My cousin Bob has just read Frederick von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom", a conservative philosophical treatise much admired and criticized by scholars on both Left and Right. Bobby highly recommends it, although he warns me, "don't believe it, but you can't afford not to read it." He claims it is beautifully written, has much of value in it, and is a must read even if you can't accept all its conclusions.

The last thing I want to do is get bogged down in any more tedious political harangues, I get enough of that on the Zone, but I guess I owed him at least the courtesy of doing a little background check on the man and his work.

The following quote is from the Wikipedia entry on Hayek, and I was so impressed by it I have chosen to reproduce it here, not only because it originates from my favorite English Socialist, George Orwell, but because it so closely mirrors my own opinions on political matters.

George Orwell responded to the book with both praise and criticism, stating, "in the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often — at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough — that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of." Yet he also warned, "[A] return to 'free' competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the state."[9]