ABSTRACT
As we have seen in earlier chapters, the argument for greater state intervention in economic and social affairs gained progressively more ground in Britain in the years before, during and immediately after the Second World War, although this mood was tempered by a deep-rooted resistance to the idea of central planning. In academic circles, the arguments between advocates of economic liberalism and those who favoured a more significant degree of state intervention tilted in favour of the latter, although there were still outposts of dissent, notably at the London School of Economics. Certainly the perception that Keynesian ideas held sway meant that the remaining economic liberals became increasingly disillusioned with the direction of policy; it was natural for them to exaggerate the extent to which collectivist solutions had been continued after the war. Friedrich Hayek, for instance, the most important thinker among members of this group (Gamble 1996), attempted to highlight his own fears for the future in The road to serfdom, published in 1944. Hayek argued that Britain had begun to move towards totalitarianism in the early years of the twentieth century; the tendency had been much more gradual than in Germany or Russia, but nevertheless “the history of th[o]se countries in the years before the rise of the totalitarian system showed few features with which we are not familiar”. In particular, Hayek identified an increase in government economic intervention from the early part of the century, and argued that talk of freedom without economic liberty was meaningless. Interestingly, Hayek singled out 1931 as the year in which the British government finally abandoned the road of freedom; as we have seen (in Chapters 1 and 2), almost simultaneously the advocates of planning were thinking of setting up independent groups to press for more state action, because they despaired of the inertia in Whitehall (Hayek 1962:9). There are few better examples of ideological commitment causing different individuals to view the political scene in wholly contrasting ways.
