Publisher's Synopsis
Well-written, well-researched, and engrossing, the great accomplishment of Liberalism's Last Man is its engagement with modern political theory through the lens of Hayek. It's a highly original work--and refreshing in that it takes Hayek's critics seriously while also refraining from shortchanging Hayek for his supposed intellectual sins. - Peter Boettke author of F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy and Social Philosophy
A modern reframing of Friedrich Hayek’s most famous work for the 21st century.
Friedrich Hayek’s>i> The Road to Serfdom was both an intellectual milestone and a source of political division, spurring fiery debates around capitalism and its discontents. In the ensuing discord, Hayek’s true message was lost: liberalism is a thing to be protected above all else, and its alternatives are perilous.
In Liberalism’s Last Man, Vikash Yadav revives the core of Hayek’s famed work to map today’s primary political anxiety: the tenuous state of liberal meritocratic capitalism ― particularly in North America, Europe, and Asia ― in the face of strengthening political-capitalist powers like China, Vietnam, and Singapore. As open societies struggle to match the economic productivity of authoritarian-capitalist economies, the promises of a meritocracy fade; Yadav channels Hayek to articulate how liberalism’s moral backbone is its greatest defense against repressive social structures.
