Friedrich August von Hayek: Grand Seigneur on the Fence
Friedrich August’s great-great-grandfather, Josef Hayek, on account of his commercial success, was knighted by Emperor Josef II a few weeks before the French Revolution in 1789. He had risen to estate administrator and had founded two textile factories near Brünn and Vienna. The family fortune was largely lost during the course of the nineteenth century, but the family in turn produced a high school principal, an ornithologist, a botanist, a chemist, a beetle specialist and three physicians.