Beginners reading list
Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner A good introduction to Economics and the sort of questions it aims to answer. The book is a collection of articles written by Levitt, an expert who had gained a reputation for applying economic theory to diverse subjects not usually covered by "traditional" economists. One example of the authors' use of economic theory involves demonstrating the existence of cheating among sumo wrestlers. The sumo community is very close- knit, and the wrestlers at the top levels tend to know each other well. The authors looked at the final match, and considered the case of a wrestler with seven wins, seven losses, and one fight to go, fighting against an 8–6 wrestler. Statistically, the 7–7 wrestler should have a slightly below even chance, since the 8–6 wrestler is slightly better. However, the 7–7 wrestler actually wins around 80% of the time. Levitt uses this statistic and other data gleaned from sumo wrestling matches, along with the effect that allegations of corruption have on match results, to conclude that those who already have 8 wins collude with those who are 7–7 and let them win, since they have already secured their position for the following tournament. Despite condemnation of the claims by the Japan Sumo Association following the book's publication in 2005, the 2011 Grand Tournament in Tokyo was cancelled for the first time since 1946 because of allegations of match fixing.
The Undercover Economist, Tim Harford Another excellent introduction to Economics and the questions it aims to answer. Who makes most money from the demand for cappuccinos early in the morning at Waterloo Station? Why is it impossible to get a foot on the property ladder? How does the Mafia make money from laundries when street gangs pushing drugs don't? Who really benefits from immigration? How can China, in just fifty years, go from the world's worst famine to one of the greatest economic revolutions of all time, lifting a million people out of poverty a month?
Economics: The User’s Guide, Ha-Joon Chang A very clear introduction to Economics. Makes complex topics easy to understand. In short, manageable chapters. What is economics? What can - and can't - it explain about the world? Why does it matter? Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at Cambridge University, and writes a column for the Guardian.
23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism, Ha Joon Chang In this revelatory book, Ha-Joon Chang destroys the biggest myths of our times and shows us an alternative view of the world. He looks at the following: there's no such thing as a 'free' market; Globalization isn't making the world richer; we don't live in a digital world - the washing machine has changed lives more than the internet; poor countries are more entrepreneurial than rich ones; higher paid managers don't produce better results; and we don't have to accept things as they are any longer.
The Return of Depression Economics, Paul Krugman Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics, shows how today's crisis parallels the events that caused the Great Depression - and explains what it will take to avoid catastrophe. Krugman shows how the failure of regulation to keep pace with an increasingly out-of-control financial system set the United States, and the world as a whole, up for the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. He also lays out the steps that must be taken to contain the crisis, and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession.
Fifty things that made the modern economy, Tim Harford Who thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as important for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down? From the tally-stick to Bitcoin, the canal lock to the jumbo jet, each invention in Tim Harford's fascinating new book has its own curious, surprising and memorable story, a vignette against a grand backdrop. Step by step, readers will start to understand where we are, how we got here, and where we might be going next. Hidden connections will be laid bare: how the barcode undermined family corner shops; why the gramophone widened inequality; how barbed wire shaped America. We'll meet the characters who developed some of these inventions, profited from them, or were ruined by them. We'll trace the economic principles that help to explain their transformative effects. And we'll ask what lessons we can learn to make wise use of future inventions, in a world where the pace of innovation will only accelerate.
Intermediate reading list Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson Why are some nations more prosperous than others? Why Nations Fail sets out to answer this question, with a compelling and elegantly argued new theory: that it is not down to climate, geography or culture, but because of institutions. Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary and historical examples, from ancient Rome through the Tudors to modern-day China, the authors show that to invest and prosper, people need to know that if they work hard, they can make money and actually keep it - and this means sound institutions that allow virtuous circles of innovation, expansion and peace. They blend economics, politics, history and current affairs to provide a new, powerful and persuasive way of understanding wealth and poverty.
The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier Paul Collier writes persuasively that although nearly six billion of the world's people are beginning to climb from desperate poverty and to benefit from globalization's reach to developing countries, there is a "bottom billion" of the world's poor whose countries, largely immune to the forces of global economy, are falling farther behind and are in danger of falling apart, separating permanently and tragically from the rest of the world. Collier identifies and explains the four traps that prevent the homelands of the world's billion poorest people from growing and receiving the benefits of globalization - civil war, the discovery and export of natural resources in otherwise unstable economies, being landlocked and therefore unable to participate in the global economy without great cost, and finally, ineffective governance. A good mix of Economics, Politics and Geography.
And The Weak Suffer What They Must? Yanis Varoufakis A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of failed capitalism. In this startling account of Europe’s economic rise and catastrophic fall, Yanis Varoufakis pinpoints the flaws in the European Union’s design – a design that was thought up after the Second World War, and is responsible for Europe’s fragmentation and the resurgence of racist extremism across the Continent. When the financial crisis struck in 2008, the political elite’s response ensured that it would be the weakest citizens of the weakest nations that would pay the price for the bankers’ mistakes. Drawing on his personal experience of negotiations with the eurozone’s financiers, and offering concrete policies to reform Europe, Varoufakis shows how we concocted this mess, and points the way out of it.
The Price of Inequality, Joseph E. Stiglitz Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School and Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001. The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn - too late.
Nudge, Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein Easy to read book on behavioural economics and it’s uses. Nudge is about choices - how we make them and how we can make better ones. Every day we make decisions: about the things that we buy or the meals we eat; about the investments we make or our children's health and education; even the causes that we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. We are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. And, as Thaler and Sunstein show, no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way. By knowing how people think, we can make it easier for them to choose what is best for them, their families and society. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and original research, the authors demonstrate how to nudge us in the right directions, without restricting our freedom of choice.
Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? Katrine Marcal Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, believed that our actions stem from self-interest and the world turns because of financial gain. But every night Adam Smith's mother served him his dinner, not out of self-interest but out of love.Today, economics focuses on self-interest and excludes our other motivations. It disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking and its influence has spread from the market to how we shop, think and date. In this engaging takedown of the economics that has failed us, Katrine Marcal journeys from Adam Smith's dinner table to the recent financial crisis and shows us how different, how much better, things could be.
The Sex Factor, Victoria Bateman The transformation in the role of women is the most important social and economic revolution of our time. In this thought-provoking book, Bateman, an academic at Cambridge, notorious for her “naked protests”, argues that the transformation in our thinking has not gone nearly far enough, especially in economics. She argues that “women’s freedom is vital for economic prosperity. It boosts wages, skills, saving and entrepreneurial spirit, and it delivers a democratic and capable state.” Bateman is a feminist, but she believes, against many feminists, that markets “have . . . been central to building women’s freedom”.
Firefighting, The Financial Crisis and its Lessons, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson JR 2008 saw one of the worst financial crises in generations, the global implications of which are still being felt today. Ten years later Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and Hank Paulson reflect on the causes of the crisis, why it was so damaging, and what it ultimately took to prevent a second Great Depression. All three had crucial roles in the government's response- Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve; Henry M. Paulson, Jr., as secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush; Timothy F. Geithner as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the Bush years and then Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama. A powerful, warts and all account told with unprecedented clarity; from the flawed human response to the necessity to learn from the past and help firefighters of the future protect economies from the ravages of financial crises. Firefighting is a vital account of a defining moment in modern history and an inspiring lesson on leadership through crisis. The Wealth effect, Jeffrey Chwieroth and Andrew Walter The politics of major banking crises has been transformed since the nineteenth century. Analyzing extensive historical and contemporary evidence, Chwieroth and Walter demonstrate that the rising wealth of the middle class has generated 'great expectations' among voters that the government is responsible for the protection of this wealth. Crisis policy interventions have become more extensive and costly - and their political aftermaths far more fraught - because of democratic governance, not in spite of it. Using data from numerous democracies over two centuries, and detailed studies of Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States, this book breaks new ground in exploring the consequences of the emerging mass political demand for financial stabilization. It shows why great expectations have induced rising financial fragility, more financial sector bailouts and rising political instability and discontent in contemporary democracies, providing new insight to anyone concerned with contemporary policy and politics.
Democracy and Prosperity, Torben Iversen and David Soskice A groundbreaking new historical analysis of how global capitalism and advanced democracies mutually support each other It is a widespread view that democracy and the advanced nation- state are in crisis, weakened by globalization and undermined by global capitalism, in turn explaining rising inequality and mounting populism. This book, written by two of the world's leading political economists, argues this view is wrong: advanced democracies are resilient, and their enduring historical relationship with capitalism has been mutually beneficial. For all the chaos and upheaval over the past century-major wars, economic crises, massive social change, and technological revolutions-Torben Iversen and David Soskice show how democratic states continuously reinvent their economies through massive public investment in research and education, by imposing competitive product markets and cooperation in the workplace, and by securing macroeconomic discipline as the preconditions for innovation and the promotion of the advanced sectors of the economy. Critically, this investment has generated vast numbers of well-paying jobs for the middle classes and their children, focusing the aims of aspirational families, and in turn providing electoral support for parties. Gains at the top have also been shared with the middle (though not the bottom) through a large welfare state. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom on globalization, advanced capitalism is neither footloose nor unconstrained: it thrives under democracy precisely because it cannot subvert it. Populism, inequality, and poverty are indeed great scourges of our time, but these are failures of democracy and must be solved by democracy.
Macroeconomics for Professionals, Leslie Lipschtiz and Susan Schadler The authors of this invaluable book are former economists at the International Monetary Fund. The book is written for professional economists and those who try to make sense of what they write. For such readers, it will show how to apply theoretical ideas and concepts to actual economies. It covers everything that matters in macroeconomics: the real economy, prices, monetary policy, fiscal policy, financial stability and the external accounts. Among potential users, frustrated students are likely to find it particularly helpful.
The Power of Capitalism, Rainer Zitelmann "The market has failed, we need more government intervention" - that's the mantra politicians, the media and intellectuals have been reiterating constantly ever since the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis. By taking the reader on a journey across continents and through recent history, Rainer Zitelmann disproves this call for greater government intervention and demonstrates that capitalism matters more than ever. The author provides compelling evidence from across the world that capitalism has been the solution to a number of massive problems. He compares developments in West and East Germany, North and South Korea, capitalist Chile v. Socialist Venezuela, and analyses the extraordinary economic rise of China. For many people, "capitalism" is a dirty word. This book provides a timely reminder of capitalism's power is enabling growth and prosperity and is alleviating poverty
GDP: A brief but affectionate history, Diane Coyle Why did the size of the U.S. economy increase by 3 percent on one day in mid-2013--or Ghana's balloon by 60 percent overnight in 2010? Why did the U.K. financial industry show its fastest expansion ever at the end of 2008--just as the world's financial system went into meltdown? And why was Greece's chief statistician charged with treason in 2013 for apparently doing nothing more than trying to accurately report the size of his country's economy? The answers to all these questions lie in the way we define and measure national economies around the world: Gross Domestic Product. This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives--but that hardly anyone actually understands.
The Great Economists: How their ideas can help us today, Linda Yueh 'The best place to start to learn about the very greatest economists of all time' In the light of current economic problems, and in particular economic growth, Yueh explores the thoughts of economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo through Joan Robinson and Milton Friedman to Douglass North and Robert Solow. Along the way she asks, for example: what do the ideas of Karl Marx tell us about the likely future for the Chinese economy? How does the work of John Maynard Keynes, who argued for government spending to create full employment, help us think about state investment? And with globalization in trouble, what can we learn about handling Brexit and Trumpism?
Doughnut Economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st Century Economist, Kate Raworth In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth lays out the seven deadly mistakes of economics and offers a radical re-envisioning of the system that has brought us to the point of ruin. Moving beyond the myths of ‘rational economic man’ and unlimited growth, Doughnut Economics zeroes in on the sweet spot: a system that meets all our needs without exhausting the planet.
The Future is Asia, Parag Khanna Five billion people, two-thirds of the world's mega-cities, one-third of the global economy, two-thirds of global economic growth, thirty of the Fortune 100, six of the ten largest banks, eight of the ten largest armies, five nuclear powers, massive technological innovation, the newest crop of top-ranked universities. Asia is also the world's most ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse region of the planet, eluding any remotely meaningful generalization beyond the geographic label itself. Even for Asians, Asia is dizzying to navigate. Whether you gauge by demography, geography, economy or any other metric, Asia is already the present - and it is certainly the future. It is for this reason that we cannot afford to continue to get Asia so wrong. The Future Is Asian accurately shows Asia from the inside-out, telling the story of how this mega-region is coming together and reshaping the entire planet in the process.
A short History of Brexit, Kevin O’Rourke
It is clearly too early to write the definitive history of Brexit. But O’Rourke, an economic historian, provides a very readable account of how we got here — including contemporary issues such as the financial crash and the refugee crisis, and longer-term factors such as British attitudes to free trade, parliamentary sovereignty and empire.
Calm and lucid, A Short History of Brexit rises above the usual fray of discussions to provide fresh perspectives and understanding of the most momentous political and economic change in Britain and the EU for decades.
Invisible women, Caroline Criano Perez
Activist Criado Perez offers multiple tales of gender bias unthinkingly embedded in policies, products and algorithms — from car seats to healthcare systems — because of the failure to take account of women while compiling or analysing the data. “Treating men as the ‘default human’,” Sarah Gordon wrote in the FT review, “means women are not just being treated unfairly — but are actually dying unnecessarily”.
Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.
From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women.
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff
The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control us. The heady optimism of the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions. Tech companies gather our information online and sell it to the highest bidder, whether government or retailer. Profits now depend not only on predicting our behaviour but modifying it too. How will this fusion of capitalism and the digital shape our values and define our future? Shoshana Zuboff shows that we are at a crossroads. We still have the power to decide what kind of world we want to live in, and what we decide now will shape the rest of the century. Our choices: allow technology to enrich the few and impoverish the many, or harness it and distribute its benefits.
The Plundered Planet, Paul Collier How can we help poorer countries become richer without harming the planet? Is there a way of reconciling prosperity with nature? World-renowned economist Paul Collier offers smart, surprising and above all realistic answers to this dilemma. Steering a path between the desires of unchecked profiteering and the romantic views of environmentalists, he explores creative ways to deal with poverty, overpopulation and climate change - showing that the solutions needn't cost the earth.
Ten Great Economists, Phil Thornton The Great Economists succinctly and accurately describes the thinking of the world’s leading economic thinkers. It captures their key beliefs, explores their backgrounds, assesses their thinking and evaluates their legacy. It explains the schools of thought named after them and clearly shows how they influence our everyday lives. There is a resurgence of interest in economics. Terminology that was once meaningless, such as quantitative easing, austerity, money supply, monetarism and prospect theory, are now central to how we plan our lives, when we take holidays, how we spend money and what jobs we do. But who coined these phrases, what was their thinking, how are our political leaders influenced by them, how will their policies affect us? The Great Economists: Ten People Whose Thinking Changed the Ways We Live explains their importance.
The Great Escape, Angus Deaton The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton--one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty--tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations, and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind.
What Money Can’t Buy, Michael J. Sandel What Money Can't Buy is the Top Ten Sunday Times Bestseller from 'the superstar philosopher', Michael Sandel Should we financially reward children for good marks? Is it ethical to pay people to donate organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons or selling citizenship? In recent decades, market values have impinged on almost every aspect of life - medicine, education, government, law, even family life. We have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. In What Money Can't Buy Michael Sandel asks: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? And how do we protect the things that really matter? A good mix of Economics and Philosphy.
The World of Three Zeroes, Muhammad Yunus Eight individuals now own more wealth than 50 per cent of the global population, and high unemployment in many countries means that people’s skills, knowledge, and creativity are being wasted. Rampant environmental destruction only adds to this picture of a bleak future in which humankind will no longer be able to sustain itself. But what if there is another way? Muhammad Yunus is the economist who invented microcredit, founded Grameen Bank, and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work towards alleviating poverty. Here, he sets forth his vision to establish a new kind of capitalism, where altruism and generosity are valued as much as profit making, and where individuals not only have the capacity to lift themselves out of poverty, but also to affect real change for the planet and its people.
The Growth Delusion, David Pilling In The Growth Delusion, author and prize-winning journalist David Pilling explores how economists and their cult of growth have hijacked our policy-making and infiltrated our thinking about what makes societies work. Our policies are geared relentlessly towards increasing our standard measure of growth, Gross Domestic Product. By this yardstick we have never been wealthier or happier. So why doesn't it feel that way? Why are we living in such fractureed times, with global populism on the rise and wealth inequality as stark as ever?
The Upstarts, Brad Stone Ten years ago, the idea of getting into a stranger’s car, or walking into a stranger’s home, would have seemed bizarre and dangerous, but today it’s as common as ordering a book online. Uber and Airbnb are household names: redefining neighbourhoods, challenging the way governments regulate business and changing the way we travel.
In the spirit of iconic Silicon Valley renegades like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, a new generation of entrepreneurs is sparking yet another cultural upheaval through technology. They are among the Upstarts, idiosyncratic founders with limitless drive and an abundance of self-confidence. Young, hungry and brilliant, they are rewriting the traditional rules of business, changing our day-to-day lives and often sidestepping serious ethical and legal obstacles in the process. Advanced reading list Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a 2013 book by French economist Thomas Piketty. It focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. The book's central thesis is that when the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability. Piketty proposes a global system of progressive wealth taxes to help reduce inequality and avoid the vast majority of wealth coming under the control of a tiny minority. The book argues that there was a trend towards higher inequality which was reversed between 1930 and 1975 due to unique circumstances: the two world wars, the Great Depression and a debt-fueled recession destroyed much wealth, particularly that owned by the elite. These events prompted governments to undertake steps towards redistributing income, especially in the post- World War II period. The fast, worldwide economic growth of that time began to reduce the importance of inherited wealthin the global economy. The book argues that the world today is returning towards "patrimonial capitalism", in which much of the economy is dominated by inherited wealth: the power of this economic class is increasing, threatening to create an oligarchy. Piketty cites novels by Honoré de Balzac, Jane Austen and Henry James to describe the rigid class structure based on accumulated capital that existed in England and France in the early 1800s. A number of pocket versions also exist.
The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith Originally delivered in the form of lectures at Glasgow, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations Books I-III laid the foundations of economic theory in general and 'classical' economics in particular, and this Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Andrew Skinner. The publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776 coincided with America's Declaration of Independence, and with this landmark treatise on political economy, Adam Smith paved the way for modern capitalism, arguing that a truly free market - fired by competition yet guided as if by an 'invisible hand' to ensure justice and equality - was the engine of a fair and productive society. Books I - III of The Wealth of Nations examine the 'division of labour' as the key to economic growth, by ensuring the interdependence of individuals within society. They also cover the origins of money and the importance of wages, profit, rent and stocks; but the real sophistication of his analysis derives from the fact that it encompasses a combination of ethics, philosophy and history to create a vast panorama of society.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money, John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is perhaps the foremost economic thinker of the twentieth century. On economic theory, he ranks with Adam Smith and Karl Marx; and his impact on how economics was practiced, from the Great Depression to the 1970s, was unmatched. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was first published in 1936. But its ideas had been forming for decades - as a student at Cambridge, Keynes had written to a friend of his love for 'Free Trade and free thought'. Keynes's limpid style, concise prose, and vivid descriptions have helped to keep his ideas alive - as have the novelty and clarity, at times even the ambiguity, of his macroeconomic vision. He was troubled, above all, by high unemployment rates and large disparities in wealth and income. Only by curbing both, he thought, could individualism, ‘the most powerful instrument to better the future', be safeguarded. The twenty-first century may yet prove him right.
Das Kapital, Karl Marx A landmark work in the understanding of capitalism, bourgeois society and the economics of class conflict, Karl Marx's Capital is translated by Ben Fowkes with an introduction by Ernest Mandel in Penguin Classics. One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one of the most influential, Capitalis an incisive critique of private property and the social relations it generates. Living in exile in England, where this work was largely written, Marx drew on a wide-ranging knowledge of its society to support his analysis and generate fresh insights. Arguing that capitalism would create an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, he predicted its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production. Capital rapidly acquired readership among the leaders of social democratic parties, particularly in Russia and Germany, and ultimately throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the Working Class'.
Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman Selected by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the "hundred most influential books since the war"
How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat it poses to individual freedom? In this classic book, Milton Friedman provides the definitive statement of his immensely influential economic philosophy—one in which competitive capitalism serves as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. The result is an accessible text that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into eighteen languages, and shows every sign of becoming more and more influential as time goes on.
The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history. With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny. Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when The Road to Serfdom was first published.