Reds by Paul Mason tells the story of communism as one of history’s most fascinating ideas and, like many fascinating ideas, one of its great causes of misery. A case study, perhaps, in what Hayek called the fatal conceit: the belief that a single mind, theory or ideology can engineer society and reliably produce the desired outcomes.

But Mason is fair and balanced, and gives communism its due. He shows how it rallied millions around a deeply human cause: a fairer and more equal world. And that aspiration remains relevant today, given capitalism’s own brutal excesses and cruelties.

Perhaps that is the real lesson.

No single system, however noble its intentions, should ever become too sure of itself.

Rights, freedom, the rule of law, and the ordinary human dignity of every individual are not obstacles to some greater project. They are the values that keep us from becoming the demons we set out to fight.

Put differently, these values—and, perhaps more importantly, humility about our own limitations—are what prevent a well-meaning project from becoming the road to hell paved with good intentions.