In 1944, WWII was fully underway. All around the world, governments had organized their economies to work in harmony for the war effort. This lead to such precipitous drops in poverty, crime, and unemployment that many people began to say that a planned economy might not be so terrible a thing to have around even in peacetime. In response, famed German economist and theoretician Friedrich August von Hayek published his magnum opus,
The Road to Serfdom, in which he explained why government intervention in the economy - especially of the kind touted by John Maynard Keynes – would inevitably lead to fascism and totalitarian government.
people like Milton Friedman and Margeret Thatcher liked the book, but they found it had far too many ‘words’ and ‘pages’; they wanted something simpler. Finally, a new illustrated edition of
The Road to Serfdom was released, explaining the natural progression from high government spending to Nazism. Some highlights:
Well, it was better than
Mallard Fillmore.
