Much has been said in recent months here at PoliGazette about the lack of intellectual depth among America’s conservatives. Sure, there are a great many conservative thinkers, but they stand in the shadow of populists like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Especially our very own Jason has argued time and again that conservatives have to fight liberalism with arguments rather than one-liners that sound good to the conservative base, but that do nothing to convince swing voters to vote Republican.

Because of the direction most European countries and of the United States have taken this year, I decided to re-read F.A. Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom.” I had read it a couple of times already, but it is never wasteful to re-read perhaps the best book on the relationship between a free economy (read: market) and a free people ever written.

So, I started reading and was once again impressed by Hayek’s criticism of socialism and the basic philosophy of mid-20th century social democrats. He truly destroyed both. Not by throwing some wonderful one-liners at them, but by challenging their ideas and their basic premises.

After a page of sixty, I realized that although Hayek’s arguments can still be used today, the book is a bit outdated. Not because Hayek’s defense of classical liberalism is not sound – it is – but because the ‘do-gooders’ who believe that a bigger government is in the interest of the people at large have changed their plans, policies and ideas. Not fundamentally, perhaps, but today’s Social Democrats are not as ‘far to the left’ as those of 40 or 50 years ago.

When Hayek’s book was first published it had a tremendous impact. It did not only influence conservatives, classical liberals and libertarians, but it also shaped the opinions of millions of voters and intellectuals-to-be who had not made their mind up about which ideologies work and which do not. Socialists and social democrats realized this, and changed their tune.

They changed, but the international free-market movement and the arguments it uses did not.

The reason for the above is, I believe, that those who support the free market relied for too long a time on people like Hayek to do their thinking for them. This is a major problem because, as Hayek himself explained, intelligent individuals  – salesmen of ideas – influence society. Journalists, bloggers, professors, writers,  etc. are the ones who determine what direction a country takes.

‘Liberals’ (or progressives, socialists and social democrats) realized the above, and used it to their advantage. They control almost every profession where ‘thinkers’ and ‘idea-producers’ work. These individuals have changed the left’s arguments and tools (not so much their goals, which continue to be equality in outcome), which resulted in grand electoral successes.

What we – the right – need are not more Limbaughs or more Coulters. No, we need more but modern Hayeks. Let’s stop attacking intelligence, intellectual rigor and science. Let’s use it to our advantage.