Postrel on Hayek
Published by Yazad Jal January 17th, 2004 in Economics, Libertarian, PhilosophyHigh on my “to-blog-about” list is this article on Friedrich Hayek by Virginia Postrel. It’s a wonderful introduction to an economist who won the Nobel for his work on monetary theory, and had a varied repetoire that included several works on political science, philosopy, law and psychology!
Beginning with “The Sensory Order,” he began to differentiate between “simple” sciences like physics, which study phenomena that can be explained by only a few variables, and “complex” sciences like biology, psychology, and economics, which depend on so many variables that precise predictions are impossible. “Hayek felt that many of his opponents, all claiming the mantle of science, were but pretenders to the throne,” Caldwell writes. “He constantly encountered people who thought of themselves as objective scientists, people who held ideological views different from his and who immediately felt comfortable attributing their differences to the fact that, whereas they were scientists, he was an ideologue.”
Read the whole piece.
The Hayek Centre runs a blog called PrestoPundit, and a mirror of the article is posted there.
Very good article, by Postrel. I hate to feel like I am going to be mainstream in a few years for liking Hayek, the novelty of having faith in distributed decision systems is fast wearing thin. lol. But its a good thing ofcourse, I think Mises is supposed to have said at one time, that Ideas proliferate through intellectuals, all it needs for an idea to suceed is for the mass of intellecuals to beleive in it. But then again maybe this is what Keynes was talking about, when he said “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.” (Chp 24(V), General Theory). I wonder which Madman will distill Hayek, there are some people who beleive it was Pinochet.