No Road Back

Professor Hayek was in London recently, and very gloomy his observations were. For the first time, he said, he felt really alarmed about Britain’s future. What worried him was not so much the Labor Government’s childlike faith in an illusory “income policy,” but the universal acceptance of the conditions—union rigidity and continued inflation—which make an income policy seem necessary. If these conditions were taken for granted, and treated as natural and inevitable, there could be no chance of economic recovery, only a long steady decline. His gloom was not surprising. The British scene is extremely gloomy at the moment.

I asked Professor Hayek if he thought that America, though some way behind Britain, was headed down the same road. Yes indeed, he said; but the Americans were more volatile and self-critical, and might suddenly see the danger and turn back.

AL

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Anthony Lejeune

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Professor Hayek was in London recently, and very gloomy his observations were. For the first time, he said, he felt really alarmed about Britain’s future. What worried him was not so much the Labor Government’s childlike faith in an illusory “income policy,” but the universal acceptance of the conditions—union rigidity and continued inflation—which make an income policy seem necessary. If these conditions were taken for granted, and treated as natural and inevitable, there could be no chance of economic recovery, only a long steady decline. His gloom was not surprising. The British scene is extremely gloomy at the moment.

I asked Professor Hayek if he thought that America, though some way behind Britain, was headed down the same road. Yes indeed, he said; but the Americans were more volatile and self-critical, and might suddenly see the danger and turn back.