equally to the rich?" (p. 322, Chapter Twenty, Taxation and Redistribution). These amounts still might be in the ballpark for what people in some parts of the world could be willing to work for, if they had the opportunity, but the nature of economics has changed so much, the idea that people anywhere could be spending any of their time for such small change, while the American military is getting a billion dollars a week to look for whoever could be inflicting some real damage on the American economy, like September 11 did, is more than enough to make people wonder what Iraqis would do with freedom if they had it. Some rewards have been offered to Iraqis for the kind of information that what make the Americans there happy. The American way seems to be designed for managers who can figure out how to get to the top so they can retire with a deferred compensation package in the neighborhood of $139 million, like the recently resigned president of the New York Stock Exchange, who was in danger of handing out favors to people in that ballpark. If millions of dollars can provide a reasonable opportunity to give a person the freedom to enjoy himself, it is surprising that spending a billion dollars a week to support the American military in Iraq is not as much fun as complaining about it. My favorite complaint can be found in the Index of Subjects under Experts (democracy and, social security). "3. The extreme complexity and consequent incomprehensibility of the social security systems create for democracy a serious problem. . . . As a result, the expert has come to dominate in this field as in others. . . . But, almost invariably, this new kind of expert has one distinguishing characteristic: he is unhesitatingly in favor of the institutions on which he is expert. This is so not merely because only one who approves of the institution will have the interest and the patience to master the details, but even more because such an effort would hardly be worth the while of anyone else: the views of anybody who is not prepared to accept the principles of the existing institutions are not likely to be taken seriously and will carry no weight in the discussions determining current policy." (pp. 290-291). Hayek implies that his own position has no place in the councils of the high and mighty, but there is plenty of support for his view that the future is easily diminished by the system of financing which is being relied on to provide the benefits of such institutions. "Does anyone really believe that the average semiskilled worker in Italy is better off because 44 per cent of his employer's total outlay is handed over to the state or, in concrete figures, because of the 49 cents which his employer pays for an hour of his work, he receives only 27 cents, while 22 cents are spent for him by the state?" (p. 294). Obviously, Italy has been operating its scheme long enough to produce benefits that rival the amount which workers get. Similarly, it seems the American government has an acute interest in having work done overseas, to avoid American workers earning the right to retirement under a social security system which might soon be as costly for American workers. Hayek was writing before a large portion of American social security contributions were dumped into U.S. bonds to produce the trillion dollar surpluses that were never real. It was truly amazing that America was able to balance the books for so long with such shaky maneuvers, but the plan was to produce a system like "that in Germany, where about 20 percent of the total national income is placed in the hands of the social security administration." (p. 294). With what America is spending on the military, it is never going to be able to turn that much money over to a privatized administrator.
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