Mismatch …

… Dionne v. Hayek, wherein it is observed  "in passing" that  "it isn’t evident from the column that Dionne has actually read The Road to Serfdom itself, as opposed to just reading commentators on the book who have also fundamentally misunderstood the book."

Nice to see the Washington Post printing a rebuttal of its very clown prince of punditry. I wrote a piece awhile back that made some mention of Hayek's book. Old-fashioned sort that I am, I actually read the book, and Dionne could have done worse than read my piece if he was really interested in finding out what Hayek had to say without going to the trouble of reading the man's own words. To wit:

Hayek’s book, written during World War II, was meant as a warning that democratic institutions were not necessarily prophylactic against collectivism, which Hayek thought was necessarily coercive and despotic:
“The various kinds of collectivism, communism, fascism, etc., differ among themselves in the nature of the goal toward which they want to direct the efforts of society. But they all differ from liberalism and individualism in wanting to organize the whole of society and all its resources for this unitary end and in refusing to recognize autonomous spheres in which the ends of the individuals are supreme. In short, they are totalitarian.”

To attribute the surge in popularity of these books to “conservatives” seeking solace after a defeat at the polls is both tempting and easy. But it almost certainly has less to do with partisan politics than with fundamental principles.

Some years after “The Road to Serfdom,” Hayek wrote an essay called “Why I Am Not a Conservative.” In it, he describes “as liberal the position which I hold and which I believe differs as much from true conservatism as from socialism,” and he proceeds to argue that “the liberal today must more positively oppose some of the basic conceptions which most conservatives share with the socialists.” Of course, Hayek uses liberal in its classic sense, referring to someone whose aim is “to free the process of spontaneous growth from the obstacles and encumbrances that human folly has erected.” …

Moreover, what Hayek says about conservatives applies equally well to many who today call themselves progressives:

“Conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate. ... They lack the faith in the spontaneous forces of adjustment. ... The conservative feels safe and content only if he is assured that some higher wisdom watches and supervises change, only if he knows that some authority is charged with keeping the change ‘orderly.’”