Hayek on austerity

Lee Harris applies Friedrich Hayek’s theories to the euro zone’s austerity riots:

There is a tremendous difference between austerity imposed by anonymous market forces, which cannot be politically challenged, and austerity imposed by political institutions, which can be. This fact was pointed out by Friedrich Hayek in his classic book, The Road to Serfdom. In a free market system, everyone can complain when the price of bread (or gas) mysteriously goes up, but so long as the market is determining the price that is all anyone can really do...This is not the case, however, when the commissar of bread announces a new price increase in the cost of a loaf. Then, disgruntled consumers can march to the commissar’s house to express their outrage and indignation.

There’s truth to this, though I’m not sure how far it goes. I seem to remember plenty of riots and revolutions that began because global market fluctuations sent food prices skyrocketing in developing nations. Angry mobs rarely have trouble finding somebody to blame.