The 1939 film, Ninotchka, with Greta Garbo, deftly provides the arguments and examples for capitalism over communism and socialism. I haven’t read Hayek’s books yet, but I suspect that being able to match pertinent scenes from Ninotchka to his points will make his books much easier to read. But even if they don’t, the movie is a work of genius and an absolute delight, so I highly recommend it.

Cynthia

Paul Samuelson wrote that he was not at first impressed by Hayek’s 1945 American Economis Review article “The Use of Knowledge in Society and the realization that Hayek had an important point to make took a while to sink in. Hayek’s The Road To Serfdom makes several deep points, but he makes his points in general, abstract terms rather than by example, so the book is a slow read. That’s my excuse, anyway, for deferring The Constitution of Liberty.

The most succinct statement of the point you make, above, comes, oddly enough, from an economist who once was sympathetic to central planning. Robert Heilbroner wrote (I belteve it was in The Worldly Philosophers) that if you want to walk through a crowd, the easiest way to do this is to get everyone else to stand in formation. Small, unambitious plans lead naturally to larger, more totalarian plans.

Hayek and Friedman gave us Goldwater, Reagan, and Thatcher. It’s sad to see that progress reversed by Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.
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