>  
>You know better ... self-defeating and self-contradictory ... is different than
deterministic.
  
  
Can you name one writer who has read Hayek as making a deterministic argument?  
  
> To say that interventionism generates unintendend and undesirable consequences from the
point of view of the advocates of the interventionism does not by necessity lead to
increased interventionism.
  
One writer who has denied that?  
  
>They could decide to abandon their idea about interventionisms ability to satisfy the
goals sought and push for another policy IF THEY CHANGED THEIR THEORY OF THE WAY THE WORLD
WORKS.
  
Or they could simply stop at whatever the status quo. In your writings (like Hayek) you
presuppose planners have a lexicographic preference for planning per se.
  
  
>The Mises-Hayek position is one of instability and incoherence of the proposed
interventionism to meet the goals stated.  It is a question of means/ends analysis,
holding the policy makers theory constant.
  
& why would policymakers (& where?) prove so ideologically inflexible? (or blind for that
matter?)
  
>  
  
>  
>I find it somewhat puzzling on this list that theoretical contributions in political
economy that helped explain the contradictions of the welfare/warfare state that arose in
the 1960s and 1970s (that even left wing intellectuals like Claus Offe understood), and
the collapse of real-existing socialism in the 1980s and 1990s could be so easily
dismissed as "unrealistic" and "dreadful".
  
  
What is the link between "real-existing socialism" & the Labour platform of 1945?   
  
  
>  
>You really do not have to agree with a position to admit that it has some merit to its
position if you take the time to read authors in even a mildly charitable manner.
>  
  
I think I'm a pretty careful reader of Hayek. Your version of charity seems to amount to
reading with one's eyes closed or choosing to ignore those little inconvenient weaknesses
in Hayek's reasoning. Full-blown planning was a total non-starter given the institutional
environment of Britain circa late 40's. I suggest you start your reading with Richard
Toye's book (reviewed on the list by Donald Moggridge I believe when it came out a few
years back). Much as this may surprise you, a plethora of real historians have written big
books on the Labour government of 45. Also, is Hayek charitable when he refers to Labour's
policy of labor conscription? Think about the image that labor conscription conjures up in
your mind & then go to the library and actually read about what Labour's labor policy
actually entailed.
  
  
>The sort of interpretation of the Road to Serfdom and of Hayek that has been offered is
extremely strange.
  
  
Offered by whom? Hayek does after all argue that Sweden circa 1976 is on its way to
serfdom (see the 76 preface). Seems pretty bizarre claim to me.
  
>  
>Perhaps the notion of the hermeneutics of suspicion should be turned back on all these
"readings".  But if we did that, what would happen to mutual understanding and "truth
tracking"?  No perhaps the best strategy for scholarship is to insist on "charitable
readings" and to ask those offering "suspicious readings" to rethink what they are
proposing.
  
  
What about your reference to 'real-existing socialism' above? Is that charitable towards
the folk on this list who might consider themselves socialists or ardent advocates of a
much larger welfare state?
  
Hayek distinguishes between hot socialism (command planning) & cold socialism. He argues
that cold socialism takes us to the same place as hot socialism (but provides no
persuasive mechanism as to why). That is pretty uncharitable towards his Labour opponents
of the 50's & 60's.
  
Andrew Farrant