By John Ryan
If books change the world, The Road to Serfdom was a delayed fuse. Published in 1944, the book met a wide readership with numerous printings in quick succession, yet made little impact in a war-torn world. For three decades following the war, the book lingered as the ghost at the feast, as the Western welfare states, led by interventionist governments backed with Keynesian macroeconomic policy, cemented their position in what seemed an unassailable new order. Yet over the 1970s, the book became something of a manifesto for the small group of academics, politicians, and commentators who sought to challenge the established order, and a foundation text of the surgent neoliberal movement. With the Thatcher and Reagan projects, Hayek’s ideas found their audience. The principles which had been so unwelcome in the 1940s were now put into practice; for better or worse, the individual was once again foregrounded in economic policy, and the state rolled back from the lives of ordinary people.
Hayek’s thesis was a historical study of specific events, tracing previous governments to their roots in welfarist policy, but it was also a universal theory of politics. In short, The Road to Serfdom holds that the tendency of government is to expand in power and influence and unless this expansion is checked by an intellectual alternative that prioritises personal and economic liberty, the endpoint will be “serfdom”, that is, total government control. For seven decades the book has proved controversial. It has been attacked from every angle; by socialists, modern liberals, and conservatives alike. Despite this, it has remained an influential canonical text of political science reading lists.
Hayek wrote the work between 1940 and 1943. The outlook for individual liberty and limited government was not promising. Aside from the fact that during these years most of Europe had elected governments who administrated welfare states, Hayek recognised that the governments of the free world had massively expanded their scope and reach to fight the war. He started to believe that perhaps even the peacetime governments would come to be unable, even if willing, to shrink the state back to its pre-war size. Besides, even discounting the effects of the war, the tide was moving in favour of a large state with social responsibility. The ideas of Keynes, supporting government intervention in the economy, were becoming increasingly popular; Beveridge was laying out his plan for the British welfare state to wide applause; Franklin Delano Roosevelt was cementing his New Deal in America; and, Clement Attlee’s democratic socialist Labour Party was soon to take power in Britain.
It was in this climate that the book was published in March 1944. Of the famous books in political science published over the centuries, few were so out of keeping with the spirit of the age. Nonetheless, the immediate reception was positive. The initial print run of 2,000 copies sold out within days. Over the next two years, seven impressions were printed, the publishers struggling to keep pace, given wartime paper restrictions, with the public’s demand; so much so, Hayek himself referred to it as “that unobtainable book”. The American edition, which followed in September 1944 after being rejected by three publishing houses, met with similar success. Reviewers tended to commend the importance of Hayek’s thesis, but presented his case as grossly overstated, and as too black and white. Yet both supporters and opponents bought and read the book. Indeed, in April 1945 a truncated version appeared in Readers Digest in the US, under the title “One of the Most Important Books of Our Generation”, bringing the book to its ten-million strong readership.
And yet, the immediate impact of the book on government policy was almost zero. As the post-War welfare states grew and became entrenched, without any apparent ‘serfdom’, Hayek’s celebrity passed in the popular eye, and the book fell out of print. In the years 1947 to 1970, not a single edition of The Road to Serfdom was published in the UK. Hayek, depressed at this state of affairs, continued his work, but his publications were chiefly limited to an academic rather than a popular audience.
Thatcher and Reagan at the White House in 1981
Yet throughout this period, Hayek’s thesis retained a small band of fierce adherents. The Mont Pelerin Society, which Hayek founded, continued to promote economic liberty throughout the fifties and sixties. In the seventies, their efforts suddenly bore fruit. Hayek was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974. In the face of the perceived economic decline, industrial unrest, and high inflation of those years, more and more people turned once more to the free market thinkers, and to The Road to Serfdom. New editions were published (including a new preface by Hayek) and the book returned to the centre of debate. Margaret Thatcher had read the book as a young woman and later confessed that she had not thought much of it at the time. Advised to read it again by the free-market gurus to whom she turned as an answer to Britain’s plight, she was inspired, and it formed a crucial backdrop to her anti-socialist crusading. Thatcher referenced Hayek many times in her speeches, and he later presented her with the very first copy of the 1984 signed limited edition of the book; she in turn appointed him a Companion of Honour the same year.
Similarly in America, the Reagan movement was infused with Hayek’s work. Reagan cited Hayek in answer to the question of which philosophical thinkers most influenced his conduct as leader, and appointed twenty Mont Pelerin Society economists to his task forces over the years. By the 1980s, Hayek’s thesis, bolstered by his later writings and by those of the freemarket economists he inspired, was the guiding principle of British and American economic policy. Thatcher and Reagan both emphasised the neoliberal belief that, without economic liberty, personal liberty is impossible, and that without both, democracy will fail. This line of thinking has been acknowledged by some to be the essence of The Road to Serfdom. By the end of the decade, the British and American free-market experiments were being repeated worldwide, and with the fall of the Soviet Union – a serf society, in Hayek’s eyes – the book had undeniably maintained its relevance. It has its critics to this day, but also, supporters who felt that the principles of the book should have been applied far more vigorously than Thatcher and Reagan ever achieved. Nonetheless, whether loved or loathed, The Road to Serfdom will always serve as an enduring example of how books can effect change, inspire popular movements, and transform politics, even if it can take decades to do so.
Collecting The Road to Serfdom
First edition, first impression
The first edition, first impression of The Road to Serfdom was published in London by George Routledge & Sons in March 1944, in a basic black cloth binding with gilt lettering on the spine. The first impression is easily identified, with the copyright page having no notice of further reprintings. Once identified, the collector should look for sharp copies, with the spine lettering bright, and without marking to the cloth or contents; the wartime paper stock means some light toning to the contents is forgivable.
Wartime paper shortages also led to the jackets being printed on thin, fragile paper, and most surviving copies have now lost their jackets. The collector should not begrudge paying a significant premium for a copy in a jacket, and an even greater premium for a particularly nice example. Repairs or restoration, darkening to the spine panel, chips and tears will all detract from this premium, but the rarity of surviving examples means that jackets in sorrier state need not necessarily be rejected. Of greater concern is the risk of a jacket being switched in from a cheaper later impression, whether by ill intent or not. The rear flap of the jacket is blank for the correct first impression, and was filled with reviews for later impressions. Similarly, the front flap has no impression statement for the first impression, added at the bottom for later impressions – a jacket where the front flap has been clipped should be checked carefully.
First edition, later impressions
As with all books, the price for later printings falls to a fraction of the first printing. Seven impressions were published by 1946. Each is readily distinguished on the copyright page by an impression statement and date, and with an impression statement on the front flap of the jacket.
Of note is the change introduced with the fourth impression, where the book was rechristened a “Popular Edition”, with a statement thus on the front panel of the jacket. The price was halved for this and the subsequent three printings, and a cheaper cloth was used without gilt lettering to save on publishing costs.
First American edition
Especially given the influence of Hayek in America, the first American edition (which was also the first foreign edition) is highly collectible. The first printing was published by the University of Chicago in September 1944, and is again distinguished by the same absence of later printing statements on the copyright page and jacket. John Chamberlain contributed a new preface for the edition. The jacket bears a striking chain design, and as with the first British edition is difficult to find, more difficult still in nice condition.
Abridged and popular editions
Early foreign editions of the text, including the first appearances in each foreign language, represent a broad collecting avenue. The most striking of the early foreign editions was the first Australian paperback edition in 1945, with garish red, blue, and yellow wrappers proclaiming: “Stop! Look! Listen! Are the Democracies Moving Towards Totalitarianism?”. The contrast between this design, and that of the plain jacket of the original British first edition, could not be more conspicuous.
In 1946 an abridged edition was published, in wrappers. The price was around a quarter of the original, and represented the book in its cheapest and most fragile form. As a result, surviving copies are uncommon, and copies in nice condition particularly so.
Signed limited edition
Following the above abridged edition in 1946, no new edition was published in Britain until 1971, with Hayek’s ideas out of fashion. The new editions that follow in the 1970s and 1980s with Hayek’s resurgence are currently not much sought after by collectors, but nonetheless represent an important component of the book’s history. For most collectors, the end point, and for many the personal highlight, is the 40th anniversary signed limited edition which was published in 1984.
This special edition was produced in 200 copies, each bound in brown leather blocked in gilt, and each signed by Hayek himself. Hayek wrote a new preface, and must have been astonished how the book’s reputation had been so thoroughly resurrected to warrant such a luxurious edition. The very first copy was presented to Margaret Thatcher, and the significance of the book’s publication in 1984, the year where George Orwell predicted his own Serf society, was not lost.
The book presents the collector with a guaranteed authentic signature by Hayek, without any concern of doubt. Those who seek a signature on a first or earlier editions should proceed with extraordinary care, as Hayek is firmly in the sights of the forger.
Meet the Experts
John studied History and Politics at Oxford, before completing a Master’s degree in modern British and European history at the same institution. He served a brief stint in Blackwell’s Rare Book department in Oxford before joining Peter Harrington in 2017.
