By Mike Gray

On WND, Ellis Washington continues his cruise through Benjamin Wiker’s 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read, discussing the author of The Road to Serfdom:

Following the intellectual traditions of Aristotle, the father of political conservatism, as well as Burke, Tocqueville, Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Belloc and Voegelin, Hayek strongly advocated individual moral responsibility to expand one’s own abilities to take care of themselves and their society. Therefore, Hayek believed that the government should be a means “to help individuals in the fullest development of their individual personality,” rather than an end in itself. Hayek believed that socialism crushes the human spirit and the opportunity to development one’s own intelligence and moral responsibility, to direct his own human potential and to contribute to the commonwealth.

. . . Hayek’s arguments favoring free-market capitalism, federalism and limited government were not based upon parochialism, anarchy or greed, but upon a vigorous recognition of the intrinsic limitations of the human condition.

. . . Hayek and C. S. Lewis both foresaw the inherent dangers in ever advancing technology. Hayek wrote, “While there is nothing in modern technological developments which forces us toward comprehensive economic planning, there is a great deal in them which makes infinitely more dangerous the power a planning authority would possess.”