The Road to Serfdom was to be the popular edition of the second volume of Hayek's treatise entitled "The Abuse and Decline of Reason",
[4] and the title was inspired by the writings of the 19th century French classical liberal thinker
Alexis de Tocqueville on the "road to servitude".
[5] In the book, Hayek "[warns] of the danger of
tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic
decision-making through
central planning."
[6] He further argues that the abandonment of
individualism and
classical liberalism inevitably leads to a loss of
freedom, the creation of an oppressive society, the tyranny of a
dictator, and the
serfdom of the individual. Hayek challenged the view among British Marxists that
fascism (including
National Socialism) was a
capitalist reaction against
socialism. He argued that fascism, National Socialism and socialism had common roots in central economic planning and empowering the state over the individual.