Hayek versus Trump: The Radical Right’s Road to Serfdom

Trantidis, Aris and Cowen, Nicholas (2020) Hayek versus Trump: The Radical Right’s Road to Serfdom. Polity, 52 (2). pp. 159-188. ISSN 0032-3497

Full content URL: https://doi.org/10.1086/707769

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Abstract

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom has been interpreted as a general warning against state intervention in the economy. We review this argument in conjunction with Hayek’s later work and discern an institutional thesis about which forms of state intervention and economic institutions could threaten personal and political freedom. Economic institutions pose a threat if they allow for coercive interventions as described by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty: by giving someone the power to force others to serve one’s will by the threat of inflicting harm, in the absence of general rules of conduct. According to the logic of the argument, welfare-state provisions are not coercive insofar as they do not allow the identification and discriminatory treatment of individuals. By contrast, we claim that a structure of coercion is likely to emerge from the command-and-control nature of protectionist institutions and immigration restrictions currently advocated by the Radical Right.

Keywords:Hayek, Road to Serfdom, State intervention, Mixed economy, Protectionism, Rule of Law, Radical Right, Welfare State, Economic freedom, Democracy
Subjects:L Social studies > L214 Nationalism
L Social studies > L213 Socialism
L Social studies > L174 Collectivism
L Social studies > L215 Fascism
L Social studies > L200 Politics
L Social studies > L222 Democracy
L Social studies > L430 Public Policy
L Social studies > L211 Liberalism
L Social studies > L221 Autocracy
L Social studies > L150 Political Economics
L Social studies > L220 Political Systems
L Social studies > L170 Economic Systems
L Social studies > L171 Capitalism
Divisions:College of Social Science > School of Social & Political Sciences
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ID Code:35089
Deposited On:09 Apr 2019 10:48

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