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Any strong opinions about what name his article should be under?
The 'von' was dropped from his family name after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He is properly refered to as Hayek, not von Hayek, of course. He published frequently as F.A. Hayek. I personally resort to the simple rule of calling him by his first name and last name, Friedrich Hayek, which has the advantage of conforming to the same convention we use with basically every other human name. So in my opinion he should now and forever be known as Friedrich Hayek, and this should be the title of the article. - Tim
You know, we've been very inconsistent about this. Some people have very sensibly taken to writing out the full names of people who are otherwise known by abbreviations of their names, but I tend more or less to agree with what you Tim wrote lo these many months ago, that we should use the most popular name for a person. So, just as we have Clinton under Bill Clinton (not William Jefferson Clinton) and Paris under Paris (not Paris, France), we should probably have Hayek under whatever name he is most commonly referred under. I've only read one of Hayek's books, so I'm no expert, but I thought F. A. Hayek was correct. This case is somewhat similar to G. E. Moore--we could put that article under George Moore, but in that case, most philosophers really wouldn't immediately recognize who we were talking about, because he is almost always referred to as either Moore or as G. E. Moore (because the latter is the name he always used to publish under). --LMS
Hayek didn't use the 'von' so we won't either.
I deleted this -- "He [Hayek] has been subsequently criticized by socialists for not taking into account the possibility of a democratic government running a Centrally Planned Economy."
How does that possibility affect the economic calculation issue as Hayek raised it, one way or another? If it doesn't, then any socialist who has criticized Hayek on this ground has committed a logical howler. If it does, please explain why. As far as Hayek's view is concerned anyway, planners authorized by majority vote face the same problem that a revolutionary elite would face in terms of making the unmakeable calculations.
Is really true that European-style conservatism often has "opposed capitalism as a threat to social stability and traditional values"? Hasn't the european meaning of conservatism, at least in most european contries, and in the 20th century, included capitalism? 01:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
On January 9th, a user at '68.4.79.125' removed my reference to Hayek using a Rockefeller scholarship with the comment, 'Hayek did NOT use a Rockefeller scholarship. This arrived after Hayek left America, too late from him to use it'. Fine, I only had a single source for this fact anyway. [1] However, I can't find any source to back the claim that it was late. I'm minded to restore the text the way it was, but I am loathe to start an edit war. Has anyone a reference to this one way or another? As I say, if none shows up I may restore it, based upon the hayek.de page as well as some less credible resources.
I added a reference to Hayek's relationship with Karl Popper to the Influences section
--Parker Whittle 20:25, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
Whether one agrees that Hayek was a philosopher of note, one cannot very well argue that he did not publish philosophical works, nor that his philosophical views had any less influence than a number of obscure or controversial individuals who have recieved the label.
I have added a section outlining Hayeks as philosopher, in appropriately NPOV, and have restored the categories associating him with philosophy.
--Parker Whittle 21:38, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I have moved a paragraph that was on tacit knowledge page and appears more appropriately under Hayek, probably in the section under this heading. Unfortunately, I do not know anything about Hayek, or economics and do not fully understand the paragraph and do not know who added it. Hopefully someone will amend as necessary. This is my first ever real 'edit' so I am happy to receive help! Jeffrey Newman 08:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I deleted the following:
"Hayek conceded that when competition is not possible (or, more rarely, when competition does not provide efficient outcomes) some degree of direct government control becomes necessary. He also argued that social services are a paramount duty of the state but they should not interfere with the principle of economic competition."
This is false. Hayek never supported the notion that social services are a paramount duty of the state. Hayek, quoting Benjamin Franklin stated: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." The Road to Serfdom (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1944), pg. 133.). Obviously, this indicates he does not support state run social programs. So do the following quotes of Hayek:
"...if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
"It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regards as the public good." The Constitution of Liberty, p262
Unless you are talking about Hayek's views as a student prior to his reading of Mises' socialism, it is completely false.
--Johnbull 00:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
"His analyses of socialist as well as non-socialist societies have been proven prescient by the breakup of communist Eastern Europe (though this is controversial)."
How is this controversial? I'm rewording this; it seems fairly obvious -- without associating any value judgement with the moral merits of a Hayek-guided economy -- that he was correct in analyzing these economies as inefficient. Holmwood 09:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
There needs to be some statement of Hayek's family background which was of Arab extraction (the Hayek family). Maybe someone more elloquent could add such a part.
If you want a critic of Hayek, Jeffrey Sachs wrote the following letter to the Wall Street Journal. He says, in my reading, that Hayek's predictions have not been confirmed for the Scandinavian societies. I'm giving you the full letter; somebody may want to excerpt it. (This should be on the WSJ free site,and Sachs would probably consider copying this letter fair use for copyright purposes.) Nbauman 17:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Vibrant Economies With High Taxes and High Social Welfare Spending November 27, 2006; Page A13
William Easterly is correct that Friedrich Hayek wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1946 to warn that central planning and state ownership would lead to the collapse of freedom ("Dismal Science," editorial page, Nov. 15). Yet in 1976, in the Preface to the Reprint Edition, Hayek made perfectly clear that he believed that the same outcome would occur through the welfare state. Noting that "socialism has come to mean chiefly the extensive redistribution of incomes through taxation and the institutions of the welfare state," Hayek wrote that "In the latter kind of socialism the effects I discuss in this book are brought about more slowly, indirectly, and imperfectly. I believe that the ultimate outcome tends to be very much the same . . ." (While the editors at Scientific American used the shorthand that Hayek wrote in the 1940s, my detailed paper on the Nordic economies makes explicit that Hayek's critique of the modern welfare state came in the 1970s, in the Reprint Edition).
Thirty years on, we can see the results of Hayek's prediction. Despite government revenues above 50% of GNP in the Nordic countries supporting an extensive social welfare state, those countries are vibrant democracies with open, competitive, and high-income economies and low rates of poverty. That is precisely the point of my Scientific American piece and a longer scholarly paper that Prof. Easterly wrongly attacks. He actually makes my point for me by pointing out that the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom ranks Finland, Sweden and Denmark as "free economies," with Denmark ranked ahead of the United States, despite the fact of their extremely high rates of taxation and social welfare spending. Similarly, the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum puts these three countries at ranks two, three and four in global competitiveness, ahead of the United States at rank six.
Mr. Easterly also repeats his favorite canard that I believe in central planning. Anybody who is at all familiar with my life's work and writings knows that I believe in market-led and open economies and was a leading economic adviser on the conversion of the former Communist economies to market economies. I do not believe in pure laissez faire, however. Nor do I believe that an antipathy to foreign aid is correct at a time when millions of children are dying each year as a result of extreme poverty unattended by practical help from the rich countries.
Jeffrey D. Sachs Earth Institute at Columbia University New York
These are complex topics but, just to give an example, you could refer to per capita GDP growth from the 60's onwards (http://www.demographia.com/db-ppp60+.htm). You can clearly see that Sweden is not catching up with the US, while France is catching up with Sweden. There is nothing there that looks particularly vibrant in the economic performance. But Hayek's point was that this would also progressively lead to the erosion of democratic values. The social democrats have been in power in Sweden during 61 of the past 70 years (http://www.econ.umn.edu/~hhe/TEACHING/ECON4337/swedishmodel.pdf), again is that vibrant? Oberlage 22:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Sachs is promoting a social-democrat political agenda, no more. Assar Lindbeck is an economist born and specialized in Scandinavian economies, and his opinion is that where the Scandinavian economies have had success, they were of an anglo-saxon / free-market nature. Hayek also acknowledged that the socialisms of Germany and USSR were different that those of Scandinavian societies, and he foresaw that the "Road to Serfdom" would happen more slowly under social-democrat (taxation) regimes than under totalitarian regimes. To me, he is proven true as years go by. Asia, not Scandinavia, is the next most prosperous civilization, thanks to free-market reforms. --Childhood's End 15:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
but still it's a vibrant democracy acording to the freedom indices of the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indices_of_Freedom according to the facts there Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland are four of the only 12 completely free countries in the world. And asia? chinas gdp/capita is still much lower than in most western nations, including scandinavia, india is even poorer, so saying that asia is the most prosperous place in the world is a bit of a stretch. Furthermore, it's strange to have a page like this without critics, almost all other 'great people' have criticism sections added. Just because you don't agree with the critic doesn't mean it shouldn't be posted. And the bit about the erosion of democratic values in sweden? It's 5% truth and 95% hogwash. In Sweden you can say "The prime minister is a fucking idiot." on TV without state or corporate censorship blotting out words deemed offensive, can americans say the same? Of course there are limits, you can't say "I think all black, jewish and gay people should be killed." on TV, but where can you? Furthermore sweden has become Less unfree over the last 60 years, sterilizations were banned, the death penalty was removed, even during times of war, etc. If the democratic values were being eroded shouldn't sweden be getting less and less free?
a "critics" section? There seems to be one on quite a few other biographical pages. Surely Hayek had and still has critics.
I have added George Orwell's comments from his 1944 review of The Road to Serfdom. Since Hayek supporters often refer to this review as "favorable", it should be unobjectionable. --The Four Deuces (talk) 22:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't there be a mention of Hayek being an author? -ChristopherMannMcKay 19:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
This sentence needs major work. It should be edited and improved. As part of the "Intro" it is worth special consideration. Here are my complaints:
My proposal is:
"His work is widely considered to have been a major influence on policy makers in the [date range], [country list], a period that saw a resurgence of free market ideas."
I don't know what the right values for [date range] and [country list] should be. I'd say U.S. and U.K. in the 1980s and 1990s, but I'd prefer to hear from the experts... This proposed sentence also be easily supported by footnotes as I think people from various points of view would all agree that he was influential. (i.e. it is not necessary to define X or Y or the size of the change as in #4 above) Maybe "free market" should be "classical liberal" or something else. However, to say Bill Clinton or Tony Blair were "classical liberals" is more of a stretch than saying they were "free market" -- that's why I recommend using a broader term. (That's if you want to include the 90s.)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Msgilligan (talk • contribs) 10:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I tagged most of the unreferenced paragraphs in this article. This article is heavily unreferenced, and so I have tagged it appropaitely.--Sefringle 03:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
My, my. No mention of Kaldor or Sraffa in the section on the business cycle. I wonder why? Could it be that the shrine of Hayek does not take kindly to the fact that his former student (Kaldor) refuted his arguments or that Sraffa's review exposed the limitations of his theories on money and credit. The combined critique made sure that Hayek lost the battle over what caused the Business Cycle to the Keynesians. I do know that Austrian economists have a vested interest in not mentioning these awkward facts, but surely Wikipedia should mention both Kaldor and Sraffa...
Why is he listed as an agnostic? According to Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Professor Hayek died a Catholic. Earlier in Professor Hayek life he was noted to be "non-religious" but not agnostic. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Re: "family of prominent intellectuals working in the fields of statics and biology." I have no subject knowledge, but surely "statics" is a typo for "statistics"? Bhami (talk) 04:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm removing some of the names listed in the "Influenced" section. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the "Influenced by," and "Influenced" sections should reference people who preceded and followed the lines of thought of the subject of the article. In this case, Hayek was a political philosopher and economist. Therefore, the influences should be other philosophers and economists that have followed Hayek and incorporated his ideas into their own theory.
I first removed the following:
Margaret Thatcher, Ludwig Erhard, Ronald Reagan, Keith Joseph, Barry Goldwater, Mart Laar, Vaclav Klaus, Ron Paul, and Jack Kemp
because they are not substantially furthering political philosophy or economic theory. Just because they are well known and influential conservative public officials, who may or may not have made reference to Hayek, does not mean they qualify as relevant "Influenced" people for a philosopher's wikipedia article.
I also removed:
Rush Limbaugh, Bruce Caldwell, and Jimmy Wales
because they too are not substantially furthering political philosophy or economic theory. Just because they're well known people who like Hayek's ideas, does not qualify them to be in this section of a philosopher's/economist's article.
Further still, I question the following:
Alan Greenspan, Konrad Lorenz, and George Will
but I'm not completely sure which way to go with them, so I hope there will be some debate about these three.
Please don't just revert my changes wholesale. If you feel I've made an error in removing some of the names, please think hard about each name you choose to put back on. It seems a little funny to me that Friedrich Hayek would have influenced more relevant people than Locke and Descartes put together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.210.231 (talk) 03:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Hayek's influence on Reagan, Will, Barry Goldwater, Mart Laar, Vaclav Klaus, Ron Paul, and Jack Kemp is well documented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.109.207 (talk) 07:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
I don't see how Hayek's self-described "best day of his life" is "trivia"! I think it actually is pretty important to understanding Hayek the person, not just Hayek the economist/philosopher. Biographies are not just a résumé of one's public life but actually should include a person's social life, is it is notable, as well. Hayek obviously thought it was important!--Johnbull (talk) 16:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
According to the article Hohenzollern Castle, Hayek was buried there. I don't know how to add this to the infobox. Perhaps someone else can do it. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC)\
This is bogus. Hayek is buried in Vienna. I've been to his grave. A picture of his grave site can be googled on the web.
Shouldn't this article be classified or categorized as a religious or cult article? Stevenmitchell (talk) 14:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Why would it? 70.150.94.194 (talk) 17:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Note that File:F_Hayek.jpg has been listed for possible deletion at Commons:Deletion_requests/File:F_Hayek.jpg Note this not a vote, it is a discussion to determine if the image is out of copyright. If anyone has relevent information on the actual original source of the photo and/or copyright status, please comment there. -- Infrogmation (talk) 12:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
"the son of a municipal doctor in Vienna, is rivaled by only Adam Smith as the preeminent theorist of the market system. Hayek's account of how changing relative prices communicate signals which enable individuals to coordinate their unique plans in an ever changing world is widely regarded as one of the landmark achievements of economic science. This and a host of other important contributions has made Hayek one of the most influential economists of modern times."
This is the most recent intro before i reverted it. This intro seems very clearly biased and did not have good citations. The claim that "[Hayek] is rivaled by only Adam Smith as the preeminent theorist of the market system." seems very controversial at best. Dark567 (talk) 03:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
Dark567 -- do you know anything about the topic? All sorts of Nobel prize winners in economics rank Hayek as the leading modern theorist of the market economy. Again I ask. Do you know ANYTHING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.109.207 (talk) 07:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Captainktainer -- are you a lefty troll out to wreck this page? Hayek's influence is documents by a simple search of the Nobel lectures of the Nobel prize winners in economics. Or go to the Wikiquote page for quotes on Hayek. Dozens of the leading economists of the last 80 years reference Hayek as a significant influence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.109.207 (talk) 07:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
A biographical on wikipedia ariticle usually starts out with the subject's nationality, this doesn't. I don't know what would qualify as Hayek's nationality (Austrian? British?), but I think we should find out and get it in there.80.196.102.170 (talk) 03:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
This article is pretty much the embodiment of why wikipedia can never truly be a trusted source. It is well-sourced and does a fair job of keeping the tone seemingly neutral. However, it's clear that the admins are Hayek true-believers and the page reflects this. No earnest discussion of Hayek or Friedman or neoliberalism in general can proceed without acknowledgement of the controversy that has always surrounded his work and a discussion of the critiques and criticisms of it (as well as praise). It's absurd that no such section exists on this page. The critique/criticism sections on the pages for Keynes and Marx (and even Friedman) are extensive. It appears that criticisms of Hayek are removed as violations of neutral POV. This itself is an indication that this page has serious POV issues and needs to be seriously revised and restructured. Wfredmason (talk) 17:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
The article about Hayek is a very good example of this: This man was part of the massacre in Chile during Augusto Pinochet years, but even this truth has to be, if not totally hidden, moderated as meaningless. The reason is as you pointed out, that "the admins are Hayek true-believers and the page reflects this". These people do the work of the libertarist international, and many of them get paid for this job. These people do not want other people to know that when receiving his Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize, Hayek's personal friend Milton Friedman was considered as a murderer.
In addition to cleaning the neoliberalism - or, to be exact, colour it's black history white - these people actively forget that these intellectuals, Hayek, Friedman, Mises, Haberler, Machlup etc., were all of Jewish origin. And the big secret of today's world is that in order to understand current phenomena, especially in the field of economics, you have to get rid of that black-and-white picture about history. I mean, that Jews have been - or are - always good and working in the common interest of mankind. No, these neo-liberal seekers of self-interest are constituting a world opposite to a modern welfare state, a state of peculiar economic theocracy. Despite their rhetoric and their little helpers who try to keep that illusion alive.
To be honest, I have to say that by demonizing the 1930-1940's political leaders in Europe and being silent about the dark side of the Jewish economists of that era, libertarists and monetarists have managed to establish a world-wide regime that is extremely disastrous. I have also seen some definite marks that this forced silence, in Wikipedia and other media, have a potential to turn against those people of Jewish origin who do not participate in that neoliberal revolution, as well. Libertarist and monetarist action may shelter the risks of these profit-seekers, but that action brings the collapse of that order closer and closer every day.
To be precise, look what is the fate of Naomi Klein in these Wikipedia articles, concerning neo-liberalism and it's thinkers and implementors. She has done great and brave job in her research in neo-liberalism. Great in digging the archives and providing also details about the interaction between the economists and tyrants. Brave in having the courage to raise a hand against these people - Hayek among them - who share some features of her personal history as well. This has lead her to be among the ones whose contribution is described as a mere lie. But in deleting her contribution, these immoral imposers of neo-liberalism do only raise the value of her contribution.
So, Eisfbnore and MarnetteD. Think about it. You cannot continue hiding these things forever. - Seventyad 28.5.2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seventyad (talk • contribs) 18:07, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Seventyad, as far as I know there are no "admins" for a page in Wikipedia; there are just editors. More importantly, it appears that you are trying to make some kind of claim that there is a conspiracy of Jews seeking to do bad things in the world. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia meant to provide neutral, verifiable information. To the extent that racism or conspiracy theories are expressed in edits you make, it is likely that other editors will undo your edits for violating the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy. To the extent that you cannot cite reliable sources to back up claims made in your edits, other editors will be likely to undo your edits for violating the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Jytdog (talk) 21:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Sorry Jytdog, if Naomi Klein is seen as a partisan source, to use Cato Institute in references is more so. Cato is a mere right-wing think-tank propagating and defending Chicago school economics. Editors or administrators, who really cares as this seems to be a battle between limited and more comprehensive knowledge about Hayek.
What comes to your claim about a Jewish conspiracy, it is ridiculous. The workings of Hayek and Friedman, among others, are open to everyone. I also suggest to go for a material like Robert E. Lucas Jr. and the earlier Emile Grunberg and Franco Modigliani material as well. The material known as Political Economy.
Better yet the defended, very limited knowledge article, links Hayek to Mises, and also elsewhere you can connect Hayek with Oskar Morgenstern - who leads to Robert Aumann and so on. The latter ones are known as a pioneers of game theory in economics. There you have it: the planners of the game and the people they govern. Here is the Hayekian "Spontaneous Order" and the conspiracy you refer to.
So spontaneuos order that the deeper knowledge about it had to be erased from the article. You really should leave this track you are on, isolating Hayek's work from his colleaques work in Chicago University. Let me quess: as the remarks of f.e. Naomi Klein have gained the status they will, you have to start cutting Hayek's work in small pieces guarding that door to monetarist ideology. - Seventyad 29.5.2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seventyad (talk • contribs) 21:57, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
SeventyAd do you think Cato Institute cares about Hayek's religion? I just googled for some source that specifically talked about his religion and found that interview, which provided a great, concise statement, and it happened to be on Cato's website so I added the correction to the article and cited the source I found. I would agree that Cato has an economic ideology and ~could be~ considered too POV on economic issues to be a reliable source. You seem to assume that I am some kind of Hayekian, but I have said nothing here to indicate whether I think he is brilliant or dead wrong or some mix thereof; I am however happy to say that I am interested in Wikipedia providing clear and reliable information. Finally, I will not continue the discussion into the relationship you seem to make to make between certain economists' religion/ethnicity and their thoughts, activities, and relationships; everything I had to say about that, I said above.Jytdog (talk) 13:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
Hayek had a Roman Catholic funeral (source Friedrich Hayek A Biography) He was buried with a cross on his grave. Father Johannes Schasing officiated. "My own curiosity about this led me to spend a great deal of time researching my ancestors. I have full information for five generations in all possible directions. And since they all happened to be first-born children, there's more certainty that they derived from their parents; so as far back as I can trace it, I evidently had no Jewish ancestors whatever." (62) When asked if he regarded himself among the "mixed" Christian-Jewish group in Vienna in the 1920s, Hayek responded, "Not my family, my family is on the purely Christian group." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.41.157.189 (talk) 03:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
In the first paragragh we come across the following formulation. "Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate signals which enable individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics.' Leave aside the fact that this is not mentioned at all in the footnoted source, but the description of Hayek's thesis is clumsy. Hayek does not have an account "of how changing prices communicate signals..." he does have an account of how changing prices communicate INFORMATION. Prices ARE the signals, they don't communicate them. I'm fixing that much. (spiker_22 99.167.106.249
(talk) 23:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC))
"For example, Hayek's discussion in The Road to Serfdom (1944) about truth and falsehood in totalitarian systems influenced some later opponents of postmodernism (e.g., Wolin 2004)."
What does this section have to do with postmodernism, or a critique of postmodernism? As far as I know most of the major postmodernists are fairly stridently anti-totalitarian; though, as is, this sentence would seem to imply that they advocate totalitarianism. Unless this statement is clarified it seems extraneous (and possibly an irrelevent and POV jibe at postmodernism). That is, I have no doubt that Hayek influenced opponents of postmodernism, but to state it as the article does, the article seems to argue that this opposition occurs precisely over the issue of totalitarianism, with postmodernists defending the the practice. Even if this was corrected, I would advise that the statement be made more substantive, so as to avoid merely being extraneous and irrelevent. --MS
The answer is simple but not the most obvious one: Postmodernists deny the existence -or relevance - of objective truth, and weigh the value of information against a measure how good it (information) performs. I do not agree with your "no doubt", because I label Hayek as postmodernist as well.
We have to remember that information and knowledge are not synonymous. Knowledge is what you know and information is what you receive. In this agressively defended limited article on Hayek there is a sentence "These ideas were informed by a moral philosophy derived from epistemological concerns regarding the inherent limits of human knowledge", in addition to a remark that one of the role of the government Hayek allowed was proper information.
So, Hayek was a proponent of both "the inherent limits of human knowledge" and government fed "proper information". With the first of these stances Hayek argued that humans do not know a much - thus repeating Ludwig von Mises - and with the second he argued that it is possible to feed the population with information consistent with the market order and its needs. This renders Hayek - sorry to bring a disappointment among some of you - among the totalitarianists.
To be precise, there is a specific, interesting role for information in the Chicago school economics Hayek - with no doubt - represents too (in addition to Austrian economics). This role is based on the valid claim by Herbert A. Simon that information consumes attention. This is only the point-of-departure claim, but it is sufficient here.
In this harshly defended article on Hayek there is a claim that Hayek's thinking was organized among a certain treatment of time. And yes, information consumes both attention and time, one of the best examples being this neverending attempt to shed some light on what Hayek really said, and was a proponent of. But, a better example of this is the current financial crisis: remembering the von Hayekian and von Misesian claim that people do not know a much, I ask how many of you have actually seen the figures showing the condition of say, Portugal's economy?
Yes, none of you I think. You have only relied on second or third hand information, and based you reasoning on that. Now, I claim that the IMF conditions were planned to be imposed on Portugal and other countries BEFORE the story of the financial crisis was told. There, you have this thinking about dimension known as time that Hayek represents (but has not invented): the reaction to financial crisis existed before the news about crisis, and the latter constituted an explanation for the dismantling of these welfare societies, Portugal among them. That is the Hayek and Mises explanation of the limitations of human knowledge and the utilitarian usability of it.
So, this makes it a very challenging, to explain Hayek as a non-totalitarianist spokesman of western democracy. No doubt that Hayek has "influenced" the ones not very keen on the postmodern condition. - Seventyad 28.5.2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seventyad (talk • contribs) 19:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Aren't brackets for internal references only supposed to be done once in an article? Why are there several redundant bracketed internal references in this article? Stevenmitchell (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
It's just a stylistic mistake. Please feel free to remove redundant links. --FOo (talk) 18:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:RS#Quotations: "Quotations should be cited to the original source if possible; when secondary sources are used, those that cite the original source should be preferred over those that don't. Partisan secondary sources should be viewed with suspicion if they lack neutral corroboration." I made a quick search for these quotes and I wasn't able to corroborate them. -- Vision Thing -- 20:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
User:J.R. Hercules has made several edits that I believe are tendentious. I disagree with them, but won't reverse them myself. I present them here to let other users determine their propriety and edit if they see fit. He originally added a section (highly POV and very tenuously sourced in my opinion) on Hayek's alleged "support for Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet" which I attempted to reincorporate into the main body and balance (here).
Here he accuses me of "original research" and removes a line I paraphrased from a book's description of Hayek's work in Chile. That cited source (p. 56) says (emphasis added): "Hayek and Friedman publicly supported the Pinochet government economic experiment although they refrained from addressing the problem of its authoritarian practices." (which I restated as "He supported the junta's neoliberal market reforms, but neither condemned nor expressed support for the authoritarian Chilean regime itself"). That is not "original research"; it is called paraphrasing.
In this edit, he replaces what he had earlier sourced to a Counterpunch article with a book written by the same person (Greg Grandin). I do not believe this complies with WP:RS#Quotations ("Partisan secondary sources should be viewed with suspicion if they lack neutral corroboration"). The originally cited Grandin article (title "The Road From Serfdom") seems clearly to be a partisan source for a quotation of an individual it is criticizing (Hayek). Nor do I believe that the same person quoting Hayek in two different places (Grandin's Counterpunch article and Grandin's book) meets WP:RS. The quote itself is not anywhere online other than as taken from the Counterpunch article (Google Google News). I believe the same are true with the quotes Naomi Klein attributes to Hayek. In this edit, he also removed qualification that the only source for the attributed quote is Naomi Klein, and phrased it instead as a statement of fact. That quote cannot be sourced anywhere other than Klein's book.
In this edit and this edit, he removes qualification of Klein's ideological stance (anti-capitalist) which was cited to this article in The Independent. He also engages in a gratuitous ad hominem attack directed at me ("removed an attack article on Naomi Klein placed by some RW zealot"). But the left-wing newspaper The Independent is not exactly a bastion of "right-wing zealotry". In fact, what he calls "an attack article" is actually fawning (excerpt: "Ms Klein is 30 years old, attractive, intelligent, intellectual. She's well-groomed, well-dressed, unthreatening. She is hailed as a spokesperson for the movement she has written about, and it's a role she takes seriously. She knows that her success is due to her calm, unhectoring approach, her lack of extremism, and her acceptability to the mainstream..."). Frankly I don't really care how she is described as long as it is accurate and relevant to her criticism of Hayek (e.g. anti-corporate, anti-globalization, etc.), but I think it is necessary to qualify from what quarter come critics.
His edits also moved a citation (CR #35 to Liberalism and its Practice) so that it appears to back up the quotes attributed to Hayek in the Grandin article, which it does not.
User:J.R. Hercules accuses me of being a "RW zealot", but he is clearly pushing a POV against Hayek by attempting to exaggerate his connections to Pinochet and make them appear closer than they actually were. The only sources for these assertions are leftist, and therefore inherently partisan with respect to Hayek. That isn't bad for a straightforward criticism, as long as it is clear who is making it. When the only support is unverified quotations from a partisan source, that presents a serious problem. It is also unacceptable to use these tenuous quotes as statements of fact (i.e. that Hayek did without doubt say them or said them without further contextualization which would alter its meaning).
I think there is a POV transparent in this edit where the part in emphasis was added to the first sentence in the paragraph: "Hayek visited Chile several times in the 1970s and 1980s during the reign of dictator General Augusto Pinochet, and was so impressed with Pinochet's regime that he even held Société Mont Pélérin meetings there." Why would his opinion of the regime, regardless of what it was, factor into locations of the Mont Pelerin meetings? It seems if he was working there with the Chilean economists, it would be a logical location. How does that imply his support of (or "being impressed" with) the dictatorship itself? Strikehold (talk) 04:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I find that most of your objections here are quite weak. Since Greg Grandin meets wp:RS requirements and he is in fact the source for the phrase “he was so impressed” there is not much you can do to suppress his interpretation of the issues even if you do not agree with Grandin’s interpretation of them. I will deal with some of your other points later but I think that at this time it is worth quoting the relevant passages from Grandin’s book. Grandin's interpretation of Hayek’s disposition towards Pinochet’s Chile is based on more than just the infamous interview (which I suspect Grandin researched in its original Spanish version). I have also included Grandin’s footnotes as they suggest that a significant part of Grandin’s interpretation is based on investigation of primary sources characteristic of historical scholarship. The bold emphasis is my own.
“Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian émigré and University of Chicago professor whose 1944 Road to Serfdom dared to suggest that state planning would produce not “freedom and prosperity” but “bondage and misery,” visited Pinochet’s Chile a number of times. He was so impressed that he held a meeting of his famed Société du Mont Pelerin there. He even recommended Chile to Margaret Thatcher as a model for completion of the free market revolution she was leading in Britain. The prime minister, at the nadir of Chile’s 1982 financial collapse,. agreed that Chile represented a “remarkable success” but believed that Britain’s “democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent” made “some of the measures” taken by Pinochet “quite unacceptable.” (21)
Like Friedman, Hayek glimpsed in Pinochet an avatar of true freedom, who would rule as a dictator only for a “transitional period,” only as long as needed to reverse decades of state regulation. “My personal preference,” he told a Chilean interviewer, “leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism.” (22) In a letter to the London Times he defended the junta, reporting that he had “not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende. (23) Of course, the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured by Pinochet’s regime weren’t talking. (Grandin, Greg. Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, The United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, Henry Holt and Company,2006, p.172-173)”
Notes:
(21) Hayek Collection, Box 101, folder 26, Hoover Institution Archives, Palo Alto, Calif. (22) El Mercurio, April 12, 1981. (23) London Times August 3, 1978.
Incidentally in the El Mercurio interview[5] Hayek argues that the reason why Republican administrations were discredited in the aftermath of the Vietnam war was that during the war U.S. forces did not attack enough and that the U.S. fought a “purely defensive” war of “self-defense” in Korea and Vietnam. This reasoning is beyond grotesque. In the course of their “purely defensive” war in Indochina, U.S. forces were responsible for massive destruction and loss of human life in three countries Laos, Camobdia, and Vietnam. We now know the barbaric carpet bombing campaigns in Cambodia, exceeded, in terms of total tonnage, the entire tonnage of bombs dropped by all axis and allied powers in the context of the global theater during the course of World War II. It makes one wonder what might be left of the world if the U.S. had followed Hayek’s absurdly inhuman recommendations?BernardL (talk) 23:54, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
"(Spanish not totally clear here, Translator's Note) For me the United States' big mistake was this: if you go into a war, you have to go in to win it. But firstly in Korea, and then in Vietnam, the North Americans attempted to conduct a purely defensive war. And you can never win a purely defensive war. To win a war, you need to attack. But the Americans were never really convinced of the need to carry off an offensive war. Which is why they never truly tried to defeat the enemy. It is simple: you cannot triumph simply by self-defence."
Strikehold, your comments on Vietnam were interesting, nevertheless I think they are quite wrong and in many cases your arguments are a generously apologetic and speculative spin on Hayek’s words. Perhaps we should follow up on this sometime with a discussion on our individual talk pages. For facts contrary to your characterization of the bombing of Cambodia I refer you to this article by Ben Kiernan and Talyor Owen. [6] For a reference on the many authentically humanistic resolutions that existed right up until 1966 as well as the failure of strategies of aggressive attack see “Intervention” by George McT. Kahin.
So now that the existence and content of the El Mercurio interview has been established to a reasonable degree, where are we at with the controversy surrounding Hayek’s support of Pinochet’s Chile?
I would suggest reducing it to a couple of basic issues, perhaps you have others to add.
1. Is Greg Grandin to be considered a reliable source in this case? To me it would seem to be the case. He is a notable (award-winning, reputably published, influential) expert on modern Latin American history. It has been demonstrated that he has actively researched Hayek’s views on Chile during the time of the Pinochet regime; it was an initiative that included going to the Hoover Institute to research its Hayek Collection. His interrogation of Hayek is made in the context of an analysis of the roles and relationships of neoliberal intellectuals to the authoritarian Latin American regimes. (The same chapter includes an analysis of the role of Milton Friedman.) The interpretation of someone’s “thoughts and emotions” as you tend to characterize it, or rather, the interpretation of someone’s “expressed views and their actions” as I would characterize it, by a reliable scholar, is actually a commonplace in the social sciences, not only in the fields of psychology and biography, but also in everyday social and political analysis. Is representation along these lines somehow outlawed from Wikipedia? I can show you numerous examples demonstrating its pervasive use throughout Wikipedia. We know from WP:RS that statements of opinion are acceptable. It seems to me like we simply have to add something like "according to historian Greg Grandin."
Although some might disagree with the interpretation that says that Hayek "was so impressed" with Pinochet's Chile I do not think it is beyond the bounds of reason for a scholar informed of Hsyek's views and actions at the time to draw this conclusion. Hayek visited Chile several times, he defended the junta in the London Times, he promoted Chile's policies to Thatcher, and he selected the site of Chile for the Mont Pelerin meeting in 1981, at the height of the dictatorship. If Hayek had anything other than a favourable view of Chile at the time, perhaps criticism or ambivalence towards Pinochet that is on the public record, it would be good to know about it. But right now, all evidence from reliable sources suggests he had a favourable and uncritical disposition not only towards the economic regime but also towards Pinochet's political dictatorship at the time.
2. Is it permissible to present the arguments of a notable critic on this page? If not why? You argue that Greg Grandin is “clearly a partisan source on Hayek.” Every source has a POV, but the point I believe is to achieve overall balance in the article. This article lacks such balance. To quote, WP: RS "Wikipedia articles should cover all major and significant-minority views that have been published by reliable sources." To quote Wp:NPOV - "Neutrality requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases (in other words, all editors and all sources have a point of view)—what matters is how we combine them to create a neutral article". It seems to me that the proposed Grandin quote also complies with WP:V, which also notably suggests that "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." Hayek has in fact been criticized by many notable scholars but you would never know it from this article. There are certainly many opinions here from pro-partisan sources. Yet, there is hardly any criticism in this article at all. This differs drastically from the articles of left-wing icons who have large sections, even entire pages, dedicated to criticism that sometimes originates from crass right-wing ideologues or from bloggers. I believe that the time has come for a serious well-sourced separate criticism section.BernardL (talk) 23:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
Note that the page on Keynes has a large section of "critiques," including one from Hayek. This page is right wing propaganda, a shrine to Hayek--not unexpected or unique in wikipedia-land, just saying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.228.189.150 (talk) 02:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
This line from the main article is a sweeping generalization but with no source: "Hayek, of course, had lived his early life under the mostly liberal, but mostly non-democratic, rule of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, and Hayek had seen democracy descend into illiberal tyranny in a host of Central and Eastern European countries." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.80.60 (talk) 05:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was page moved. Skomorokh, barbarian 10:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Friedrich Hayek → Friedrich von Hayek — His name is von Hayek, not Hayek camr nag 16:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.Was he married? Gay? Have children? Cause of death? According to a PBS summary he was [7] married, but nothing else is forthcoming. It's not easily googled as I tried that. Not super important but I was playing the Game 20 questions [8] and the game has you pretend your a famous or prominent historical figure and trys to guess who you are.... The game asked if I had children... So did Freidrich Hayek have children?--Sparkygravity (talk) 03:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
there seems to be no section called "criticism" which would describe some criticism which hayek may have atracted over the years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greg.loutsenko (talk • contribs) 17:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
That may be because Hayek has never been substantially criticized in any way. History vindicated him while destroying his primary philosophical opponent, Keynes. PokeHomsar (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
The equivalent of calling me a name. Seriously, have any actual criticism of Hayek on an economic level? PokeHomsar (talk) 05:10, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Well no Hayek has been criticised fairly relentlessly and the article does allude to some of this albeit in a diffuse manner. I find the triumphalist tinge that I detect in your remarks slightly odd incidentally. Surely someone who has failed to attract any serious criticism –as you suggest is the case with Hayek- is hardly worth bothering about. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.26.187.185 (talk) 02:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Furthermore, Hayek and his style of "liberalism" have been consistently criticized due to his readiness to praise dictatorship, most specifically his strong sympathetic views towards dictators like Pinochet in Chile. Farrant et al note that Hayek had been offering similar encomia to Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar as early as 1962.
Further to this, Hayek and his mentor were quite sympathetic towards other well known fascists in Italy, Austria and the Iberic Peninsula.
Hayek consistently praised people like Franz Josef Strauss, a right-wing German politician, who had visited Chile in 1977 and met with Pinochet. His views were roundly repudiated by both the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats in Germany. Hayek apparently wanted to help Strauss become chancellor of Germany. For a detailed analysis, see the article: Preventing the “Abuses” of Democracy: Hayek, the “Military Usurper” and Transitional Dictatorship in Chile? By ANDREW FARRANT, EDWARD MCPHAIL, and SEBASTIAN BERGER [American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 3 (July, 2012). © 2012 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.]
A great academic source with plenty of original evidence and fully documenting these efforts at whitewashing Hayek's legacy can be found here: http://coreyrobin.com/2012/07/08/hayek-von-pinochet/ http://coreyrobin.com/2012/07/09/but-wait-theres-more-hayek-von-pinochet-part-2/ http://coreyrobin.com/2012/07/11/friedrich-del-mar-more-on-hayek-pinochet-and-chile/
The initial edits that tried to document these criticisms of Hayek have been systematically removed, time and again. Lame. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.180.101 (talk) 03:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Very systematic editing from Srich32977 (talk | contribs) . . (83,108 bytes) (-3,221) . . (Reverted to revision 502071621 by Srich32977: revert POV pushing. (TW)) (undo) ignores repeated request to consider linked sources and the facts listed being based on Hayek's own original documents, including his own Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) letters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.180.101 (talk) 17:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Hayek's legal name was Friedrich Hayek.
After 1919 it was against the law for people to use titles such as "von" in Austria.
Whoever changed the title of this entry screwed up BIG TIME. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Greg Ransom (talk • contribs) 16:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
"I was born a Catholic. I was baptized. I was married in the church, and they will probably bury me as a Catholic. But I have never been able to be an effective Catholic, a faithful Catholic."
Quotation from an interview given by Hayek to "El Mercurio" (p. D8-D9), 12 April 1981, Santiago de Chile
http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=121 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gezley (talk • contribs) 23:55, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Ridiculous, you have just shown that Hayek was NOT Catholic. - Seventyad 29.5.2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seventyad (talk • contribs) 22:02, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
Hi I read this article today and I was shocked that the term "depression" didn't occur in it one time. Not only was Hayek an economist, but he cut his teeth during the Depression working his craft. I added a bit of text on what he said during the depression, but if there any folks who are well schooled in his thought and work, a major section on Hayek and the Depression is warranted. Did he foresee it? During it, what did he advocate that governments and citizens should do? What did he say afterwards, and did his point of view change? Big, gaping hole in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jytdog (talk • contribs) 20:50, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
OK, so somebody at address 68.4.190.240 made a couple of edits with comments copy/pasted below:
This was in response to a sentence that currently reads: "The global Great Depression formed a crucial backdrop against with Hayek formulated his positions, especially in opposition to the views of Keynes.[11]" (NB: The version to which 68.4.190.240 objected did not have the word "global" in it. I added that when I reinstated it.)
After 68.4.190.240 deleted the sentence, I re-added it and wrote in the edit-reason field: "I reinstated the "crucial backdrop" sentence, which has a citation. If you want to claim that the WORLDWIDE depression had no influence, cite it! Let's take this to talk.)"
So, 68.4.190.240... I provided a citation (which was one of several that I found), that the global Great Depression and the debate with Keynes over what to do, had a fundamental, shaping influence on Hayek. (And when you think about it.. the depression shaped the lives and habits of millions of people, with effects lasting years afterwards. How could such a massive event not have a huge influence on an economist's thinking, especially one at the very beginning of his career?) So, what is the basis for your counter-intuitive claim that the depression played "little role in his theoretical work?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jytdog (talk • contribs) 12:36, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
After reverting a "talking in article" edit, I've tagged this statement as dubious. "Best known"? Perhaps in economic circles. But this flat out statement goes to far. Rather than deleting, I invite discussion. --S. Rich (talk) 18:34, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Is there a better known Austrian Economist? It might not be the best phrasing, but as far as I can tell it seems accurate. Dark567 (talk) 07:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand why all of this is in the introduction: He took his first position in 1927, the same year that Joseph Stalin consolidated his power in the Soviet Union by expelling Leon Trotsky from the Communist Party. That same decade, communist rebellions took place in several countries in Europe. A different form of totalitarianism, fascism, was at the same time rising in Germany and Italy. Additionally, the Great Depression began in 1929, at the very start of Hayek's career. While all of those events may have influenced Hayek in some way, why would they need to be mentioned here? The reader can look them up elsewhere. --N-k (talk) 13:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Um, he was the first guy to predict the fall of the Soviet Union in the way it actually happened. This was back in 1940-1943, when he wrote the book. His 'ultimate version' of "The Road to Serfdom" was all a big "I told you so" that he ended his career on. He died shortly after it was published in the '90s after the USSR finally collapsed. PokeHomsar (talk) 05:10, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I added that info in the introduction. Why? I only recently learned that he existed and the overall shape of his thought. I am a student of history and one question I always ask of ideas and the people who generate them is, "What is the context of this?". I would say that the historical context provided by that info (which I took pains to link to events in his career rather than just providing dry facts) is very useful for understanding why issues of socialism and collectivist thought were so important for him. Not extraneous at all, but central to the man and his thought! Jytdog (talk) 11:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I remember reading somewhere (I don't remember where) that Hayek described various conditions that must be met for a free market to function at its best. I remember thinking this was important and I would like to add a section on it, but I don't have a reference. Does anybody know where I can find this? —MiguelMunoz (talk) 07:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The Fatal Conceit is probably a good place to start. PokeHomsar (talk) 05:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll look that up, but I'm skeptical. The Fatal Conceit is a very late work of Hayek's, and it's subject appears to be Socialism. His work on how free markets function is much earlier, and it's part of his study of capitalism. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 08:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
The Road to Serfdom argues the conditions necessary for a free market to operate as well as what will cause a free market to not be free. I think it's as early as the introduction that he lays out this thesis for the entire book and then elaborates for the rest of the book. Nodrogj (talk) 22:31, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
I think it should be noted that Hayek renounced a lot of things he said in "The Road To Serfdom" when he got older. By the time he died he was most certainly a believer in laissez faire. 68.84.235.198 (talk) 05:31, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Why does the photograph have a red banner prominently displaying "Austrian School" ... I thought this was a biography of Hayek not a text book discussion of Austrian economics.Danleywolfe (talk) 14:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
In 2009 there was a request to move the article to Friedrich von Hayek, which was successful. However, it seems that a year later, User:Greg_Ransom moved it back to Friedrich Hayek on the grounds that "his name was not "von Hayek" -- a name banned by law since 1919". Now notwithstanding the Austrian Law on titles (and it must be noted that Hayek lived most of his life outside of Austria), the Nobel Prize committee refers to him as Von Hayek http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1974/, as the London Gazette also does http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/49768/supplements/4, which would indicate usage of Von Hayek. Is there any reason not to revert to the previous consensus regarding the title of the article?
Atchom 23:17, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
This is the first time I've looked at this article. In an overview paragraph, we have Hayek in Austria, we mention 1927 and 1929, and then jump to 1974. Don't we need an early mention of WWII? -- Jo3sampl (talk) 15:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
This edit includes the sentence, "After 1941, he continued to publish works on the economics of information, political philosophy, the theory of law, and psychology, but not on macroeconomics.". Hayek in the 1970's and later wrote on free banking and competing privatized money (here, for instance). I'm not sure how substantively that disagrees with the sentence. My suspicion is that, for Hayek, any such sentence will need to be qualified with a "mostly" or something like that. CRETOG8(t/c) 22:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
The infobox claims that Hayek influenced several people about whom his influence is not well documented. Particularly, is there any evidence that Hayek influnced Leontief or Kantorovich, even negatively? I do not doubt that he influenced many of the people in the column, since some are attested to in the article. Still, a cleaning of this section might be necissary for accuracy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.71.89.15 (talk) 16:48, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
The page for Othmar Spann claim's that Hayek was a student of his, but there is no mention of such here. I would assume such to be rather notable. Nagelfar (talk) 12:36, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Now I understand that he was correctly categorized as a classical liberal, but modern liberalism seldom has any relationship to lassie fair economics. He was pro Austrian school, against socialism, planned economies, market interference, etc. Shouldn't he be categorized under a conservative libertarian, or similar portal? Does he even belong in a portal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.96.242.66 (talk) 07:53, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
This seems to have been inadvertently deleted, so I'm restoring it. Dawakin (talk) 04:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
I have removed the claim that Hayek was one of the most important economists of the 20th century from the lead.[9] Firstly, no page number is given for the citation. I have looked through the book but see no backing for this claim. I searched using google books for the word "important" in the book, and didn't find anything either. Lastly, even if an editor or a contributor to a book on Hayek makes the claim that "Hayek was one of the most important economists of the 20th century" this is not enough to include such an exceptional claim in Wikipedia's voice. Appropriate sources for such a strong claim may be: a general poll of professional economists, nomination by the AER, being referred to as such by some well-respected economics textbooks or specialized books on economic history, or cited as such by the Nobel or other award committee. Hence, I feel that the reference given was inadequate for such an extraordinary claim. LK (talk) 06:16, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
One or more editors have recently added political critiques of Hayek to the subsection which was intended to summarize criticisms of his work on the theory of the business cycle. This is not appropriate, as the two kinds of criticisms are really quite distinct. For example, Milton Friedman strongly defended Hayek's views on things like the relation between economic and political freedom (and Friedman was even more of target of Naomi Klein's denunciation of "disaster capitalism"), but Friedman did not agree at all with Hayek's work on the business cycle, as the article explains and documents. I will therefore remove the political material that is currently in that subsection and copy it here. If someone wants to incorporate it into a more appropriate place in the article, please do so. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
This was in the business cycle section, where it does not belong:
See above. - Eb.hoop (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
This probably belongs in a general criticism section, but I can find none. Certainly a figure as prominent and controversial as Hayek should have a Criticism section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.2.58 (talk) 21:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
[The following was cut from the older (2011) criticism section of this page. Moved to facilitate discussion. --S. Rich (talk) 17:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)]
Furthermore, Hayek and his style of "liberalism" have been consistently criticized due to his readiness to praise dictatorship, most specifically his strong sympathetic views towards dictators like Pinochet in Chile. Farrant et al note that Hayek had been offering similar encomia to Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar as early as 1962.
Further to this, Hayek and his mentor were quite sympathetic towards other well known fascists in Italy, Austria and the Iberic Peninsula.
Hayek consistently praised people like Franz Josef Strauss, a right-wing German politician, who had visited Chile in 1977 and met with Pinochet. His views were roundly repudiated by both the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats in Germany. Hayek apparently wanted to help Strauss become chancellor of Germany. For a detailed analysis, see the article: Preventing the “Abuses” of Democracy: Hayek, the “Military Usurper” and Transitional Dictatorship in Chile? By ANDREW FARRANT, EDWARD MCPHAIL, and SEBASTIAN BERGER [American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 3 (July, 2012). © 2012 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.]
A great academic source with plenty of original evidence and fully documenting these efforts at whitewashing Hayek's legacy can be found here: http://coreyrobin.com/2012/07/08/hayek-von-pinochet/ http://coreyrobin.com/2012/07/09/but-wait-theres-more-hayek-von-pinochet-part-2/ http://coreyrobin.com/2012/07/11/friedrich-del-mar-more-on-hayek-pinochet-and-chile/
The initial edits that tried to document these criticisms of Hayek have been systematically removed, time and again. Lame. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.180.101 (talk) 03:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Very systematic editing from Srich32977 (talk | contribs) . . (83,108 bytes) (-3,221) . . (Reverted to revision 502071621 by Srich32977: revert POV pushing. (TW)) (undo) ignores repeated request to consider linked sources and the facts listed being based on Hayek's own original documents, including his own Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) letters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.180.101 (talk) 17:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Hayek's Praise and Support of Fascist Dictatorships: Austria, Italy, Portugal, Chile.
Hayek and his style of "liberalism" have been consistently criticized by author such as Naomi Klein Naomi Klein [http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9827.html http://books.google.com.au/books?id=PwHUAq5LPOQC&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=%22including+Friedrich+Hayek+himself,+who+traveled+to+Pinochet%27s+Chile+several+times+and+in+1981+selected+Vina+del+Mar%22&source=bl&ots=IkGtGGbGCB&sig=sR6G7wujYagQ7uQ2zhTq1WKnaa8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oez8T_j0E8ni0QGki53FBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22including%20Friedrich%20Hayek%20himself%2C%20who%20traveled%20to%20Pinochet%27s%20Chile%20several%20times%20and%20in%201981%20selected%20Vina%20del%20Mar%22 "The Shock Doctrine:
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"] Picador(2008), due to his readiness to praise and support authoritarian methods to impose his theorized models.
As of 2012 Hayek has become the topic of further books and much ongoing research Angus Burgin [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674058132 "The Great Persuasion:
Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression"] Harvard University Press(2012)., Angus Burgin [ http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9827.html "Masters of the Universe:
Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics,"] Princeton University Press(2012). most specifically due to his strong sympathetic views towards dictators like Pinochet in Chile. Farrant et al note that Hayek had been offering similar encomia to Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar as early as 1962.
Further to this, Hayek and his mentors were quite sympathetic towards other earlier well known fascists in Italy and Austria, later also in the Iberic Peninsula.
Hayek consistently praised people like Franz Josef Strauss, a right-wing German politician, who had visited Chile in 1977 and met with Pinochet. His views were roundly repudiated by both the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats in Germany at the time. Hayek apparently wanted to help Strauss become chancellor of Germany. [For a detailed analysis, see the article: Preventing the “Abuses” of Democracy: Hayek, the “Military Usurper” and Transitional Dictatorship in Chile? By ANDREW FARRANT, EDWARD MCPHAIL, and SEBASTIAN BERGER [American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 3 (July, 2012). © 2012 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.]
Academic Corey Robin is another great source with plenty of source-material evidence and who is also fully documenting the whitewashing of Hayek's legacy. Further documented original sources can be found in archives at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where the papers of both Hayek and the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) reside, all compiled in Corey Robin's website Corey Robin "Hayek Von Pinochet" Blog(2012), "Hayek Von Pinochet - Part 2" Blog(2012), "Friedrich-Del-Mar" Blog(2012).
Imho it is not relevant how 'a critic of liberalism, free markets' sees Hayek, in the same way that there is no relevance for an encyclopedia in the opinion of 'a critic of socialism, government intervention' on a 'left-wing' economist. That a left-wing (right-wing) critic has negative views on right-wing (left-wing) economists etc. is in itself simply not relevant -- and I don't see critiques like these added to the articles of 'left-wing' economists on en.wiki. LevelBasis (talk) 15:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Actually, there is even no "criticism"-section at all in the articles about Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Paul Samuelson, etc. LevelBasis (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
It is acceptable to include the Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize material. It is proper to use the organization's link as the reference (compare, the Nobel Prize website is used as a reference here and in many other articles). It looks like the HMSP is a high level honor in Germany, given the selection committee, etc. Moreover, Hayek himself has happy to receive the prize -- he gave an address at the presentation ceremony. – S. Rich (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
The article needs to do a better job distinguishing Hayek's recognized contributions to economics from his contributions to political reflection/philosophy. The Road to Serfdom, for instance, is not a work principally about economics, but rather a work of political philosophy. Though its thesis is largely an empirical one: namely, that economic planning will lead to regimes like the Nazis and Soviets, it is not a work of economics. (Incidentally, that thesis, while not implausible at the time he presented it, has (obviously) been falsified in time since he wrote it. Highly collectivistic economic regimes of Western Europe are not falling prey to Nazism or analogous forms totalitarianism.)
Another thing: Hayek's views on econometrics and economic policy should be presented in a more nuanced fashion, rather than simply describing him as an "austrian" and a "libertarian." In contrast to later Austrians, he did not reject empiricism in principle. He was highly skeptical of econometric models bc of the information coordination problem, but this "skepticism" did not mean he thought statistical modeling was meaningless (like Mises and Rothbard); he only thought such models shouldered a heavier burden of proof, and that the 'local, unarticulated' knowledge of laborers and employers should be accorded some epistemic weight and policy consideration. (Probably true to some extent, and one of his important contributions to political economy.) That's the basis of his general argument for markets.
Incidentally, while uncritically presented as a "libertarian" in the article, Hayek would be considered a social democrat or perhaps a communist by contemporary (American) libertarians. He endorsed socialized medicine, for christ's sake! He was a libertarian compared to the Keynesians, New Dealers, Social Democrats, Socialists, and Communists who dominated the academy at the time. Steeletrap (talk) 19:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)