Word: hayek
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Aroused by Friedrich A. Hayek's controversial "Read to Serfdom," which he brands an "filled with every fallacy known brands an "filled with every fallacy known to the study of logic," Herman Finer, visiting lecturer on Government, announces that he is writing a "Road to Reaction" as an answer to what he considers "dangerous and deceptive" reasoning...
...Hayek's book is, according to Finer, evidence of a conservative reaction which has been veiled but continuous during the war. "As soon as the world is rid of Hitler, the same questions arise regarding government control of economics." Adding that this book was laughed off in England, finer claimed it was further indicative of a reaction by its reception here...
...Hayek tries to show that the economic system can and ought to be separated from political domination, and that only an economic system of laissez-faire is worth having. Perhaps the book's chief fallacy, though it's only one example of sheer nonsense out of hundreds, is that Nazism was the fruit of socialism, which is the craziest perversion I've ever come across...
...essence of Hayek's book," says finer, "is that there are certain economic laws which only economists can, and only Hayek among them did, discover. This necessitates a Bill of Rights, placing a limitation on the power of a popular majority which might not know about such economic laws. And this is only tenable if the Constitution of which this Bill of Rights is a part is not subject to amendment, say by a two-thirds majority, then Hayek would still have to rely on the people, although he is anti-popular. Even the Fathers of the American Constitution didn...
Professor Leontief, choosing the middle road between the two other speakers, took issue with Hayek's thesis that society has, after several thousand years of growth, reached the peak of its development, beyond which we can progress no further. In seeking to forestall the inevitable evolution of the planned economy, Hayek is attempting, said-Leontief, to "prevent, as it were, the consummation of a solar eclipse...