Friedrich von Hayek

Nobel prizewinning (economics) student of Ludwig von Mises, and a major propagandist for libertarianism.

Friedrich von Hayek created a large and self-contradictory volume of writings over a long lifetime in several fields. Widely regarded as brilliant, nevertheless some of them were dreadfully wrong. For example, The Road To Serfdom, was as badly wrong as "Dow 36,000". His Business Cycle Theory is considered outright wrong, except by zealots.

Interpreting Hayek's work is comparable to interpreting the Bible: no interpreter can fully reconcile everything without resorting to the most ludicrous apologetics. Like the Bible, support for almost any position can be found. For example, Hayek included quite a number of non-libertarian statements and support for social welfare. Cynics would think those were made to mollify liberals, provide plausible deniability, or provide breathing room for the requirements of propaganda. And they come embedded in enough unclear verbiage that any particular implementation of them could be criticized for not meeting Hayek's requirements.

Given that Hayek was a propagandist, it would be difficult to take his works at face value, even if face value could be determined. But if you look at Hayek's actual jobs and how he devoted his energies, they were always in service to the rich and powerful, starting with the Vienna Landlords Association. Hayek never held an academic position that wasn't funded by the wealthy.

Greg Ransom seems to be the chief internet proponent of Hayek fundamentalism, and is usually quick to reply to any criticism of Hayek with weak arguments.

Links

Hayekian (propaganda)

Almost any reference to Hayek. A political viewpoint masquerading as economic science. A dog whistle signifying rejection of Keynesian ideas.

Daniel Davies Watches The Hayekian Yahoos Attack The Late Tony Judt [More...]

Brad Delong describes the three Hayeks: the brilliant, bonkers, and wrong.

Defending Boilerplate Hayek [More...]

Some plausible advice on interpreting Hayek, once you understand that "The Great Society" is society run in the interests of the wealthy few. Starts with "Arguing Hayek can be unclear is arguing water can be wet."

Free Banking

The idea of replacing central banks by allowing banks to issue their own currencies, with or without various backings. An idea revived by Friedrich von Hayek, with a literature of supposed historical examples. Free banking has many problems.

Friedrich Hayek Joins Ayn Rand as a Hypocritical User of Medicare [More...]

"This should put Hayek in some sort of libertariam circle of hell, along with Ayn Rand, who took Medicare and Social Security payments when she was diagnosed with lung cancer."

Greg Ransom, self-appointed high priest of Hayek, gets smacked down as a troll in Crooked Timber. [More...]

Greg Ransom apparently watches for new Hayek mentions on blogs, and generally claims they all misrepresent Hayek. Except the ones he sides with.

Keynes versus Hayek

Keynes resoundingly defeated Hayek, despite recent libertarian historical revisionism.

Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized?: A Note on a Schism in Modern Austrian Economics [More...]

Some fratricidal minutiae of Austrian economics. "Both Misesians and Hayekians live in a fantasy world, with respect to the price system." You can skip the technical parts to appreciate the fanaticism of both sides.

Ruizismus among the Austrians [More...]

David Warsh points out that conservatives are puffing the reputation of Hayek far beyond what is realistic. He identifies this as due to political interest. "But the fact remains that Hayek just didn’t contribute very much to the development of technical economics."

The Road to Serfdom

Friedrich von Hayek's comically failed prediction of the coming totalitarian socialist state in western nations.

The Road to Serfdom (Comic Book) [More...]

Friedrich von Hayek's propaganda simplified for the masses. A comically failed prediction of the coming totalitarian socialist state in western nations.

The Strange Case of Dr Hayek and Mr Hayek [More...]

An excellent overview of Hayek's life and career, giving good weight to his failures and inconsistencies. There is also a long appendix about the socialist calculation debate.

Why libertarians apologize for autocracy [More...]

Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, the Cato Institute and Hans-Hermann Hoppe all have expressed preferences for autocratic rule instead of democratic rule.

Quotations

On Hayek… in my view, there are four Hayeks, one good, and three of varying degrees of badness:

1. The good Hayek of the price system as a discovery and information transmission mechanism, of the importance of entrepreneurship, and of private property and the rechstaat as guarantees of individual liberty.
2. The bad Hayek who prefers Augusto Pinochet to Helmut Schmidt.
3. The worse Hayek who had his head completely up his posterior on economic policy during the Great Depression.
4. The worst-of-all Hayek. The one who when Keynes praises the Road to Serfdom and pronounces himself in "not just agreement, but deeply moved agreement with it" responds "no you are not!"
   Brad DeLong, "Daniel Kuehn: Maynard, Fred, Gus and Ralph on the History of Macroeconomics".

On the natural interpretation, shared by everyone in mainstream economics from Samuelson to Stigler, this book [ The Road to Serfdom ], which argued that the policies advocated by the British Labour Party in 1944 would lead to a totalitarian dictatorship, was a piece of misprediction comparable to Glassman and Hassett's Dow 36000. So what is going on in the minds of the buyers? Are they crazy? Do they actually think that Hayek was proven right after all? Is there a defensible interpretation of Hayek that makes sense? The answers are "Yes", "Yes" and "No".
John Quiggan, Hayek's Zombie Idea

Both Misesians and Hayekians live in a fantasy world, with respect to the price system. Both are dependent on the notion of universally flexible prices created by the dynamics of supply and demand curves, tending towards their market-clearing values. Both have failed to grasp the widespread reality and significance of fixprice markets and price administration.
Lord Keynes (pseudonym), "Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized?: A Note on a Schism in Modern Austrian Economics"

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 which they ... have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before. The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretense that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most effective way to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning.... Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed.... If one has not one's self experienced this process, it is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of this change of the meaning of words, the confusion it causes, and the barriers to any rational discussion which it creates... And the confusion becomes worse because this change of meaning of words describing political ideals is not a single event but a continuous process, a technique employed consciously or unconsciously to direct the people. Gradually, as this process continues, the whole language becomes despoiled, and words become empty shells deprived of any definite meaning, as capable of denoting one thing as its opposite and used solely for the emotional associations which still adhere to them.
The Road to Serfdom, p. 157-159.

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the modern gurus of libertarian economics – Friedman, Mises, Hayek, and their followers – were and are all basically intellectual McCarthyites, motivated by a visceral hatred of communism and, by association, of all forms of socialism. Their virulent loathing has driven them to embrace with uncritical enthusiasm the opposite doctrine. But it was the vices of nineteenth-century laisser-faire that inspired communism and socialism in the first place!
Angus Sibley, "What’s wrong with Milton Friedman’s economics?"