A day after
Glenn Beck recommended Friedrich von Hayek's
The Road to Serfdom
,
it's sold out (h/t:
Instapundit). Luckily, there are a couple of alternatives available for those too impatient to wait.
Sharp Elbows (a conservative blog for the A. D. D. generation) will be glad to know that there's
a comic book edition (h/t: again
Instapundit). Reader's Digest published a shortened version of Hayek's masterpiece and that version is
available online as a PDF. Interestingly, Amazon not only has the "definitive edition" ranked #1 in books, but they have it
in stock, in hardback, and downloadable for Kindle
. I suppose they became the world's largest book store by squirreling away copies of what the people want
before the people know they want it.
That said, I will caution readers eagerly awaiting the arrival of this great book, that it is
not an easy read. I've read it twice. The first time, I didn't understand it. Hayek's formal arguments leverage a lot of classical philosophy that I was not familiar with. Before re-reading
The Road to Serfdom
, I discovered
The Proceedings of the Friesian School. Friesian.com is a little difficult to navigate... I usually scroll down to "Topics and Essays" and poke around there for something to read. Between my two readings of
The Road to Serfdom, I read the
Friesian essays on Ancient Greek Philosophy and I believe this made Hayek's book much more accessible the second time. If you need a break from philosophy and economics, I recommend the essay on
The Practical Rules of Bureaucracy.
As Glenn Beck would surely agree: Welcome to our
autodidactic world!