Friedrich Von Hayek’s “the Road to Serfdom”

In “The Road to Serfdom” (1944), Friedrich von Hayek regards responsibility as the essence of the individual moral learning. During his/her lifetime, the individual has to “decide which of the things one values are to be sacrificed to others”.

This slightly monetary view of responsibility – since everything is assumed to be of some value and subject to comparison – brings about the obvious bearing of the consequences of one’s own choices and decisions; therefore, the individual is well aware of his/her duties and the results of not accomplishing them.

Hayek assures that this responsibility accounts to one’s conscience, not to “a superior”. Nevertheless, it is evident that hierarchy and compulsion were two bases of the nineteenth century in Britain, the time when he considers individualism to have bloomed. In addition to this, Hayek seems to lose sight of Mill’s vision of not self-regarding actions, in other words, those kinds of behaviour in which the individual affects and perhaps harms other individuals’ sphere of freedom. Thus Hayek only cares about that part of individual conduct where “the effect of collectivism has been almost entirely destructive”; it is possible to declare him guilty of a limited comprehension of the individual’s realm of free actions.

He tries to depict a comparison between the individualistic and the collectivist attitude towards morality. The collectivist thinking relieves the individual of bearing his/her responsibility, because it consists of “demanding that a desirable state of affairs should be brought about by the authorities”, sometimes being the individual even “willing to submit provided everyone else is made to do the same”, which shows a very selfish behaviour that fetters progress and any kind of improvement.

On the other hand, the individualistic thinking makes everyone’s conscience to reject indifference and tolerance towards “particular abuses” and “inequities”. In the last point Hayek knew he was maybe approaching too much the socialist view of the capitalist iniquitous system, so he rapidly adds that those “inequities” have to be appreciated only “in individual cases”.

An interesting point is made by the author referring to “one’s own convictions against a majority”. He enumerates the main features of his conception of morality and, apart from “voluntary co-operation”, “independence”, “self-reliance” and “the willingness to bear risks”, he considers the virtue of facing a “hostile public opinion” when the individual is convinced of the need to sacrifice “those of his values he rates lower to those he puts higher”.

This is to be defended against “the compulsion of the individual to do what is collectively decided to be good”. Hayek forgets again that the individual is embedded in a social environment where values and therefore targets have to be agreed and discussed, especially if we consider those schemes requiring co-laboration and perfect harmony of individual behaviours to gain a desirable result.

In fact, it is possible to argue that individual’s values are determined by his/her own individual experience and socialisation. Anyway, because of his firm belief in these values, Hayek even detracts from the importance of having a general election and representatives when he declares it “is not an occasion on which moral values are tested” or where an individual “has constantly to reassert and prove the order of his values”.

It is easy to discern that Hayek’s weaknesses concentrate on his repeatedly abstracting from society and his creation of an absolute realm of freedom for each of its members. Surprisingly, he speaks about “that selfishness which as individuals we had learnt a little to restrain”. We must admit that even that doubtful “little” is based on a highly optimistic understanding of human nature where “voluntary co-operation” is available whenever it is needed. Hayek refers as well to “the material  circumstances” which “force a choice upon us”; thus he admits that those circumstances lead many times to authentic selfishness and a pragmatic order of values far from the individual choice or consciousness.