The Road to Serfdom (use Annotations Button to watch without comments)

A cartoon adaptation of F.A. Hayek's classic treatise on the dangers of government intervention into the economy.

Also included are annotations that draw parallels to recent events in American political economy.

Hayek's book was published in 1944, first in Britain and later in the USA.

The Reader's Digest condensed version appeared in 1945, and led to the original's widespread popularity in the US. You can download this version from my website:

http://www.FreedomRide.us/wp-content/documents/road-to-serfdom-RD.pdf

The cartoon was created in the early 1950's and distributed in pamphlet form by General Motors Corp, ironically enough...

For a more detailed discussion of our country's continuing creep towards top-down corporatism, check out:

http://www.FreedomRide.us

Please post this URL or embed it on any discussion boards or other websites!

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• The Road to Serfdom
• FreedomRide
• Federal Reserve
• Ron Paul
• Sean Ryan
• government
• intervention
• economy
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• auto
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[zsylvana]

6) Markets can coexist with drastic forms of autocracy and despotism – as they did under eighteenth-century absolutism, not to speak of various sorts of military junta or fascist dictatorship in the twentieth century. But they can also be combined with advanced forms of parliamentary democracy. Market economies could also worsen the misery of broad masses, by an absolute lowering of their standard of living,

[zsylvana]

5)Similarly, market economies in the sense of ex post allocations of resources have historically existed in the most variegated forms. In principle, there could be market economies with ‘perfect’ free competition: though in practice this has hardly ever been realized. There can be market economies skewed by the dominance of powerful monopolies able to control large sectors of activity and so to fix prices over long periods.

[Magicwillnz]

@turbozed OK, I get what you are saying about the environment. That's a potential solution, though I'm not sure it is the best one.

About the Koch Brothers: it is not that they disagree with me that is the problem. It's that they commit crimes. These are not allegations so much as facts. Look up the deals with Iran they did, the people dropping dead because of pollution in Crossett, Arkansas, the way they manipulate our democracy. Don't be fooled by their funding of NOVA.

[turbozed]

@Magicwillnz

They fund NOVA and have for decades so I'll step in and give them a quick defense. If they poison rivers and air then they have violated federal laws and, if you have that knowledge, please bust them. The only allegations you really seem to make is that they have the audacity to believe in different policies than you. There's a real tendency amongst ideologues to posit some shady inner-circle cabal when encountering differeng viewpoints. I urge you to resist the temptation.

[turbozed]

@zsylvana

This is true, but those markets aren't efficient because those systems are plagued by corruption, cronyism, and abuse. While they can coexist, totalitarianism of any kind is a detriment to the efficiency of the market. Totalitarianism (aka planning) leads to misery, poverty, and massive human tragedy. Can you think of a market economy that also guarantees freedom of speech and other basic civil rights where markets have worsened misery of the broad masses? I can't.

[turbozed]

@Magicwillnz

I'm not saying that exactly. We could price the cost of these externalities into the products that do the most harm to the environment and let the market work. The problem lies in accurate pricing and avoiding values arbitrarily. People benefit health-wise and pleasure-wise from clean air and landscapes. That benefit can theoretically be assigned a dollar amount. We just need a creative way to measure this. Science, technology, and social media might help moving forward.

[Magicwillnz]

@turbozed Well, what you are basically saying is that we should have ADMIT ENTRY to national parks. That runs into problems: what do you do with places that are too remote to visit by most people, thus undervalued? What happens when a wealthy person buys up that land at market value? Real democracies have been far more effective at protecting environments than any other system so far. Your suggestion is an interesting idea, I'll give you that, and serious, unlike this other joker.

[Magicwillnz]

@yeahlikewhatever Actually, that's caused by shit sex education, not by welfare.

I agree with you about GM subsidies.

No, I don't like the Koch brothers because they bribe politicians, they poison rivers and air, they have a campaign against climate science, they wage a war against the education system. I don't give a shit about AFP. So yes, the cost of a paper cup is a really fucking serious thing, and it's one of many serious, serious things libertarians like to ignore.

[turbozed]

@Magicwillnz

Yourexample is an error in implementation, not in essence. We can address that issue by creating a market influence derived from people's enjoyment of the environment unpolluted. I assume even libertarians enjoy clean air and nice landscapes. The problem of the commons isn't in any way a tyranny as is the unholy union of central-planning and blind ideology. It always devolves into totalitarianism--the common thread between communism, fascism and colonialism of the 20th century.

[yeahlikewhatever]

@Magicwillnz I suspect the real reason you don't like the Koch brothers is their sponsorship of the AFP conference -- the one the fleabaggers tried to disrupt by blocking the door with their helpless terrified children, and screaming profanities.

Anyway I like paper cups.They make sense sometimes, such as when you can't wash your dishes because you're out in the wilderness. They're sanitary. Drinking out of a dirty cup has "externalities". Just don't leave them on the ground when you leave.

[yeahlikewhatever]

@Magicwillnz The "externality" of increased welfare benefits by government is the 70 percent rate of black children born to single mothers and the destruction of the black nuclear family. Yes, I know what a social externality is, and it's far more serious than the cost of a paper cup.

Another "externality" is the subsidy of GM, when its Volt can't compete in the free market, even with a 7500 dollar tax credit. Or the fact GM won't have to pay over 45 billion in taxes on future profits.

[Magicwillnz]

@yeahlikewhatever PART 3: Basically, if you buy a Dixie cup (a Koch product), you're buying it for far cheaper than the actual cost of making it as the environmental and social costs the product caused in its manufacturing was absorbed by unwilling participants.

So, as I said from the beginning, you can have a "socialist" tyranny, but you can also have a corporate, libertarian tyranny.