Liberalismo e socialdemocrazia: la differenza dei principi politici

Liberalism and Social Democracy: The Difference of Political Principles (Minimum Government for Maximum Liberty)

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

In his preface to the new 1976 edition of The Road to Serfdom (1944), Hayek gave an "answer – on the whole affirmative" to the question of whether he was still "prepared to defend all the main conclusions of The Road to Serfdom". But he added that: "At the time I wrote, socialism meant unambiguously the nationalisation of the means of production and the central economic planning which this made possible and necessary"; whereas since then socialism "has come to mean the extensive redistribution of incomes through taxation and the institutions of the welfare state". Hayek then concluded that, in that sense, the same effects "are brought about more slowly, indirectly and imperfectly". This paper argues that if this process it to be halted, then the liberal democracies will have to adopt and respect strongly restrictive fiscal constitutions; constitutions strictly limiting the powers of government to tax, to borrow and to inflate.