I confess I've never read The Road to Serfdom, in part because of the impression I'd gotten of it from its fans. So this fascinating piece on Hayek was a revelation. Who knew that the father of right-wing libertarianism (though he wouldn't have considered himself so) believed that every government had a responsibility to ensure "a minimum standard of living"? Who knew that Keynes and Orwell found themselves wholly in agreement with Hayek's criticism of controlled economies? Clearly I'll have to finally read this.

I feel like this is a point I've been trying to make for a long time, but never so eloquently as this:

Yes, it is true that unions and chambers of commerce and gun enthusiasts and environmentalists and industrial sectors and doctors and lawyers and Indian casinos will band together and attempt to capture the machinery of government to further their own particular interests, often—usually—at the expense of rivals who are locked out of participation (and of the social and economic choices of individual citizens). Hayek’s solution is to deny the legitimacy of any movement to impose restraint on competition. The paradox is that forming spontaneous associations for the collective good of insiders seems to be a universal human activity. When individuals are free to make choices, this is invariably what they choose to do. Hayek’s principle might be sound, if applied universally, which it could never be. The practice would devastate civil society, and with it democracy.