AustriaWho was Friedrich Hayek?
Friedrich August von Hayek was born in Vienna in 1899 and became one of the leading figures of the Austrian school of economics. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1931, at the University of Chicago from 1950 and at Freiburg from 1962, later holding British citizenship. His book The Road to Serfdom (1944) argued that economic planning tends to erode political freedom. In later works such as The Constitution of Liberty (1960) and Law, Legislation and Liberty (1973-1979) he set out a theory of the rule of law and spontaneous order. He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in economic sciences and died in 1992.
Political views
Argued that market prices transmit dispersed, local knowledge that no central planner can collect, so price controls create shortages or surpluses.
Source: plato.stanford.eduDescribed markets, language and morals as spontaneous orders that emerge from many actions without central design.
Source: plato.stanford.eduHeld that government should set stable, general rules and act as a referee, aiming at fair processes rather than particular outcomes.
Source: plato.stanford.eduAccepted a minimum income safety net, public education and basic infrastructure, while rejecting social justice as a distributive goal.
Source: plato.stanford.eduFavored constitutional limits that protect minorities from unrestrained majorities and worried that legislation invites concentrated special interests.
Source: plato.stanford.eduWarned in his Nobel lecture against the pretence that social scientists can control complex economic outcomes as engineers control machines.
Source: nobelprize.org
Legacy
Hayek's ideas strongly influenced classical liberal and market-oriented movements, and policy makers in the 1980s, including in Britain and the United States, cited him as an inspiration. Admirers credit him with an enduring account of why central planning struggles and why the rule of law matters. Critics argue he underestimated market failures and the case for social insurance, and some point to tensions between his acceptance of a safety net and his rejection of social justice. Conservatives and libertarians both claim him, although he described his own position as liberal.
In their words
He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.