Evening star., 1945-04-12

you ask, how could he plan any,
thing If he doesn't believe in plan
ming? Well, that's partly what the
confusion is about. To begin again
Herr Hayek merely planned to
come over from England, where he
lectures in the London School of
Economics, to explain in person why
he is opposed to planning
He didn't know what he was
walking into. He didn't under
stand that he had already become a
sensation in American business
circles on the one hand, and in
American intellectual circles on the
other. He didn't realize that he
had come over to be canoniZed by
the Saturday Evening Post, the
Readers Digest and other such
organs Of light and reason, or, for
that matter, to be boiled alive by
Stuart Chase. Alvin Hansen. Lewis
Lorwin and other simple souls who
believe that we can't make any
plans without planning.
His Book Different.
It happened this way: Herr
Hayek wrote book and gave it a
very intriguing name, The Road
to Serfdom." 1t attracted atten-
tion because it was so different from
anything anybody else had written
in modern times. 1t seemed to say
that GermanyS trouble and Italy's
resulted from too much planning
and that if Great Britain, the
United States and other democ-
racies don't look out, don't stop
trying to plan everything, we are
all going 20 end up in the same
frightful mess as the Herrenvolk
That's what it seemed to say and
that was enough for American ir-
reconcilables already convinced
that our country is on the road to
perdition as the result of a master
New Deal plan. So an American
edition of the book was brought out,
pages about the Austro- -Englishman
appeared in the slick magazines,
lectures were arranged and now
Hayek is among us. Planning more
books against planning. perhaps.
Hayek himself probably finds the
hullabuloo over his book very per-
picking as perplexing as some of
his readers find the book, which is
perpleXing enough. A gifted writer,
every sentence is completely plaus-
ible and convincing, but when the
sentences grow into paragraphs the
plausibility starts to evaporate and
when the paragraphs become chap
ters you begin to wonder what it
was you thought you'd been con-
vinced of. And you begin also to
wonder which side of the issue
Hayek is on, if there is an issue
just the same he has furnished a
lot of spiritual nourishment to those
who still believe that Americas
creed should be every man for him
self and the devil take the hind
most. They can lift sentences from
the book and prove to their own
satisfaction that any more Twas,
any further interference with stock
market manipulations, any monkey
ing with wages and hours or the
prices of food and clothing and
above all, any effort on the part of
the Government to produce full en-
ployment, will take us right rapidly
down that road to serfdom.
"Remorseless Logic"
Says Fortune magazine: With
remorSeless logic and with an ad-
mirable insistence on clear defni-
ton, Hayek points cut that the
road to political slavery is, indeed,
strewn with good intentions"
Says Sam Pettengill, road agent
Of the Committee for Constitutional
Government: The world tide ebbs
back toward serfdom - unlimited
government-the omnipotent state
back to Caesarism under various
aliases such as Communism, Ma
tional Socialism, Fascism, New
Deal bureaucracy. " A counter
offensive is called for Books are
bullets in this war. The Road
to Serfdom' is masterpiece of in
tellectual honesty. l cannot
praise it too highly"
So Pettengill is using this cloth