Friedrich Hayek notable work The Road to Serfdom
Friedrich August von Hayek  ( HY-ək, German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔaʊɡʊst fɔn ˈhaɪɛk] (listen); 8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian-British economist and political philosopher who made contributions to economics, political philosophy, psychology, intellectual history, and other fields. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for work on money and economic fluctuations, and the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena. His account of how prices communicate information is widely regarded as an important contribution to economics that led to him receiving the prize.During his teenage years, Hayek fought in World War I. He later said this experience, coupled with his desire to help avoid the mistakes that led to the war, drew him into economics. He earned doctoral degrees in law in 1921 and political science in 1923 from the University of Vienna. He subsequently lived and worked in Austria, Great Britain, the United States, and Germany. He became a British citizen in 1938. His academic life was mostly spent at the London School of Economics, later at the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg. He is widely considered a major contributor to the Austrian School of Economics.Hayek had considerable influence on a variety of political movements of the 20th century, and his ideas continue to influence thinkers from a variety of political backgrounds today. Although sometimes described as a conservative, Hayek himself was uncomfortable with this label and preferred to be thought of as a classical liberal. As the co-founder of the Mont Pelerin Society he contributed to the revival of classical liberalism in the post-war era. His most popular work, The Road to Serfdom, has sold over 2.25 million copies and been republished many times over the eight decades since its original publication.Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1984 for his academic contributions to economics. He was the first recipient of the Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize in 1984. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from President George H. W. Bush. In 2011, his article "The Use of Knowledge in Society" was selected as one of the top 20 articles published in the American Economic Review during its first 100 years.Criticism of collectivism
Hayek was one of the leading academic critics of collectivism in the 20th century. In Hayek's view, the central role of the state should be to maintain the rule of law, with as little arbitrary intervention as possible. In his popular book The Road to Serfdom (1944) and in subsequent academic works, Hayek argued that socialism required central economic planning and that such planning in turn leads towards totalitarianism.
In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek wrote:Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "communism" and "fascism".
Hayek posited that a central planning authority would have to be endowed with powers that would impact and ultimately control social life because the knowledge required for centrally planning an economy is inherently decentralised, and would need to be brought under control.Though Hayek did argue that the state should provide law centrally, others have pointed out that this contradicts his arguments about the role of judges in "discovering" the law, suggesting that Hayek would have supported decentralized provision of legal services.
Hayek also wrote that the state can play a role in the economy, specifically in creating a safety net, saying: There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.
"The Denationalization of Money" is one of his literary works, in which he advocated the establishment of competitions in issuing moneys.Notable works
The Road to Serfdom, 1944.
Individualism and Economic Order, 1948.
The Constitution of Liberty, 1960. The Definitive Edition, 2011. Description and preview.
Law, Legislation and Liberty (3 volumes)
Volume I. Rules and Order, 1973.
Volume II. The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976.
Volume III. The Political Order of a Free People, 1979.
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, 1988. Note that the authorship of The Fatal Conceit is under scholarly dispute. The book in its published form may actually have been written entirely by its editor W. W. Bartley III and not by Hayek.
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