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1 Libertarian Papers 1 (2009)
Observations on Professor Hayek's Plan

handle is hein.journals/libpa1 and id is 19 raw text is: VOL. 1, ARi. No. 2 (2009) OBSERVATIONS ON PROFESSOR HAYEK'S PLAN LUDWIG VON MISES* In the last sixty or eighty years in every country eminent citizens have become alarmed about the rising tide of totalitarianism. They wanted to preserve freedom and Western civilization and to organize an ideological and political movement to stop the progress on the road to serfdom. All these endeavors failed utterly; the parties and groups dedicated to their realization very soon disappeared from the public scene. Even their names fell into oblivion. The cause of this lamentable failure was that the founders of these movements could not emancipate themselves from the sway of the very ideas of the foes of liberty. They did not realize that freedom is inextricably linked with the market economy. They endorsed by and large the critical part of the socialist program. They were committed to a middle-of-the-road solution, to interventionism. What these frightened intellectuals did not comprehend was that all those measures of government interference with business which they advocated are abortive. They necessarily bring about a state of affairs which, from the point of view of their own advocates, is more undesirable than the *Ludwig von Mises (1881 1973) was author of Human Action: A Treatise on Economies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1949; 2nd ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Universit Press, 1963; 3rd ed. Chicago: Regnery, 1966. Scholar's edition. Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1998). This article is a previously unpublished typewritten memorandum dated December 31, 1946; the original of this memo is held in the Grove Cit College Archive: MPS files. Published here with permission. Editor's note: This memorandum was written at the request of Henrx Hazlitt to provide Mises's comments on and concerns about F.A. Hayek's initial proposals for what became the Mont PMerin Society. See J6rg Guido Hfilsmann, Mises The Last Knight of Liberalism (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007), pp. 865 et seq., discussing the context of this memo; see also the mention of this memo in History and Principles of the Property and Freedom Society, wN A. ertyandfn'edom 0 vrgiprilciple hml. CITE THIS ARTIcLE AS Ludwig von Mises, Observations on Professor Hayek's Plan, Libertarian Papers 1, 2 (2009). ONLINE AT: .hb rtIAn,4(r .ofg. TiIIs ARTICLE IS NOT subject to a Creative Commons License. LIBERTARIAN PAPERS