This book explores the life and work of Austrian-British economist, political economist, and social philosopher, Friedrich Hayek. Set within a context of the recent financial crisis, alongside the renewed interest in Hayek and the Hayek-Keynes debate, the book introduces the main themes of Hayek’s thought. These include the division of knowledge, the importance of rules, the problems with planning and economic management, and the role of constitutional constraints in enabling the emergence of unplanned order in the market by limiting the perverse incentives and distortions in information often associated with political discretion. Key to understanding Hayek's development as a thinker is his emphasis on the knowledge problem that economic decision makers face and how alternative institutional arrangements either hinder or assist them in overcoming that epistemic dilemma. Hayek saw order emerging from individual action and responsibility under the appropriate institutional order that itself emerges from actors discovering new and better ways to coordinate their behavior. This book will be of interest to all those keen to gain a deeper understanding of this great 20th century thinker in economics.

From a Nobel Laureate economist, a collection of essays outlining ideas on political theory, economic freedom and epistemology. Following on F. A. Hayek’s previous work Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (1967), New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas collects some of Hayek’s most notable essays and lectures dealing with problems of philosophy, politics and economics, with many of the essays falling into more than one of these categories. Expanding upon the previous volume the present work also includes a fourth part collecting a series of Hayek’s writings under the heading “History of Ideas.” Of the articles contained in this volume the lectures on “The Errors of Constructivism”and “Competition as a Discovery Procedure” have been published before only in German, while the article on “Liberalism” was written in English to be published in an Italian translation in the Enciclopedia del Novicento by the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana at Rome.

“These essays . . . bring great learning and . . . intelligence to bear upon economic and social issues of central importance to our era.” —Henry Hazlitt, Newsweek In this collection of writings, Nobel laureate Friedrich A. Hayek discusses topics from moral philosophy and the methods of the social sciences to economic theory as different aspects of the same central issue: free markets versus socialist planned economies. First published in the 1930s and 40s, these essays continue to illuminate the problems faced by developing and formerly socialist countries. F. A. Hayek, recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, taught at the University of Chicago, the University of London, and the University of Freiburg. Among his other works published by the University of Chicago Press is The Road to Serfdom, now available in a special fiftieth anniversary edition. “There is much interesting and valuable material in this meaty . . . book which must ultimately help the world make up its mind on a vital issue: to plan or not to plan?” —S. E. Harris, The New York Times “Those who disagree with him cannot afford to ignore him . . . This is especially true of a book like the present one.” —George Soule, Nation

This volume critically explore and extend Hayek's Nobel Prize-winning work on knowledge and social interconnectedness from the disciplines of law, economics, philosophy, anthropology, political science, and history. Hayek's insights about knowledge become even more important once it is recognized that nothing in the social world occurs in isolation. There is no such thing as a distinct economic, political, or social sphere--they are inextricably intertwined. Given the range of both Hayek's work and the contributing authors' perspectives, the range of topics covered in this volume is extraordinarily wide, running the gamut from immigration, to white supremacy, to ancient agricultural practices, to the nature of what it means to be free.

In the last years of World War II, Friedrich Hayek wrote 'The Road to Serfdom'. He warned the Allies that policy proposals which were being canvassed for the post-war world ran the risk of destroying the very freedom for which they were fighting. On the basis of 'as in war, so in peace', economists and others were arguing that the government should plan all economic activity. Such planning, Hayek argued, would be incompatible with liberty, and had been at the very heart of the movements that had established both communism and Nazism. On its publication in 1944, the book caused a sensation. Neither its British nor its American publisher could keep up with demand, owing to wartime paper rationing. Then, in 1945, Reader's Digest published 'The Road to Serfdom' as the condensed book in its April edition. For the first and still the only time, the condensed book was placed at the front of the magazine instead of the back. Hayek found himself a celebrity, addressing a mass market. The condensed edition was republished for the first time by the IEA in 1999 and has been reissued to meet the continuing demand for its enduringly relevant and accessible message.

Friedrich A. Hayek is regarded as one of the preeminent economic theorists of the twentieth century, as much for his work outside of economics as for his work within it. During a career spanning several decades, he made contributions in fields as diverse as psychology, political philosophy, the history of ideas, and the methodology of the social sciences. Bruce Caldwell—editor of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek—understands Hayek's thought like few others, and with this book he offers us the first full intellectual biography of this pivotal social theorist. Caldwell begins by providing the necessary background for understanding Hayek's thought, tracing the emergence, in fin-de-siècle Vienna, of the Austrian school of economics—a distinctive analysis forged in the midst of contending schools of thought. In the second part of the book, Caldwell follows the path by which Hayek, beginning from the standard Austrian assumptions, gradually developed his unique perspective on not only economics but a broad range of social phenomena. In the third part, Caldwell offers both an assessment of Hayek's arguments and, in an epilogue, an insightful estimation of how Hayek's insights can help us to clarify and reexamine changes in the field of economics during the twentieth century. As Hayek's ideas matured, he became increasingly critical of developments within mainstream economics: his works grew increasingly contrarian and evolved in striking—and sometimes seemingly contradictory—ways. Caldwell is ideally suited to explain the complex evolution of Hayek's thought, and his analysis here is nothing short of brilliant, impressively situating Hayek in a broader intellectual context, unpacking the often difficult turns in his thinking, and showing how his economic ideas came to inform his ideas on the other social sciences. Hayek's Challenge will be received as one of the most important works published on this thinker in recent decades.

This is the first book to describe the entire developmental history of the human aspects of economics. The issue of “self-interest” is discussed throughout, from pre-Adam Smith to contemporary neuroeconomics, representing a unique contribution to economics. Though the notion of self-interest has been interpreted in several ways by various schools of economics and economists since Smith first placed it at the heart of the field, this is the first book to focus on this important but overlooked topic. Traditionally, economic theory has presupposed that the core of human behavior is self-interest. Nevertheless, some economists, e.g. recent behavioral economists, have cast doubt on this “self-interested” explanation. Further, though many economists have agreed on the central role of self-interest in economic behavior, each economist’s positioning of self-interest in economic theory differs to some degree. This book helps to elucidate the position of self-interest in economic theory. Given its focus, it is a must-read companion, not only on the history of economic thought but also on economic theory. Furthermore, as today’s capitalism is increasingly causing people to wonder just where self-interest lies, it also appeals to general readers.

A 2022 Economist Best Book of the Year. The definitive account of the distinguished economist’s formative years. Few twentieth-century figures have been lionized and vilified in such equal measure as Friedrich Hayek—economist, social theorist, leader of the Austrian school of economics, and champion of classical liberalism. Hayek’s erudite arguments in support of individualism and the market economy have attracted a devout following, including many at the levers of power in business and government. Critics, meanwhile, cast Hayek as the intellectual forefather of “neoliberalism” and of all the evils they associate with that pernicious doctrine. In Hayek: A Life, historians of economics Bruce Caldwell and Hansjörg Klausinger draw on never-before-seen archival and family material to produce an authoritative account of the influential economist’s first five decades. This includes portrayals of his early career in Vienna; his relationships in London and Cambridge; his family disputes; and definitive accounts of the creation of The Road to Serfdom and of the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society. A landmark work of history and biography, Hayek: A Life is a major contribution both to our cultural accounting of a towering figure and to intellectual history itself.

Friedrich Hayek was the 20th century’s most significant free market theorist. Over the course of his long career he developed an analysis of the danger that state power can pose to individual liberty. In rejecting much of the liberal tradition’s concern for social justice and democratic participation, Hayek would help clear away many intellectual obstacles to the emergence of neoliberalism in the last quarter of the 20th century. At the core of this book is a new interpretation of Hayek, one that regards him as an exponent of a neo-Roman conception of liberty and interprets his work as a form of ‘market republicanism’. It examines the contemporary context in which Hayek wrote, and places his writing in the long republican intellectual tradition. Hayek’s Market Republicanism will be of interest to advanced students and researchers across the history of economic thought, the history of political thought, political economy and political philosophy.