The spatial politics of F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom
Abstract This paper re-examines Hayek's Road to Serfdom in historical context. Of particular interest is Hayek's claim that “left” and “right” socialism of the 1930s had much in common. In making this argument, Hayek held that all socialism implied planning at the expense of consumer sovereignty. We first agree to plan, but if we are then unable to agree on its contents, someone imposes a specific course of action on us. Hayek was strenuously opposed at the time by Abba Lerner and E.F.M. Durbin, who held that we can conceptualize, and perhaps put into place, a sort of socialism which yields to the will of consumer preferences.
Problems of ‘Socialist Planning’: Evan Durbin and the Labour Government of 1945
‘Socialist planning’ was a notable, if unlikely casualty of Labour government after the Second World War. Between 1931 and the election victory of 1945, central economic planning was, in the words of G.D.H. Cole, the ‘professed creed of the Labour Party’. Depression and war demonstrated that the anarchy of free-market capitalism had to ‘give way to ordered planning under national control’. Labour won the election of 1945 with a commitment to ‘plan from the ground up’ through the socialization of industry, the establishment of a national investment board and the use of wide-ranging economic controls. Planning was the defining characteristic of Labour's socialism in this period and it could indeed be argued that the party did not find so effective a political rhetoric until ‘Labour and the scientific revolution’ in 1963.
Intensification of Bubble Disintegration and Dispersion by Mechanical Stirring in Gas Injection Refining
Water model experiments were performed for establishing highly efficient gas injection refining processes. Mechanical stirring was applied to disintegrate the injected bubbles and to disperse them widely in the bath. The bubble disintegration and dispersion were investigated by changing rotation mode (direction of rotation), rotation speed, blade size of the impeller and gas flow rate. Forward rotation of the impeller induced a stable tangential flow and could not disperse bubbles in the bath due to formation of a vortex around the impeller shaft. The tangential flow could be suppressed by forward–interrupt rotation, which could reduce the vortex formation to some degree. However, forward–interrupt rotation could not disperse the bubbles widely in the bath. Forward–reverse rotation could prevent the vortex formation completely and create a strong shear stress field, which intensified the bubble disintegration and dispersion in the bath. Higher impeller rotation speed and larger blade length in forward–reverse rotation could enhance the bubble disintegration and make the dispersed bubbles smaller. The bubble dispersion zone became wider with larger blade length. The bubble size tended to be larger at higher gas flow rates. However, its dependence on the gas flow rate became smaller at higher impeller rotation speed.