Short answer: I don't think it works for people with (relatively) poor eyesights.
See the following picture.
Also, it doesn't work well if you want to read technical papers (that much is obvious).
The road to serfdom, condensed version by F. A. Hayek
Note the striking similarity between the policies of the CCP and what was described in the book published in 1943.
Some excerpts:
To decentralize power is to reduce the absolute amount of power, and the competitive system is the only system designed to minimize the power exercised by man over man. Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work?
It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
They do not realize that democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something utterly different the very destruction of freedom itself. As has been aptly said:`What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it hisheaven.'
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word:equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. (de Tocqueville, 1948)
Socialism was to bring `economic freedom' without which political freedom was `not worth having'. To make this argument sound plausible, the word `freedom' was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth.
The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related.
There are three main reasons why such a numerous group, with fairly similar views, is not likely to be formed by the best but rather by the worst elements of any society. First, the higher the education and intelligence of individuals become, the more their tastes and views are differentiated. If we wish to find a high degree of uniformity in outlook, we have to descend to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive instincts prevail. ... Second, since this group is not large enough to give sufficient weight to the leader's endeavours, he will have to increase their numbers by converting more to the same simple creed. He must gain the support of the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are ready to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently. ... Third, to weld together a closely coherent body of supporters, the leader must appeal to a common human weakness. It seems to be easier for people to agree on a negative programme on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of the better off than on any positive task.
collectivism means the end of truth. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the ends selected by those in control; it is essential that the people should come to regard these ends as their own. This is brought about by propaganda and by complete control of all sources of information.
The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those they have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before. And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning.
It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced. Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken support of the regime.
Control extends even to subjects which seem to have no political significance. The theory of relativity, for instance, has been opposed as a `Semitic attack on the foundation of Christian and Nordic physics' and because it is `in conflict with dialectical materialism and Marxist dogma'. Every activity must derive its justification from conscious social purpose. There must be no spontaneous, unguided activity, because it might produce results which cannot be foreseen and for which the plan does not provide.
The principle extends even to games and amusements. I leave it to the reader to guess where it was that chess players were officially exhorted that `we must finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess. We must condemn once and for all the formula chess for the sake of chess.'
There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem in Britain and America are precisely those on which Anglo-Saxons justly prided themselves and in which they were generally recognized to excel. These virtues were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one's neighbour and tolerance of the different, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.
It is significant that socialists (and Nazis) have always protested against `merely' formal justice, that they have objected to law which had no views on how well off particular people ought to be, that they have demanded a `socialization of the law' and attacked the independence of judges.
Unfortunately, purely economic ends cannot be separated from the other ends of life. What is misleadingly called the `economic motive' means merely the desire for general opportunity.
The so-called economic freedom which the planners promise us means precisely that we are to be relieved of the necessity of solving our own economic problems and that the bitter choices which this often involves are to be made for us. Since under modern conditions we are for almost everything dependent on means which our fellow men provide, economic planning would involve direction of almost the whole of our life. There is hardly an aspect of it, from our primary needs to our relations with our family and friends, from the nature of our work to the use of our leisure, over which the planner would not exercise his `conscious control'.
The younger generation of today has grown up in a world in which, in school and press, the spirit of commercial enterprise has been represented as disreputable and the making of profit as immoral, where to employ 100 people is represented as exploitation but to command the same number as honourable.
We must regain the conviction on which liberty in the Anglo-Saxon countries has been based and which Benjamin Franklin expressed in a phrase applicable to us as individuals no less than as nations: `Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'