Friedrich A. von Hayek Reihenfolge der Bücher (Chronologisch)

Early in the last century the successes of science led group of French thinkers to apply the principles of science to the study of society. These thinkers purported to have discovered the supposed laws of society and concluded that an elite of social scientists should assume direct control of social life.

Hayek's central thesis is that all forms of collectivism, whether Nazism or socialism, inevitably lead to tyranny and the suppression of freedoms, as evidenced at the time by the examples of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and other countries in the communist bloc. The author argues that in a centrally planned economy, the allocation of resources is the responsibility of a small group, which is incapable of processing the vast amount of information necessary for the proper distribution of these goods at their disposal. Given the enormous concentration of power in the hands of a limited number of bureaucrats, disagreements regarding the implementation of economic policies would inevitably lead to the use of force by the government to ensure that its measures are tolerated.