SOURCE: A review of The Road to Serfdom, in The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 54, No. 3, June, 1946, pp. 269-70.

In the following review of Hayek's Road to Serfdom, Schumpeter praises Hayek's sincerity but disagrees with his belief that people want and are capable of exercising individual freedom.

[The Road to Serfdom] is a political book, so Hayek—setting an excellent example—frankly tells us in his Preface. It is, moreover, a courageous book: sincerity that scorns camouflage and never minces matters is its outstanding feature from beginning to end. Finally, it is also a polite book that hardly ever attributes to opponents anything beyond intellectual error. In fact, the author is polite to a fault; for not all relevant points can be made without more plain speaking about group interests than he is willing to resort to. In this respect—perhaps also in others—he might have learned...