Galt's Gulch

F. A. Hayek: Austrian Economics vs. Objectivism

Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago to Economics
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Is Hayek fundamentally individualistic or collectivist?
SOURCE URL: http://hallingblog.com/2016/03/21/f-a-hayek-austrian-economics-vs-objectivism/

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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 8 months ago
    Collectivist. Having minored in economics but never quite working in the field, I never had occasion to read Hayek but it sounds to me to be economic Darwinism. Maybe that's a bit harsh but it eludes to corporate progressivism I think.
    It really comes down to advertising that determines what the "free Market" culture will support...it's not really a transparent process and does seem to be perpetuated by a few---(The Advertising agencies)...but I suppose that is a whole other part of the story.
    Never was a follower of groups or trends...I engage in some but not hook line and sinker. I'm my own thinker. Hayek talks like we're cattle.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 8 years, 8 months ago
    You do Hayek an injustice by quoting other people's evaluations of him. He wrote enough, and wrote clearly enough.

    While it is helpful to re-evaluate canonic works against the standard of Objectivism, be mindful that not much will stand up to scrutiny. I assume that someone else at the conference will tear down von Mises for his Kantian idealism. I do not expect any Objectivist to endorse Murray Rothbard or Milton Friedman. Alan Greenspan's two essays in CUI must stand, but Greenspan himself must fall. That leaves Ayn Rand, the only authority on economics, as with everything else.

    Myself, aware of the contradictions and failings in those other works, I look to the strong arguments in Hayek.

    The Denationalisation of Money is just one example. My review here:
    http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...
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    • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 8 months ago
      I do not think I have done any injustice of Hayek on his pseudo epistemology, cultural evolution. First of all I am interested in the ideas not the man. As a result, the whole argument about original sources is irrelevant. Often secondary sources are much better at summarizing the key ideas of a thinker. Second of all I have a MS in physics and I have never read the principia does that mean I am not competent to comment on Newtonian physics? Of course not. If I was doing history or if I was talking about a very narrow point, then original sources might be important.

      Hayek may have had some good ideas at the economic political level, such as the ones you detail about money in your blog, however he also had a number of very bad ideas and these are the result of bad epistemology and ethics.

      I started looking into the philosophical origins of the Austrians because of the huge mistakes they were making in economics despite stating that they were for free markets.



      Hayek wrote a piece stating that he was not a conservative, however his ideas on cultural evolution are the very definition of a conservative. People's epistemology tells you much more about their true self than their politics.
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      • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 8 years, 8 months ago
        Well, it is pretty easy to agree with all of that. In particular, your purpose is to show the errors in his philosophy.

        It is a subject for a different discussion, but it is pretty common to denounce the progressivist destruction of education, but to defend your own outcome. Myself, if you have not read the Principia you are under-educated in physics. That goes for reading Einstein and all the rest. The works are available. If you just take interpretations, you are missing an essential ingredient. I have Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Gilbert, Copernicus, and more. I have astronomy books by Henry Norris Russell and G. P. Kuiper, and of course sociology from Max Weber, not his interpreters. And, of course, the Federalist Papers, not someone's opinion about them. If you are going to trash Hayek, you need to read Hayek. Just saying' …
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