The problem Hayek’s more careful readers faced was how to reconcile all the positive programs he apparently condoned with his stark warnings about the dangers of planning and the unacceptability of a middle way. Hayek did little to resolve such questions in The Road to Serfdom beyond stating enigmatically that he advocated “planning for competition” rather than “planning against competition.” Keynes privately warned Hayek that his denunciations of laissezfaire did not align with his insinuations that any planning would lead down a “slippery path” to the socialist state. Others publicly savaged him for this vagueness on what seemed to them the central question of the book: one critic found him “strangely” silent on the specifi c mea sures to which he objected, another could not fi nd “the manner of distinguishing between good planning and bad planning,” and a third observed that one would “hunt in vain” for any “concrete” vision. One reviewer concluded that this muddle was a “great weakness of the book.” It also left Hayek’s argument highly susceptible to interpretive sleights of hand, as readers emphasized his strong language in portions of the book without acknowledging the caveats couched in others. The Road to Serfdom demonstrated a propensity, Harper’s noted, for being “accepted in fragments and misused for childishly partisan purposes.”

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 234