. . . by taking my five-week online course on F.A. Hayek’s famous book, The Road to Serfdom, under the auspices of the Mises Academy beginning on Wednesday, June 13. In addition to chapters from the book, a few online articles will be made available each week. The format is a 45–50 minute lecture followed by live Q&A for about the same amount of time for one evening each week. The lectures and chats are archived online, so it is not necessary to attend live — although you will get a lot more out of the course if you do. There will be quizzes for those students who wish to get a grade for the course.
When socialism collapsed all around the world in the late ’80s/early 90s the American socialist academic Robert Heilbroner wrote an article in The New Yorker entitled “After Communism” in which he wrote, “Mises was Right.” In light of the fact that America has become such a fascist police and warfare state, “Hayek was Right” would be another appropriate title for a New Yorker article. Take this course and learn why this is — and develop a better understanding of how we might go about making a U-turn on the road to serfdom.
(Heilbroner’s book, The Worldly Philosophers, was used as an econmics text for decades. He purported to survey the history of economic thinking, but he made no mention of Mises, the most prominent and insightful worldy philosopher of the twentieth century. In his New Yorker article he advised his fellow socialists to disguise themselves as environmentalists and make the case for socialist central planning not based on economics but on a supposed concern for “Mother Earth.” That’s why statist environmentalists–to be distinguished from genuine conservationists–should properly be called “watermelons” — green on the outside but red on the inside). Thanks to Gary North for reminding me of this about Heilbroner.
