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Friedrich A. Hayek: Friedrich Hayek
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Because of his personal ties to Austria and Germany, Hayek was especially sensitive to the disastrous effect of the totalitarian regime of the Nazis on the freedom of the individual. In The Road to Serfdom, he advanced Nazism as the paradigm of generic totalitarianism everywhere. When he saw the movement toward nationalization taking place in his adopted country, England, toward the end of World War II, he feared that here too individuals would ultimately sacrifice their freedom on the altar of socialist planning. He saw the "arbitrary administrative coercion" of the socialist system destroying the rule of law that protected the individual's freedom. (xviii) Hayek was charitable toward the social democrats of England. They would not intentionally lead their countrymen into serfdom.
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======================= HES POSTING ==================== ANNOUNCING -- Hayek-L on listserv at maelstrom.stjohns.edu HAYEK-L at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU is an international network for the discussion of the ideas of Friedrich A. Hayek. Hayek-L is intended as a resource for scholars and others doing research connected to the contributions of Friedrich Hayek. The basic purpose of the list is to serve as a forum for scholarly discussions and as a clearing house the distribution of information on academic conferences, publication opportunities, fellowship information, academic grants, and job openings of interest to Hayek scholars. Subscribers are encouraged to post questions, comments, or announcements of interest to individuals working on topics related to Hayek's writings. Appropriate postings might pertain to work currently in progress, the development of course materials, bibliographical material of interest to Hayek scholars, useful internet resources, etc. The list is for scholars and others interested the ideas of Friedrich A. Hayek without restriction according to interest or professional affiliation.
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In Chapter 4, "The Changing Concept of Law" Hayek differentiates between law and legislation as methods of governing human conduct. Legislation is codified rules of conduct that are invented by men, while laws have existed throughout the course of human history, before they could be articulated or expressly written. According to the author, comparative studies of behavior show that in various animal societies certain behavioral norms existed without legislation, as different species developed their own versions of hierarchy and property rights to limit violence and disputes between members. By the time of the early civilizations, "legislators" sought to introduce individual will into law. Ancient Greece was known to do this, as "the first persistent efforts to draw a clear distinction between the law and the particular will of the ruler" began. This lasted into the medieval age, as England established the modern concept of liberty with its "entrenched tradition of common law" that limited the powers of the king and Parliament.
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Hayek was born in Vienna into an aristocratic family of prominent intellectuals working in the fields of statics and biology. His father published a major botanical treatise while working as a doctor in the government's social welfare system. On his mother's side, he was second cousin to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. When the Great War began in 1914, Hayek lied about his age and joined the Austro-Hungarian army. He survived the war without serious injury and was decorated for bravery. After being discharged he decided to pursue an academic career.
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Hayek continues this discussion in Chapter 6, entitled "Thesis: The Law of Legislation." The necessity for order in modern society led to the formation of a legislature whose function is to regulate conduct along the standards articulated by Hayek in earlier chapters. Even the most authoritarian rulers, such as divine right monarchs, had to set rules based on the perceptions of the limits of the leader's authority. The author argues that even the most absolute leader had limits to his authority which required "special measures" to override. The early legislatures that developed during that period were involved with "governmental matters rather than with giving law in the narrow sense."
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Hayek’s stress on the notion of private property as the basis for liberty is debated in China. One leading Hayek scholar, Liu Junning, has played a leading role to spread the ideas of private property in China. Liu has developed Hayek’s idea by stating that “private property rights are the most basic human rights in the world.†Liu came from Anhui province, China where the famine hit hardest. It is ... Anhui that started the decollectivization movement (Baochan daohu) in the late 1970s.
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