The Road to Freedom by Joseph Stiglitz review – against Hayek

The former world bank economist argues that neoliberalism paves the way for populism

In 1944 the Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek, displaced to Britain, was disquieted by his leftwing academic peers. As Hayek saw it, their political philosophy committed the same error as the fascism that was ravaging his homeland. He wrote that the desire to plan an economy centrally was - in what became the title of his most famous book - The Road to Serfdom: many who sincerely hate allof nazism's manifestations are working for ideals whose realisation would lead straight to the abhorred tyranny". Hayek cast fascism not as a reaction to progressive success, but as its natural endpoint.

Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank and adviser to Bill Clinton, tackles this idea head on in The Road to Freedom, his rejoinder to Hayek's work and that of his libertarian fellow traveller Milton Friedman. As Stiglitz sees it, rather than too much government leading to tyranny, the shift to neoliberalism hasreduced freedom and provided fertile ground for populists". Social democracy, with its greater role for the state, generates freer, robust societies that are resilient to authoritarians like former president Donald Trump.