Friedrich Hayek member of Mont Pelerin Society
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.Chicago
In 1950, Hayek left the London School of Economics. After spending the 1949–1950 academic year as a visiting professor at the University of Arkansas, Hayek was conferred professorship by the University of Chicago, where he became a professor in the Committee on Social Thought. Hayek's salary was funded not by the university, but by an outside foundation, the William Volker Fund.Hayek had made contact with many at the University of Chicago in the 1940s, with Hayek's The Road to Serfdom playing a seminal role in transforming how Milton Friedman and others understood how society works. Hayek conducted a number of influential faculty seminars while at the University of Chicago and a number of academics worked on research projects sympathetic to some of Hayek's own, such as Aaron Director, who was active in the Chicago School in helping to fund and establish what became the "Law and Society" program in the University of Chicago Law School. Hayek, Frank Knight, Friedman and George Stigler worked together in forming the Mont Pèlerin Society, an international forum for neoliberals. Hayek and Friedman cooperated in support of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, later renamed the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an American student organisation devoted to libertarian ideas.Although they shared most political beliefs, disagreeing primarily on question of monetary policy, Hayek and Friedman worked in separate university departments with different research interests and never developed a close working relationship. According to Alan O. Ebenstein, who wrote biographies of both of them, Hayek probably had a closer friendship with Keynes than with Friedman.Hayek received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954.Another influential political philosopher and German-speaking exile at the University of Chicago at the time was Leo Strauss, but according to his student Joseph Cropsey who also knew Hayek, there was no contact between the two of them.After editing a book on John Stuart Mill's letters he planned to publish two books on the liberal order, The Constitution of Liberty and "The Creative Powers of a Free Civilization" (eventually the title for the second chapter of The Constitution of Liberty). He completed The Constitution of Liberty in May 1959, with publication in February 1960. Hayek was concerned that "with that condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as is possible in society". Hayek was disappointed that the book did not receive the same enthusiastic general reception as The Road to Serfdom had sixteen years before.He left Chicago mostly because of financial reasons, being concerned about his pension provisions. His primary source of income was his salary and he received some additional money from book royalties, but avoided other lucrative sources of income for academics such as writing textbooks. He spent a lot on his frequent travels.  He regularly spent summers in Austrian Alps, usually in the Tyrolean village Obergurgl where he enjoyed mountain climbing, and also visited Japan four times with additional trips to Tahiti, Fiji, Indonesia, Australia, New Caledonia and Ceylon.  After his divorce, his financial situation worsened.Conservatism, though a necessary element in any stable society, is not a social program; in its paternalistic, nationalistic, and poweradoring tendencies it is often closer to socialism than true liberalism; and with its traditionalistic, anti-intellectual, and often mystical propensities it will never, except in short periods of disillusionment, appeal to the young and all those others who believe that some changes are desirable if this world is to become a better place. A conservative movement, by its very nature, is bound to be a defender of established privilege and to lean on the power of government for the protection of privilege. The essence of the liberal position, however, is the denial of all privilege, if privilege is understood in its proper and original meaning of the state granting and protecting rights to some which are not available on equal terms to others.
Samuel Brittan, concluded in 2010 that "Hayek's book [The Constitution of Liberty] is still probably the most comprehensive statement of the underlying ideas of the moderate free market philosophy espoused by neoliberals". Brittan adds that although Raymond Plant (2009) comes out in the end against Hayek's doctrines, Plant gives The Constitution of Liberty a "more thorough and fair-minded analysis than it has received even from its professed adherents". As a neo-liberal, he helped found the Mont Pelerin Society, a prominent neo-liberal think tank where many other minds, such as Mises and Friedman gathered.Although Hayek is likely a student of the neo-liberal school of libertarianism, he is nonetheless influential in the conservative movement, mainly for his critique of collectivism.
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