Political Theory

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

Faustus — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:18:16 GMT

Two things I know relivant to this.

Of the organizations existing within the Great Society one
which regularly occupies a very special position will be that which
we call government. Although it is conceivable that the spontaneous
order which we call society may exist without government, if the
minimum of rules required for the formation of such an order is
observed without an organized apparatus for their enforcement, in
most circumstances the organization which we call government
becomes indispensable in order to assure that those rules are obeyed.

Law Legislation & Liberty, vol 1 , p37

Here he clearly does not rule it out.

Also

SHENOY: This is interesting. Mises was quite clear that he believed that government was a praxeological necessity. He wrote again and again that a society needs an institution that enforces the law, and therefore you need government.

Hayek, on the other hand, says that we owe loyalty to government only and to the extent that it maintains the economic order and the laws on which we all depend. If it does not do that, we do not owe it any loyalty at all. He wrote this in "Confusion of Language in Political Thought." When the IEA published this, I pointed out to Arthur Seldon that he was promoting anarchy. This quite startled Seldon.

Hayek furthers says, in LLL, that if all government activity ceased, society would continue. So the political implications of Hayek are, in some measure, more extreme than Mises. In a late interview, he admitted that were he a younger man, he would probably be a libertarian anarchist.

from

http://mises.org/daily/1393

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

JAlanKatz — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:01:15 GMT

I heard it mentioned in lectures and discussion groups at FEE.

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

Bank Run — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:48:40 GMT

If a tag be needed I'm sticking with market-democrat.

There is no democracy that does not turn to oligarchy unless it be that of the markets democracy.

BTW, he refined "spontaneous order". Can some dude give us a refresh on the progenitor and the followers please?

Regards to y'all.

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

I. Ryan — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:45:34 GMT

JAlanKatz:

Indeed, I've heard reports of conversations with Hayek where he implicitly acknowledged this, saying that he was too old to become an anarchist but might if he were a younger man.

Where did you find that?

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

JAlanKatz — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:41:42 GMT

Certainly, Hayek was no anarchist. But does his economics support his politics, or does his economics lead more naturally to anarchism? I suggest the latter. Indeed, I've heard reports of conversations with Hayek where he implicitly acknowledged this, saying that he was too old to become an anarchist but might if he were a younger man.

I saw this same gap listening to perhaps the greatest living economist - Israel Kirzner. His economic arguments led logically to anarchy, but he always concluded with "for some reason, the market can't provide security."

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

Alex Habighorst — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:58:41 GMT

Indeed, Hayek was no anarchist, but I think certain ideas from Hayek could br congruent with market anarchist ideas. In particular his ideas about sponteaneous order as well as the inability of central planners to have all the information needed to order a society.

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

Bank Run — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:53:28 GMT

I believe a well rounded view on Hayek's political and social philosophy would come from his Constitution of Liberty. It's lengthy. I believe Hayek was more a market-democrat than a market-anarchist. His view on world democracy is interesting, if taken from a free-market point of view.

Hayek was no anarchist!

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

nandnor — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:42:32 GMT

Natural rights need not be the premise of rothbard's ethics system. All it is is the only consistent political theory in regards to property, the only theory that attempts to follow the golden rule in that regard.

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

A.L.Pruitt — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:43:00 GMT

Nitroadict:
Rothbard turns me off due his reliance on natural rights; I'm not sure if I'll ever finish his stuff beyond "For A New Liberty" (& summaries of other works) because of this.

I wouldn't let it get to you. To be honest, I've read quite a bit of Rothbard, EOL is obviously full of Natural Rights stuff, For a New Liberty has some good stuff (some of it is natural rights but not all imo), but if you read his history or economic works there isn't too much of it. When I first picked up a "A history of money and banking in the united states" I couldn't put it down.

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

Nitroadict — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:51:41 GMT

Rothbard turns me off due his reliance on natural rights; I'm not sure if I'll ever finish his stuff beyond "For A New Liberty" (& summaries of other works) because of this.

Wouldn't "Hayekian anarchism" simply be Consequentualist Anarchism? I'll have to read this a little bit later...

Re: Hayekian anarchism?

DD5 — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:42:47 GMT

Here is my personal take on it.

It's a completely fallacious dichotomy - Rothbard vs Hayek - that you cannot understand until you study their material and realize that

1. Some of them misinterpret Mises in the most disturbing way.

2. They practically don't understand Rothbard in depth and tend to overemphasize his minor differences with Mises.

3. They are very selective in what they like about Hayek.

4. They have much more in common with Monetarists then with Misesian/Austrian economics.

Hayekian anarchism?

Alex Habighorst — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:07:03 GMT

http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2009/12/the-false-dichotomy-of-rothbardian-anarchism-and-hayekian-classical-liberalism.html

I just read this blog post by Steven Horowitz, and I thought it was quite interesting. To me Hayek is one of the most stimulating figures in the Austrian tradition however I have always gravitated towards anarcho-capitalism as the end results of my philosophic musings and never really saw a problem of integrating parts of Hayek into that as well as Rothbard.