The seemingly imminent surge of social planning suggests we could all use some reminders from F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.
According to the views now dominant, the question is no longer how we can make the best use of the spontaneous forces found in a free society. We have in effect undertaken to dispense with the forces which produced unforeseen results and to replace the impersonal and anonymous mechanism of the market by collective and "conscious" direction of all social forces to deliberately chosen goals.