Central PLanning 101

Over the years I've touted the teachings of
F. A. Hayek and his discourse on central planning
in a book titled "The Road to Serfdom" that was
originally published in the US in 1944 although
it previously took him 3 years (1940-43) to write
it. Once ready for publication it was difficult
to find a US publisher, although once released it
found two additional homes, one as a serial in
the Reader's Digest and another as a comic strip
publication published by Look Magazine. Please
see mises.org/books/TRTS

An abridged version of the book is available online
at jim.com/hayek.htm

Hayek shared a Nobel prize in 1974 for his work
and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 1991, the year before he died.

Obviously Hayek was a strong critic of central
planning, the antithesis of free market capitalism.
In 1994 Milton Friedman wrote an introduction to
the edition released that year, and heavily quoted
his introduction to a 1971 German edition of
the same book.

Friedman discussed the time bound elements that
put a hard stop to the march towards collectivism
and central planning in the immediate post WW2
period in Germany, England, and the USA. The UK
had gotten so far as to have the government
assign people to occupations, an idea that found
no place in the post war period.

"Unfortunately, the check to collectivism did not
check the growth of government; rather it diverted
its growth to a different channel. The emphasis
shifted from governmentally administered activities
to indirect regulation of supposedly private enter-
prises and even more to governmental transfer
programs, involving extracting taxes from some in
order to make grants to others--all in the name of
equality and the eradication of poverty, but in
practice producing an erratic and contradictory
melange of subsidies to special interest groups.
As a result, the fraction of the national income
being spent by governments has continued to mount."

That brings us to the present day with the
congressional passage of Obamacare. All of Friedman's
step by step description of how the UK grew
government in the post WW2 period is now happening
in the USA at an advanced rate. In the end, it will
be wall to wall central planning and collectivism by
the US government if Obama et troupe aren't stopped
promptly.

"This is what change looks like." B. Obama 3/22/2010

Bill Vajk