Friedrich Hayek notable work The Fatal Conceit
Spontaneous order
Hayek viewed the free price system not as a conscious invention (that which is intentionally designed by man), but as spontaneous order or what Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson referred to as "the result of human action but not of human design". For instance, Hayek put the price mechanism on the same level as language, which he developed in his price signal theory.Hayek attributed the birth of civilisation to private property in his book The Fatal Conceit (1988). He explained that price signals are the only means of enabling each economic decision maker to communicate tacit knowledge or dispersed knowledge to each other to solve the economic calculation problem. Alain de Benoist of the Nouvelle Droite (New Right) produced a highly critical essay on Hayek's work in an issue of Telos, citing the flawed assumptions behind Hayek's idea of "spontaneous order" and the authoritarian and totalising implications of his free-market ideology.Hayek's concept of the market as a spontaneous order was recently applied to ecosystems to defend a broadly non-interventionist policy. Like the market, ecosystems contain complex networks of information, involve an ongoing dynamic process, contain orders within orders and the entire system operates without being directed by a conscious mind. On this analysis, species takes the place of price as a visible element of the system formed by a complex set of largely unknowable elements. Human ignorance about the countless interactions between the organisms of an ecosystem limits our ability to manipulate nature.Hayek's price signal concept is in relation to how consumers are often unaware of specific events that change market, yet change their decisions, simply because the price goes up. Thus pricing communicates information.
masterpiece landmark tour de force most significant work famous creation