Friedrich Hayek
Criticism of collectivism

Hayek was one of the leading academic critics of collectivism in the 20th century. In Hayek's view, the central role of the state should be to maintain the rule of law, with as little arbitrary intervention as possible. In his popular book The Road to Serfdom (1944) and in subsequent academic works, Hayek argued that socialism required central economic planning and that such planning in turn leads towards totalitarianism.

In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek wrote:

Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "communism" and "fascism".

Hayek posited that a central planning authority would have to be endowed with powers that would impact and ultimately control social life because the knowledge required for centrally planning an economy is inherently decentralised, and would need to be brought under control.

Though Hayek did argue that the state should provide law centrally, others have pointed out that this contradicts his arguments about the role of judges in "discovering" the law, suggesting that Hayek would have supported decentralized provision of legal services.

Hayek also wrote that the state can play a role in the economy, specifically in creating a safety net, saying:

There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.

Hayek's argument has been criticized as a slippery slope argument and therefore fallacious. Peter Boettke has argued that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the book and Hayek's point is about what central planning directly entails, not what it is likely to lead to.

" The Denationalization of Money " is one of his literary works, in which he advocated the establishment of competitions in issuing moneys.
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