MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD
NICOLSON
FEW books published since the war have amused so much dis- cussion as Professor F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. There are those who proclaim that the Professor's exposition of the consequences of compulsory planning offers us a fresh revela- tion of Liberalism. There are others who contend that the Pro- fessor, under the guise of an unprejudiced analysis, has indulged in a meretricious attack upon the tenets of Socialism. This book has already been very adequately reviewed in The Spectator by Mr. Michael Polanyi, and it is not my intention to repeat what he said.. But no person who is interested in current political theory can fail to be stimulated and aroused by the Professor's assertion that most of our present assumptions are in fact fallacies. At a time when the attention of every man and woman is concentrated upon war, there is always a danger that our political awareness and instincts may become dimmed ; and that we may tend to accept thoughtless formulas, finding in them an escape from general bewilderment and inertia. It is thus useful to be sharply warned by Professor Hayek that in accepting without mental effort the formula of a planned economy, not only are we repudiating the special contribution which this island has made to political theory, but we shall end by surrendering ourselves, our souls and bodies to a rigid totalitarian system. The Professor's warning will find a startled acceptance in the hearts of those who have, during these years of confusion, felt home-sick for the confident convictions of the nineteenth-century Liberals. It is, indeed, a tragedy that we should have grown half ashamed of the most precious political concepts which England has given to the world, and that we should, without hesitation, accept as valid political or economic theories which are not native to us but foreign. It is a fine thing that a man of Austrian origin should, in this fifth year of war, remind us that we should respond to oqr birthright ; respondite natalibus is the motto of Professor Hayek's
book.
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