The state should serve the people, not control them from "summary" of The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich August Hayek
The essential point is that the totalitarians of our times are firmly convinced that their actions are aimed at the greater good of the greater number. The professor of economics who controls prices, the planner who directs the allocation of materials, the engineer who supervises the execution of the plan, the officials who enforce the rules, are all performing the same essential task. They are all deciding what should be done and how resources and effort should be directed. The common feature of the activities of the totalitarian is that they are not directed by a single overall plan. Totalitarianism is a state in which all forces are mobilized in the service of a single goal, the rule of a single man. But their common claim is that they are doing all this in the service of the common good. The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. The main point of this book is the examination of the ultimate ends sought by the various types of collectivism, and the reasons why so many intellectuals are attracted by them. T...
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