One: The Abandoned Road
But the essential features of that individualism which, from elements provided by Christianity and the philosophy of classical antiquity, was first fully developed during the Renaissance and has since grown and spread into what we know as Western civilization – are the respect for the individual man qua man, that is, the recognition of his own views and tastes as supreme, in his own sphere.
Germany had a large socialist party in her parliament and that until not very long ago the doctrinal development of socialism was almost entirely carried on in Germany and Austria, so that even today Russian discussion largely carries on where the Germans left off. Most English and American socialists are still unaware that the majority of the problems they begin to discover were thoroughly discussed by German socialists long ago.
Two: The Great Utopia
What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to amke it his heaven. – Holderlin
“Stalinism is worse than fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, antidemocratic, unredeemed by any hope or scruple,” and that it is “better described as superfascist”
“Marxism has led to Fascism and National Socialism, because, in all essentials, it is Fascism and National Socialism”
Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.
Three: Individualism and Collectivism
The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts, not an argument for leaving things just as they are.
Planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not by planning against competition.
The planning against which all our criticism is directed is solely the planning against competition – the planning which is to be substituted for competition.
Five: Planning and Democracy
It does not need much reflection to see that these terms (the “common good”, the “general welfare”, or the “general interest”) have no sufficiently definite meaning to determine a particular course of action. The welfare and the happiness of millions cannot be measured on a single scale of less and more.
The effect of the people’s agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go: with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all.
Six: Planning and the Rule of Law
This means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand – rules which make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers in given circumstances and to plan one’s individual affairs on the basis of this knowledge.
Economic planning of the collectivist kind necessarily involves the very opposite of this (the Rule of Law)…They depend inevitably on the circumstances of the moment, and, in making such decisions, it will always be necessary to balance one against the other the interests of various persons and groups. In the end somebody’s views will have to decide whose interests are more important; and these views must become part of the law of the land, a new distinction of rank which the coercive apparatus of government imposes upon the people.
(P114) Hence the familiar fact that the more the state “plans”, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
(P115) The state ceases to be a piece of utilitarian machinery intended to help individuals in the fullest development of their individual personality and becomes a “moral” institution – where “moral” is not used in contrast to immoral but describes an institution which imposes on its members its views on all moral questions, whether these views be moral or highly immoral. In this sense the Nazi or any other collectivist state is “moral”, while the liberal state is not.
(P119) As Immanuel Kant put it (and Voltaire expressed it before him in very much the same terms), “Man is free if he needs to obey no person but soly the laws”
(P119) It means only that the use of the government’s coercive powers will no longer be limited and determined by pre-established rules. … If the law says that such a board or authority may do what it pleases, anything that board or authority does is legal – but its actions are certainly not subject to the Rule of Law. By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete depotism imaginable.
(P120) The Rule of Law thus implies limits to the scope of legislation … It means, not that the state can be used only in cases defined in advance by the law and in such a infringe the Rule of Law. Anyone ready to deny this would have to contend that whether the Rule of Law prevails today in Germany, Italy, or Russia depends on whether the dictators have obtained their absolute power by constitutional means.
(P122) how the freedom of the press is to be safeguarded when the supply of paper and all the channels of distribution are controlled by the planning authority
(P123) But the almost boundless possibilities for a policy of discrimination and oppression provided by such apparently innocuous principles as “government control of the development of industries” have been amply demonstrated to all those desirous of seeing how the political consequnces of planning appear in practice.
Seven: Economic Control and Totalitarianism
(P125) It would be much truer to say that money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man. It is money which in existing society opens an astounding range of choice to the poor man – a range greater than that which not many generations ago was open to the wealthy.
马克思主义把钱视为罪恶的(“资本来到世间，从头到脚每个毛孔都滴着血和肮脏的东西”)。有趣的金钱观对比
(P125) this would merely mean that the recipient would no longer be allowed to choose and that whoever fixed the reward determined not only its size but also the particular form in which it should be enjoyed.
(P127) The so-called economic freedom which the planners promise us means precisely that we are to be relieved of the necessity of solving our own economic problems and that the bitter choices which this often involves are to be made for us.
感触最深的就是刚到美国的时候关于福利和保险所有的事情都要自己做决定，比如选择哪种医疗保险，选哪种商业保险，每个月扣多少401k，401k和医疗保险里的钱买什么股票,股票涨了，赚的是自己的，赔了自己承担损失。在国内的时候五险一金完全是透明的，这些钱怎么运作和你没有一点关系。这还是市场经济之后的状况。
(P128) In a directed economy, where authority watches over the ends pursued, it is certain that it would use its powers to assist some ends and to prevent the realization of others. Not our own view, but somebody else’s, of what we ought to like or dislike would determine what we should get. And since the authority would have the power to thwart any efforts to elude its guidance, it would control what we consume almost as effectively as if it directly told us how to spend our income.
(P128) Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours can change them; and even if we should never have the strength of mind to make the necessary sacrifice, the knowledge that we could escape if we only strove hard enough makes many otherwise intolerable positions bearable.
Eight: Who, Whom?
(P136) the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can dicide what to do with ourselves. If all the means of production were vested in a single hand, whether it be nominally that of “society” as a whole or that of a dictator, whoever exercises this control has complete power over us.
(P142) In Germany and Italy the Nazis and Fascists did, indeed, not have much to invent. The usages of the new political movements which pervaded all aspects of life had in both countries already been introduced by the socialists. The idea of a political party which embraces all activities of the individual from the cradle to the grave, which claims to guide his views on everything, and which delights in making all problems questions of party Weltanschauung, was first put into practice by the socialists.
Nine: Security and Freedom
(P147) “In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.” – Leon Trotsky (1937)
(P155) The younger generation of today has grown up in a world in which in school and press the spirit of commercial enterprise has been represented as disreputable and the making of profit as immoral, where to employ a hundred people is represented as exploitation but to command the same number as honorable.
(P156) “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Ten: Why the worst get on Top
(P157) Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. – Lord Acton
(P166) The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves “the good of the whole,” because the “good of the whole” is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done.
(P168) Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of Totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one in which the “selfish” interests of the individual are allowed to obstruct the full realization of the ends the community pursues.
Eleven: The end of truth
(P175) If the people are to support the common effort without hesitation, they must be conviced that not only the end aimed at but also the means chosen are the right ones.
(P180) It may indeed be said that it is the paradox of all collectivist doctrine and its demand for “conscious” control or “conscious” planning that they necessarily lead to the demand that the mind of some individual should rule supreme–while only the individualist approach guide the growth of reason. Individualism is thus an attitude of humility before this social process and of tolerance to other opinions and is the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is at the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.
Thirteen: The Totalitarians in our midst
(P206) If only a single industry were in question, this might well be so. But, when we have to deal with many different monopolistic industries, there is much to be said for leaving them in different private hands rather than combining them under the single control of the state.
(P206) Where the power which ought to check and control monopoly becomes interested in sheltering and defending its appointees, where for the government to remedy an abuse is to admit responsibility for it, and where criticism of the actions of monopoly means criticism of the government, there is little hope of monopoly becoming the servant of the community.
Fourteen: Material conditions and ideal ends
(P213) It is, in fact, in this field that the fascination of vague but popular phrase like “full employment” may well lead to extremely shortsighted measures, and where the categorical and irresponsible “it must be done at all cost” of the single-minded idealist is likely to do the greatest harm.
必须诚实地说原版和翻译版都很难读懂，完全没有阅读的乐趣，即使我对这本书的主题和结论很感兴趣。
很好奇马克思主义/社会主义/集体主义在西方社会是个什么形象。《文明的冲突与世界秩序的重建》里把马克思主义和伊斯兰文明做类比，《通往奴役之路》里把共产主义和法西斯相提并论(“Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.”)。文中提到，现在(1944年)俄国人讨论的都是德国人玩剩下的，多数英国和美国社会主义者还没意识到，他们刚刚发现的大多数问题早就被德国社会主义者彻底讨论过了(“so that even today Russian discussion largely carries on where the Germans left off. Most English and American socialists are still unaware that the majority of the problems they begin to discover were thoroughly discussed by German socialists long ago.”)。这已经是八十年前的事了，所以西方学术界对马克思主义/社会主义有没有什么共识？
有没有反驳本书观点的书？