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Description: First edition of one of the most influential and popular expositions of classical liberalism ever published. Octavo, original black cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "To Dr Karl Popper a fellow struggler for freedom with friendly greetings from F.H. Hayek." Also included is a letter signed by Karl Popper to his assistant Melitta Mew, presenting her with this book as a birthday gift (".It is the copy he sent me to New Zealand on publication of the book, with a beautiful dedication. And thank you for everything you are doing for my work (and me). Karl"), on his stationery of 136 Welcomes Road, Kenley, Surrey, and dated 23 January 1994. While this book was very special to Popper, he had been diagnosed with cancer and passed away from complications in September. Ms. Mew helped to put together Popper's lectures and essays in a book, which was published in 1996: "In search of a better world : lectures and essays from thirty years." Easily the best association copy in existence, as the lives of both of these great economists, Fredrich von Hayek (1899-1992) and Karl Popper (1902-1994) greatly impacted the other and their lives were intertwined. They both experienced the destruction of their Bourgeois Viennese families' savings by hyperinflation due to the fragility of the liberal society. While both men studied at the University of Vienna, they first met in London in 1935. Hayek was at that time employed at the London School of Economics and Popper was in the city on a visiting lectureship. While Popper accepted a position in New Zealand, where he was to remain until after World War II, he would also later assume a chair at the LSE, due to Hayek's influence there. Near fine in a good dust jacket. The British edition (which this example is) was published in March of 1944, preceding its American counterpart, which was published later that same year in September. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. "Hayek has written one of the most important books of our generation. It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning that John Stuart Mill stated in his great essay, On Liberty" (Hazlitt, 82). Its arguments against economic control by the government inspired many politicians and economists. John Maynard Keynes has been quoted as saying, "[I]n my opinion it is a grand book. . . . Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement." While the Road To Serfdom placed fourth on the list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the twentieth century by National Review magazine, it was not as popular at the time of its writing, and Karl Popper was one of Hayek's few intellectual allies. He shared many of Hayek's views and Hayek even read the manuscript of Popper's own work, The Open Society and Its Enemies, prior to his publication of this book.
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.
Hayek, Friedrich August von [F.A.]. The Road To Serfdom.. Routledge & Sons, London, 1944.
Price: US$450000.00 + shipping
Description: Friedrich August von Hayek's first edition personal copy of one of the most influential books of the twentieth century and the most popular exposition of classical liberalism ever published. Octavo, original cloth. Hayek's personal copy with his ownership name to the front free endpaper, "F.A. Hayek" and notation, "published March 10th, 1944" and list of 12 early critical reviews of the book to the verso of the rear endpaper, "Reviews: Tablet 11/3/44 (Douglas Woodruff); Sunday Times 12/3 (1 or 2 volumes) Harold Hobson 2. 9/4 (G.M. Young); Birmingham Post 14/3 (T.W.H); Yorkshire Post 29/3; Financial News 30/3; Listener 30/3; Daily Sketch 30/3; Times Literary Suppl. 1/4; Spectator 31/3 M. Polanzi; Irish Times 25/3; Observer 9/4 (George Orwell); Manchester Guardian 14/4 (W)." As a powerful challenge to the developing establishment consensus on both sides of the Atlantic for a proactive role for the state, The Road to Serfdom entrenched Hayekâs status as a strong voice of the libertarian right. Written during the wartime period when the London School of Economics, where Hayek had taught since 1931, was evacuated to Cambridge, the work was written to address the likely mode of government in Post-War Britain, yet proved to be much more widely applicable. Fearing the growing enthusiasm for state intervention and planning in 1940s Britain and its similarities to the roots of Nazi tyranny, Hayek argued that it would be impossible for a planned economy to mimic the complexities of the free market (in which information is naturally widely dispersed) and that, in their attempt to gather the information and resources needed to establish an efficient market, planners would be pushed towards an ever-increasing accumulation of power. This accumulation of information and power would, Hayek argued, lead inexorably towards totalitarianism, leading the nation down a "road to serfdom." Hayekâs politics left him in a somewhat lonely position in the middle decades of the 20th century. When Churchill claimed during the 1945 General Election campaign that the Labour party would need âsome sort of Gestapoâ to fulfill its commitments to a Welfare State, this outburst was blamed on Hayek, and The Road to Serfdom was ferociously attacked by the New Dealers in the United States. The book received both praise and criticism upon publication in 1944. In his April 9, 1944 review in the Observer (a year before the publication of Animal Farm), George Orwell stated "By bringing the whole of life under the control of the State, Socialism necessarily gives power to an inner ring of bureaucrats, who in almost every case will be men who want power for its own sake and will stick at nothing in order to retain it. Britain, he says, is now going the same road as Germany, with the left-wing intelligentsia in the van and the Tory Party a good second. The only salvation lies in returning to an unplanned economy, free competition, and emphasis on liberty rather than on security. In the negative part of Professor Hayekâs thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often â" at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough â" that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of." Yet, being true to his leftist leanings, Orwell also professed that he could not endorse Hayek's program: "Professor Hayek is also probably right in saying that in this country the intellectuals are more totalitarian-minded than the common people. But he does not see, or will not admit, that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter â¦Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war. Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics." With Hayek's corrections in pencil to pages 39 and 111, marginal notes in pencil to pages 130-131 and 137, marginal note in pen to page 107, and a newspaper clipping of a satirical poem on 'World Planners' to the front pastedown. Also with an autograph manuscript transcription in Hayek's hand on his King's College, Cambridge letterhead of Morris Bishop's 'For the Tomb of Economic Man' which appeared in the September 12, 1942 issue of The New Yorker Magazine laid in. Near fine in the scarce original dust jacket which is in very good condition. Housed in a custom full morocco clamshell box. "Hayek has written one of the most important books of our generation. It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning that John Stuart Mill stated in his great essay, âOn Libertyâ" (Hazlitt, 82), but in the decades that followed Hayek was key to bringing reinvigorated free-market ideas back to the intellectual and political mainstream. Hayekâs powerful critique of the planned economy and his moral defense of capitalism caused a sensation when it was published on March 10, 1944. The first edition of 20,000 copies sold out almost immediately. An American edition followed in September 1944, and the book reached a much wider audience through the condensed version that appeared in Readerâs Digest in April 1945. As a powerful challenge toÂthe developing establishment consensus on both sides of the Atlantic for a pro-active role for the state, the book entre
Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.