I just finished F.A. Hayek’s book, The Road to Serfdom. As a fan of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell, I felt it was time to read one of the academics who inspired their writings. Hayek’s views did not disappoint.

As an Austrian economist who fled the rise of Nazism, Hayek enjoyed a long and prestigious career as a fierce proponent for individual liberty and the free market. Eventually, he was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1974.

One of Hayek’s core arguments in Road to Serfdom, which created many enemies in progressive circles, was that socialism, not capitalism, was a prelude to Naziism. But why? Central planning, a core tenant of socialism, argued Hayek, was what led to the complete collapse of free civilization.

During his time, Hayek’s views ran contrary to many opinions in the West where facism was seen as an outgrowth of the right. Its antithesis, communism, was proclaimed as an anomaly of the left. That meant socialism, the practice of involving more government policy, was simply an idea to be implemented. However, Hayek points out that socialism, facism, and communism are more similar than most realize:

Facism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Stalinist Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany.

And:

Few are ready to recognize that the rise of fascism and naziism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.

These statements are alarming. But what is the root poison of these ideologies? Central planning. It has nothing to do with left or right politics, but how much our leaders implement government policy to solve the problems facing society.

What’s the solution? Hayek maintains we must localize power as much as possible and keep things within the private sector. The economist points out:

“The more we try to provide full security by interfering with the market system, the greater the insecurity becomes; and, what is worse, the greater becomes the contrast between the security of those to whom it is granted as a privilege and the ever increasing insecurity of the underprivileged.”

Hayek found resistance amongst left-leaning politicians, and some argue that his predictions have proved to be inaccurate. Regardless, I found his mindset to be refreshing. And it was exciting to see an intellectual who influenced other greats like Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell.

In summary, I found The Road to Serfdom to be a refreshing read. I’ll end this piece with my favorite quote from the book:

“From this the individualist concludes that the individuals should be allowed, within defined limits, to follow their own values and preferences rather than somebody else’s; that within these spheres the individual’s system of ends should be supreme and not subject to any dictation by others. It is this recognition of the individual as the ultimate judge of his ends, the belief that as far as possible his own views ought to govern his actions, that forms the essence of the individualist position.”

Last month I took the plunge and read a book from one of America’s great intellectuals, Milton Friedman. A Nobel-prize winning economist, Friedman is one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.

I was born in 1989, so Friedman’s heyday was before my time. He lived well into the 2000s, but I was too young to truly appreciate his economic philosophy. Nevertheless, I found his insights enlightening, and was glad to discover this person I’d heard so much about.

Capitalism and Freedom reads more like a philosophy book. Friedman makes a compelling case for lean government. He warns against the tendency of public institutions to become tyrannical, or in his words, “coercive.”

Friedman writes: “the fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority.”

If you enjoy free market sentiments, you can thank Friedman for mainstreaming this philosophy in the 60s, first with Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign, and later in the 80s with Reagan’s tenure in the White House. If anything, Friedman’s influence has helped Americans question the role of government in their lives.

Throughout the book, Friedman echoes his desire to equip individuals with as much freedom as possible. It’s rooted in an underdog aesthetic, and Friedman’s anti-establishment rhetoric feels like a breathe of fresh air.

Although Friedman argued for limited government, he did acknowledge “the existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government.” Friedman recognized that government is inevitable. It simply needs to be checked, lest it wreaks havoc on the very people it claims to protect.

On the opposing side, an argument I hear lobbed at Friedman’s philosophy is Trickle Down Economics — the idea that “tax breaks and benefits for corporations and the wealthy will trickle down and eventually benefit everyone.”

But to my surprise, Trickle Down Economics isn’t real. It’s a made up fallacy. Almost like calling someone a unicorn and hoping that label will stick. Consider these wordsby economist Thomas Sowell:

“There is no such theory [Trickle Down Theory]… I defy anybody to name any economist of any school of thought outside of an insane asylum who had ever advanced that theory. I pointed out that Joseph Schumpeter in his 1,260 page book on the history of economic analysis, printed in very small letters, has no mention of any trickle down… It’s a straw man that’s been created… You show me that theory and I’ll give you a $1,000 down payment toward [some charity]…”

I’ll leave you with this quote by Friedman: “The power to do good is also the power to do harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm. The great tragedy of the drive to centralization, as of the drive to extend the scope of government in general, is that it is mostly led by men of goodwill who will be the first to rue its consequences.”

In summary, Friedman’s perspective is a refreshing take on the role of government. I pray his philosophy of personal freedom makes a resurgence in America.

Back in May, I wrote a review of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. It’s one of the most famous books on economics ever written, and it blew me away.

Recently, I dove back into the world of Friedmanomics and finished Jennifer Burns’ The Last Conservative, a biography of Milton himself.

Touted as a deep dive into Friedman’s life, it reads more like an economic history of the United States (starting from the Great Depression up to Biden’s presidency).

I was shocked to learn that Friedman’s way of thinking about inflation—the very theory he was famous for—wasn’t mainstream until the 1980s.

Before this, he was a rebel, fighting the dominant view of Keynesian economics that had taken root in the U.S. during the early 1900s.