source of title

[Robert Hettinga]

No need to answer the question. Just thought the DeToqueville quote was
appropriate to our circumstances the last week or so...

By, the way, if there ever was an Official Cypherpunks Reading List(tm),
the "Road to Serfdom", by Hayek would certainly be on it. There's a 50th
anniversary edition out, with a forward by Milton Friedman...

Cheers,
Bob

--- begin forwarded text


Date:         Thu, 18 Sep 1997 11:33:07 -0500
Reply-To: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Kent Guida <kent.guida at WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
Subject:      source of title
To: HAYEK-L at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU

        Regarding the source of Hayekís title, The Road to Serfdom:

        Was it taken from Tocqueville?  I assume it is, but Iíve seen no
explicit
acknowledgment.  Hayekís references to T. all point to him as a soulmate
and precursor.

        The passage in Democracy in America reads:

I am convinced, however, that anarchy is not the principal evil that
democracies ages have to fear, but the least.  For the principle of
equality begets two tendencies: the one leads men straight to independence
and may suddenly drive them into anarchy; the other conducts them by a
longer, more secret, but more certain road to servitude.  Nations readily
discern the former tendency and are prepared to resist it; they are led
away by the latter, without perceiving its drift; hence it is peculiarly
important to point it out.

Vol 2, p.288 in Vintage edition of the Reeve translation

        Did Hayek ever refer to this as the source of his title?  Can
anyone help
me out here?

Kent Guida

--- end forwarded text



-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah at shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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