Hayek, Peart, Levy

Hayek, Peart and Levy

Legacy

• Hayek's legacy is both profound and multi-faceted. Today he is championed by the right as a protector of individual rights and free trade. Later on in his career he became a libertarian, strongly believing in the ideals of free trade, liberty, and individual freedoms. Most notably he was praised in the United States during 60s and 70s.
• He did however write an essay called "Why I am Not a Conservative" which detailed his reasons. His primary reason was what he called "the conservative movement's inability to deal with change"
• He is also praised by economists and historians, who recognize his work as radical for its era. His Road To Serfdom was penned during a time period when such conservative and basic ideas as free trade were highly unpopular. While during the 40s he was lambasted for this work, today he is praised as prescient and most importantly, correct.

The Expert

• The idea of an "expert" is challenged in Levy and Peart's Vanity of the Philosopher.

• In it they state that too many scientific theories do not contain the self proclaimed expert in the field of measure.

• Where this was extremely evident was in the study of eugenics, where many eugenicists did not consider themselves in their measurements.

• Eugenics leads to planning and planning leads to socialism.

• The easiest way to imagine socialism is one central body controlling all aspects of the market. This is impossible due to the limit of knowledge. For example a central body will not know anything about local prices in a specialized industry, while many within that industry are capable of setting accurate prices. This practices limits the spread of growth in a centralized market.

• Hayek challenged socialism based on this knowledge, and he did so in a time when there was not much global support against communism and socialism.

• Because Peart and Levy challenge "experts" they disagree with a group of experts controlling markets. This links Hayek with Peart and Levy's work.

Vanity of the Philosopher

• Hayek played a critical role in questioning eugenics as central planning. (Pg. 122)

• He defended consumer sogereignty from the ideas of Maurice Dobb and J.K. Galbraith. (Pg. 32)

• He "vigorously" opposed central planning (when related to material things, setting prices and outputs of goods and services). (Pg. 105)

• analytical egalitarianism: All humans, regardless of race, gender and any other physical or neurological differences, have the same potential for gaining knowledge and success

• Eugenicists: People who want to advance the human race through selective breeding; remaking the human race

• Analytical Hierarchicalism: People who appear different than the “experts” must be inferior

Major Works

This is a brief list of Hayek's most important, controversial and well known works.

• Road to Serfdom-Hayek's most well known book, helped to launch his career. Strongly criticizes Nazism, socialism, and communism.

• Constitution of Liberty- A book that sided with conservative economics. Read by a few politicians, it never was the success Hayek had hoped for. He was expecting a similar response to Road to Serfdom

• Law, Legislation and Liberty-A massive tome, it deals with the ideas of "cosmos" and "taxis".

• Essay "Why I Am Not Conservative"-This short essay dealt mostly with European conservatism, which was often in opposition with capitalism.