Frederich a. Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom"
The Road to Serfdom is a popular book that was written by one of the so-called Austrian Economists that argues that societies try to create systems that ensure some level of prosperity for their citizens. Governments do this by redistributing resources through taxation and other programs. While this might seem to be a good thing to many, Hayek argues that centralized planning of economic affairs can lead to tyranny. He argues that freedom in economic affairs is what really ensures prosperity for all and centralized planning has unintended consequences that restrict individual liberty.
The struggle between collectivism and individualism is a debate that has been central to many intellectuals throughout the course of history. Even in the world today, there exists a mix of different nations that lean one way or the other. It is easy to point to the United States as proof of how individualism, in which the U.S. is the world leader in, and use this for a justification for Hayek's arguments. The free market mechanisms and deregulation of industries have undoubtedly led to periods of vast economic prosperity in the U.S.
However, it is also possible to point to countries that are socialistic and utilize collect policies...
Effective measurement of economic performance and when the government should stay (or not stay) out of things is discussed at the end of the chapter. Chapter 16 Web Activities 1. Economist Russ Roberts and filmmaker John Papola have created a video of a rap-off between economists John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek. View the video at http://www.econstories.tv/. Read the lyrics on the same page, and then read the line-by-line discussion of
Plato and Aristotle's political theories The most capacious account of Plato's established philosophical views has been published in "The Republic" as a comprehensive handling of the most basic values for the behavior of human life. As it deals with a large number of matters, The Republic can be interpreted in a lot of diverse manner: as a discourse on political conjecture and observation, as an academic manual, or the manner
For example, Tocqueville was able to explain 18th century European aristocrat behavior by looking at social consequences. Like Tocqueville, Marx believed that they could explain individual actions by looking at subconscious class interests. Frey has demonstrated that people will accept individually negative outcomes, if they have positive group benefits. Nietzsche believed that, while conscious of class interests, individual actions and beliefs should be viewed from an individual perspective, since they
Milton Friedman: Journey From Past to Present Milton Friedman, the world's famous economist was born in 1912, in a poor Jewish Immigrant family who shifted to Brooklyn in the late 1980s. After completing his public school studies, he joined Rutgers University in 1928 (Friedman and Friedman 1998, p.25-27). During his early study in the field of economics, he was continuously in contact with the theorists like Mitchell, Burns and Kuznets; therefore he
Economists Explain the theory of Social Darwinism. What elements of truth are in the theory? How do you refute it? The theory of Social Darwinism is simply asserts that only the fittest survive in the wild or in society as it exists today. Thus, this theory was based heavily on the ideas of Charles Darwin and his views on plants and animals in nature. Thus, this theory specified that the weak
Business Cycles The Keynesian approach to recessionary gaps is to increase government spending and lower taxes -- run a deficit -- in order to spur aggregate demand. In the Keynesian model, aggregate demand is affected by a number of different factors -- consumer consumption, business investment, government spending and net exports. During a recessionary gap, consumer spending and business investment are probably both down, which leaves the other two factors to
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now