Road to Serfdom, The - Hayek, F. A. & Caldwell, Bruce [38]
20 [Economic Survey for 1947, op. cit., p. 9. —Ed.]
21 L. J. Barnes, Youth Service in an English County: A Report Prepared for King George’s Jubilee Trust (London, 1945), pp. 18–21. [The first quoted passage appears on pages 18 and 20 of the report; page 19 contains a chart. The second through fourth appear on page 20, and the last on page 21. —Ed.]
22 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, the Henry Reeve text as revised by Francis Bowen, now further corrected and edited with introduction, editorial notes, and bibliographies by Philips Bradley (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), Vol. 2, Book 4, chapter 6, p. 319. The whole chapter should be read in order to realize with what acute insight Tocqueville was able to foresee the psychological effects of the modern welfare state. It was, incidentally, Tocqueville’s frequent reference to the “new servitude” which suggested the title of the present book. [In his penetrating account of democracy in America, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) observed that the search for greater equality typically is accompanied by greater centralization of government and a corresponding reduction in liberty. The chapter cited is titled, “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” —Ed.]
23 [Hayek quotes from The Road to Serfdom, chapter 10, p. 159. —Ed.]
24 Ivor Thomas, The Socialist Tragedy, op. cit., pp. 241, 242. [Classical scholar, author, journalist, and Labour MP Ivor Thomas (1905–1993) wrote for The Times and The News Chronicle, and later was an editor at The Daily Telegraph. He resigned from the Labour party in 1948 and subsequently joined the Conservative party. Thomas assumed the surname Bulmer-Thomas in 1952. —Ed.]
25 In an article in the issue of June 19, 1954, discussing the Report on the Public Inquiry Ordered by the Minister of Agriculture into the Disposal of Land at Crichel Down (Cmd. 9176; London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1954), a document deserving the most careful study by all those interested in the psychology of a planning bureaucracy. [The Economist article Hayek refers to is, “What Is the Public Interest?” vol. 171, June 19, 1954, pp. 951–52. The article notes how, in 1937, the Air Ministry bought against the opposition of its owners a tract of land for a bombing range. The land, part of three farms, was located in Crichel Down, Dorset. After the war the land was transferred to other government ministries and ultimately upgraded and sold to a new buyer. During the whole period the original owners tried unsuccessfully to buy or rent their land back. The episode was taken by The Economist as providing “evidence to confirm a suspicion that has been growing on the general public for some time past—that the bureaucracy in Britain has grown arrogantly careless of the rights of the subject” (p. 951). The Lord Chief Justice Hayek refers to in the text is Gordon Hewart, First Baron of Bury (1870–1943), who held the position from 1922–1940. In his book The New Despotism (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1929; reprinted, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), Hewart criticized Acts of Parliament whose provisions give broad discretion to the ministers and departments that are responsible for carrying them out, discretion that enables them to interpret the Acts as they see fit, without review or meaningful appeal, and even to amend the Acts themselves. Hewart believed that this had “the effect of placing a large and increasing field of departmental authority beyond the reach of the ordinary law” (p. 11). —Ed.]
26 G. W. Keeton, The Passing of Parliament (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1952), p. 33.
PREFACE TO THE 1976 EDITION
This book, written in my spare time from 1940 to 1943, while my mind was still mainly occupied with problems of pure economic theory, has unexpectedly