Short Stories

“THE ROAD TO FIEFDOM” (SHORT STORY)

Friedrich Hayek sits at his desk, pen in hand, writing the kind of letter that cuts deeper than an apology.

His sharp certainty worn blunt by watching his economic theories collide with reality. Free market theories meant to protect individual liberty have become the means to destroy it.

“The Road to Fiefdom” is a reflective short story about confronting the unintended consequences of a life’s work.

What would the young conservatives who quote him so fervently say if they knew his doubts?

If they knew his regrets?

1,000 words / 4 minutes of intellectual reading pleasure

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‘Revolutions are the locomotives of history.’ Karl Marx

STEFANO BOSCUTTI

THE ROAD TO FIEFDOM

My dear John,

It is with a mixture of admiration, reflection, and penitence that I pen these lines to you, long after our initial exchanges over the role of markets, government, and the proper stewardship of society’s economic fortunes.

The passage of time, as you once hinted, tends to soften the sharp contours of youthful conviction, rendering even the most well-crafted theories more pliable under the weight of experience.

Now, as I survey the consequences of my work, I find myself compelled to revisit the principles I so fervently defended and, perhaps, to offer the kind of accounting of which only intellectual honesty can demand.

When I first began articulating my arguments for liberalism and free markets in “Freedom and the Economic System”, my primary aim was to warn against the centralisation of economic authority, fearing it would inexorably lead to the erosion of individual freedoms.

It was not tyranny alone that I feared but rather the banal, creeping subjugation of the individual by faceless bureaucracies and paternalistic planners. I hoped to inspire vigilance against such tendencies. Yet, as I have observed the trajectories of societies that have embraced market liberalism with untempered zeal, I now wonder whether my own prescriptions have, in some quarters, facilitated outcomes not altogether different from those I sought to avert.

The central premise of my critique of planning - namely, that no single mind or body of minds can marshal the dispersed knowledge required to guide an economy - was and remains valid. However, I failed to adequately address the counterweight: the notion that unbridled markets are themselves capable of producing concentrations of power every bit as suffocating as the state’s. The monopolist, the oligarch, and the rentier capitalist are no less prone to oppressing the individual than the central planner, and in some respects, they do so more insidiously, cloaking their influence under the guise of voluntary exchange.

Here, John, is where I find your diagnosis more astute than mine: while I sounded the alarm against collectivist overreach, you rightly perceived that market economies, left entirely to their own devices, can devolve into unstable and inequitable systems, requiring the steadying hand of a judicious state.

I fear that my warnings against state intervention have emboldened those who would exploit the language of freedom to justify inequities that undermine the very social cohesion upon which liberty depends.

Here in London, I am constantly beseeched by young conservatives who think they know best and do not yet realise they know very little at all. Their fondness of authority and lack of understanding of economic forces do not bode well. Their fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces is palpable.

The unintended consequences of my ideas weigh heavily upon me. I have witnessed the uncritical adoption of market principles as if they were divine truths, immune to context or criticism.

In this worldview, every social ill - poverty, inequality, environmental degradation - is met with the refrain that markets will self-correct, that the invisible hand will magically provide.

However, as I look at the excesses of financialisation, the growing chasm between the wealthy and the rest, and the degradation of our shared natural world, I cannot help but ask whether my work has been appropriated to justify these maladies—or worse, whether I myself bear some culpability for failing to foresee them.

You once observed, with your usual elegance, that the problem of our age is not the abolition of wealth but the alleviation of inequality. In contrast, I placed my faith in the notion that prosperity, if pursued through free markets, would lift all boats.

That some boats now tower as vast yachts, while others are scarcely seaworthy rowboats, is a state of affairs I did not anticipate - or perhaps, more honestly, one I failed to sufficiently consider in my intellectual haste.

Liberty, as you well know, has been my guiding light, the lodestar of my work. Yet, I must now concede I did not sufficiently grapple with the complexities of liberty in practice.

Freedom from coercion, as I defined it, is not the same as freedom to live a life of dignity. When economic circumstances leave individuals trapped in cycles of poverty, when access to education, healthcare, and opportunity is circumscribed by the accident of birth, can we truly claim that they are free?

Moreover, the elevation of market freedom above all else has, in some instances, eroded the very cultural and moral fabric that supports free societies. By insisting on the supremacy of economic liberty, I fear I inadvertently devalued the non-economic institutions—families, communities, and civic organisations—that enable individuals to exercise that liberty meaningfully.

The atomisation of society, the reduction of citizens to consumers, and the commodification of human relationships are trends I neither foresaw nor desired.

It is said that satire is the weapon of the powerless, but I wonder if it might also serve as a tool of repentance for the once-powerful. To this end, I am considering a new project - a satirical account of my own theories and their unintended consequences.

The premise, though inchoate, is to craft a small book presented as an economic treatise written in plain English as a sixpence Penguin volume. There would be no dense economic theories but rather simple chapters where the truth becomes self-evident to every reader.

I’ve tentatively titled my satirical work “The Road to Serfdom”. Perhaps I could conclude the book with a chapter that might strike too close to home - a rooftop scene where learned economists gather to lament how their elegant theories have been transformed into bludgeons, used to justify the very sorts of human suffering they had hoped to alleviate. I imagine myself among them, understanding that the road to fiefdom is paved with noble intentions.

Do let me know your thoughts on this matter. Perhaps we could discuss it over dinner when you are next in London.

I promise to be far less dogmatic than in our previous encounters.

With the warmest regards and a measure of contrition,

Yours faithfully

F.A. Hayek

10-11 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5ED
United Kingdom

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This is a work of fiction. While many of the characters portrayed here have counterparts in the life and times of Friedrich Hayek and others, the characterisations and incidents presented are totally the products of the author’s philosophical imagination. This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It should not be resold or given away. Thank you for your support. (Couldn’t do it without you.)

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STEFANO BOSCUTTI

THE ROAD TO FIEFDOM

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