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Does Hayek make any sense?
Here is my short essay on Hayek, which I wrote about twenty years ago. I am still largely in agreement with it, although I cannot decide whether I am answering the title question of this post with a "yes" or a "no"...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 14, 2007 at 02:43 PM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
You say "Hayek's theory of spontanious order does not itself imply a fundamental critique of existing government interventions."
I believe that your analysis skipped over the central point if this is your conclusion. Although government institutions and laws may emerge as a part of spontanious organization, and indeed are part of the evolutionary process, institutions which interfere with other institutions (i.e. the private market) in their natural evolution and freedom of exchange are henceforth not part of a free society.
Just as my right to freedom stops at your rights - and I have no freedom to murder you - the existence of spontanious government is okay only so long as it allows the existence of the rest of the free society. Once an institution interferes with that freedom, it is no longer part of the free society and becomes an outside intrusion.
Posted by: liberty at Feb 14, 2007 3:07:09 PM
liberty,
Are we then to assume that Hayek, from your explanation is punting on the real questions. That seems an odd thing to do at ninety.
Posted by: theCoach at Feb 14, 2007 3:14:28 PM
How would that be punting?
Posted by: liberty at Feb 14, 2007 3:27:10 PM
Since Professor Cowen's essay is based on a reading of The Fatal Conceit, perhaps the title of this post should be "Does W. W. Bartley III make any sense?" Bartley probably has a better claim to being the author of The Fatal Conceit than Hayek does.
Posted by: Russell Hanneken at Feb 14, 2007 3:58:13 PM
Dear Tyler,
Having read your short essay, I still cannot grasp what is troubling you about Hayek's stance?
Hayek provides a rich theory of TAXIS (a made order), COSMOS (a grown or spontaneous order) and the interaction of taxis and cosmos. Agents of the spontaneous order such as firms will to a large extent be run in the manner of taxis. This is also true for agents that one might consider part of the public sector - law enforcing institutions, for example. Agents such as firms or courts or political bodies must, however, be allowed or induced to interact in such a way as to further rather than stifle the spontaneous order of the market or the rule of law or most generally the freedom of society. While being taxis-type of institutions (to some extent or even to a large extent), what matters is that their interaction obeys the requirements of a Great Society (Adam Smith?) or Open Society (Popper), i.e. that their interaction is not regulated by taxis-type rules but by cosmos-type rules. Thus, we may quite purposefully design an organisational framework for a law enforcing institution (thus engaging in taxis-type behaviour), however, only to make it as efficient as we can in safeguarding "general rules of just conduct", which promote cosmos-type of behaviour, the very precondition of a free society. This is analogous to running, planing and organising a company (taxis-type behaviour) that in its interaction with other companies must observe "general rules of just conduct", to guarantee the sponatenoeus order of the market (cosmos-type behaviour).
In my experience, reading "The Fatal Conceit" and no other book from the author, must leave anyone confused and "underfed" as to the full meaning of Hayek's work. I was only able to come to grips with Hayek - very gradually, at that - when studying (over and over again) "Law, Legislation and Liberty" AND "The Constitution of Liberty". In addition, it is very helpful to read his essays in the two volumes "Studies in..." and "New Studies in..." and the brilliant German papers collected in "Freiburger Studien" (I think, available only in German).
Hayek is tough and time consuming reading - but as you get more and more acquainted with the full width of his thinking the reward keeps growing.
While Marshall used to say (dubiously) of his own work: "It's all in [Adam] Smith", I tend to think with regard to a comprehensive and consistent liberal ( = libertarian) stance: It is all in Hayek.
Kind regards,
Igor Uszczapowski
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 14, 2007 4:12:31 PM
My vote is on NO.
(Said with the intonation from Little Britain's "Computer says NO." sketch.)
Posted by: Gabriel M. at Feb 14, 2007 5:25:00 PM
Dear Gabriel,
I am not that interested in your intonation than in the reasons you have to say "no", and what exactly it is that you are negating.
Kind regards,
Igor Uszczapowski
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 14, 2007 5:54:19 PM
I'm glad you dug up this old essay for us.
I vote "no" on Hayek. He went Pangloss on us when he started making a fuss about spontaneous order, evolved institutions, morals, etc. I agree with pre-anti-liberal John Gray's point (in the article next to yours) about many of our institutions, religions, etc being contingencies. (So says my gut). And thus Hayek's full of hot air.
Anyway, J.S. Mill is all we need---Now there's a liberal!
Posted by: Lee at Feb 14, 2007 7:39:50 PM
I've gotten my Hayek secondhand, but my feelings on what I've heard are identical to Tyler's.
Posted by: Scott Scheule at Feb 14, 2007 7:44:49 PM
Intonations, secondhand "knowledge" (flippantly admitted), feelings and "spontaneous organisations" (the equivalent of rendering Marx as treating of "communist capitalism", for in Hayek's terminology an "organisation" is crucially different from a "spontaneous order") - I say goodbye to all that and take my leave from the "cool" party atmosphere created by fine critical minds too conscientious and deep for me.
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 14, 2007 8:32:03 PM
Igor,
I actually thought that you and I were more or less on the same page. I read your interpretation as nearly identical to mine. As for spontanious organization (not organizations) I think Hayek would agree that the emergent order of the millions of individual interactions within a complex system is a form of organization - a kind of spontaneous organization which works much better than for example planning. The economics of organization and coordination could do very well to learn from Hayek.
Posted by: liberty at Feb 14, 2007 8:47:59 PM
I'm pretty sure this isn't supposed to be a vote.
Posted by: josh at Feb 15, 2007 9:08:21 AM
Dear Liberty,
(1) Apologies for the "friendly fire".
(2) This is the second time that I follow a blog-"thread" associated with a prestigious American University, only to encounter the same disappointing pattern. A big shot conferencier proposes a riddle (which is not really a riddle but a confusion on the part of the big shot). Comments are made, as an exercise in the "abuse of democracy from below" ("Hey, I got a right to an opinion, don't I!" Disregarding the fact that with an endless range of things to have an opinion on, it should always be our striving to pronounce an opinion on matters that we have seriously looked into - unless FORCED to give an unsubstantiated opinion).
The big shot does not condescend to comment (presumably being busy to start the next fire and wise enough not to get entangled in an exchange that might damage his authority). And indeed, his authority (in the issue at hand) is never seriously questioned - partly because no one knows what they are talking about, partly because the courtier-commentators - cheeky and assertive as they may be - like to bask in the bigshot's sunshine.
Characteristically, turning the "thread" into an election serves to nobilitate unsubstantiated opinion at the expense of intellectual substance. Or to put it differently: There is absolutely no need to vote on the issue (except for the doubtful reason just given). Instead, what is very much needed is the spelling out of arguments. But: in no time, everyone rushes on to the next droplet to repeat the subcultural exercise.
(3) Dear Liberty, I think I understand your position and agree with it. However, it is not fellicitous that you used an expression that represents a "contradictio in adjecto" in terms of Hayek's terminology. He contrasts "oranisation(s)" against a "spontaneous order", which is the very essence of the distinction between TAXIS and COSMOS. For everyone interested in some enlightenment on this question - do read Hayeks "Arten der Ordnung" (Freiburger Studien, p.32) or "Two kinds or order" (if I remember the English title correctly - one of the papers in either "Studies in..." or "New Studies in...") - which should be readily available from the library of a prestigious American University.
Kind regards,
Igor
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 15, 2007 2:00:48 PM
I think there is a fairly neat parallel between "spontaneous" as applied to activities within an organization, and as applied to activities within a polity, based on parallel ideas of whether there is an encompassing owner at the level in question. The upshot is that for the polity level, which Hayek is really concerned with, "spontaneous" shakes down as "voluntary," and Hayek is thus really basically within the Locke-Smith-Spencer-Rothbard-etc. definition of liberty (circumlocutions in the Constitution of Liberty notwithstanding). As for the claims for liberty, he would be with Smith, not Rothbard. I tend to read Hayek as a strategic writer who knew not to be too plain about the definition of liberty/coercion. Bottom line: "spontanoeus order" basically mean "voluntary order".
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Feb 15, 2007 3:13:21 PM
I think there is a fairly neat parallel between "spontaneous" as applied to activities within an organization, and as applied to activities within a polity, based on parallel ideas of whether there is an encompassing owner at the level in question. The upshot is that for the polity level, which Hayek is really concerned with, "spontaneous" shakes down as "voluntary," and Hayek is thus really basically within the Locke-Smith-Spencer-Rothbard-etc. definition of liberty (circumlocutions in the Constitution of Liberty notwithstanding). As for the claims for liberty, he would be with Smith, not Rothbard. I tend to read Hayek as a strategic writer who knew not to be too plain about the definition of liberty/coercion. Bottom line: "spontanoeus order" basically mean "voluntary order".
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Feb 15, 2007 3:13:22 PM
Dear Daniel,
By raising the issue of "voluntariness" I do not think you are putting your finger on it. A "(man-)made order" (taxis) and a "spontaneous or grown order" (cosmos) may both be the result of unconstrained volition, the result of "voluntary" action. (Run your company as you see fit, go about it as voluntarily as you like.) And vice versa, a free society, the rule of law, the enforcement of "generally applicable rules of just conduct" may represent constraints on voluntary action.
The crucial point is both a very practical and an epistemological one: where and how to maximize the use of dispersed knowledge.
If we run society like an organisation (taxis) we will be considerably less successful in attaining the maximising goal.
Kind regards,
Igor
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 15, 2007 3:41:15 PM
Igor: Notice that I spoke of two levels. As for dispersed knowledge, yeah, sure.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Feb 15, 2007 5:06:59 PM
Dear Daniel,
Hayek has tried to draw our attention to the need to make distinctions between different types of rules, those characteristic of taxis and those characteristic of cosmos.
Taxis-type rules tell you (on a very high level of concreteness) specifically what to do (akin to or exactly like COMMANDS meant to expedite a very specific assignment: "turn left, then right, then push the blue button").
Cosmos-type rules tell you (on a very high level of abstraction) what not to do, thus creating highly general limitations within which you are entirely free to act as you wish.
A taxis-environment may grant far more scope for voluntary action than a cosmos-environment. Stalin operated in a taxis-environment; a libertarian society must have been unspeakably restrictive to him and his supporters - who may well have represented a majority within the Soviet population.
Equally, from the point of view of government as we know it, a libertarian society would be unspeakably restrictive - for it would not allow us to declare to be the law whatever commands an elected political body decides to issue. In a libertarian society (largely a private law society) we would have to prove that a law (outside of public law) is not a command of the taxis-type but a rule of the cosmos-type. Which in turn would provide the basis for a meaningful separation of powers, and would oust the seeming need for a souvereign (a final instance of unrestricted power, the King, the President, the Führer, the People or what have you) in favour of sound legal criteria to discern between proposed laws that are compatible or incompatible with liberty, as the case may be.
So Hayek's distinction between taxis and cosmos (type of rules) is also (among its many other uses) a crucial auxilliary in debunking legal positivism - which is the essence of our legal system (and the fraud of calling something "the rule of law" that isn't the rule of law.)
Kind regards,
Igor
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 15, 2007 6:03:38 PM
i think the bigshot you're attacking admitted he wasn't sure where he now stood on things and would be interested to hear other's positions. i'm with you on the depth of thought reflect by comments on many blogs, but that's somewhat of an odd charge to bring against commenters here (who are by and large fairly serious, experienced, educated, etc.
and i didn't know we were at a conference.
Posted by: dj superflat at Feb 15, 2007 7:27:43 PM
From an Enlightenment or Positivist point of view, which is Hume's point of view, and mine, there is simply no avoiding the conclusion that the human race is mad. There are scarcely any human beings who do not have some lunatic beliefs or other to which they attach great importance. People are mostly sane enough, of course, in the affairs of common life: the getting of food, shelter, and so on. But the moment they attempt any depth or generality of thought, they go mad almost infallibly. The vast majority adopt the local religious madness, as naturally as they adopt the local dress. But the more powerful minds will, equally infallibly, fall into the worship of some intelligent and dangerous lunatic, such as Plato, or Augustine, or Comte, or Hegel, or Marx.
David Stove, The Plato Cult, 1991
Or Hayek.
Posted by: Mike Huben at Feb 15, 2007 7:39:38 PM
Dear Daniel,
You concluded:
Bottom line: "spontanoeus order" basically mean "voluntary order".
To the contrary, in a planned society - toward which we have been moving for so long - we are trying to create a voluntary order, an order derived from and in line with our volition: Let no one make less than x $ an hour.
In a free society an "involuntary order" prevails, for no one expressly intends to bring about much higher income and wealth than in a planned society, yet this will be the result.
The first to see this was Mandeville and the most famous proponent of the idea was a certain Adam Smith.
Capitalism (an economic order dependent on a free society) cannot work in the absence of a genuine rule of law. To understand the true meaning of the rule of law, we need to comprehend the difference between taxis and cosmos type of rules.
I know of no other author, who has made the nexus more intelligible that exists between the institutions of liberty. Hayek has never looked around to see which department he belonged to and then looked at the world from the home perspective. He has stuck to the questions he had and let them take him to whatever department might be helpful in answering them. This is one of the reasons why he is so unpopular: He is too much of a jurist to the economist and vice versa, too much of an economist to the epistemologist, too much of an epistemologist to the political scientist and so on. What is really hard to come to grips with in Hayek is that he brings us from his journey among the worlds ideas that we are NOT USED TO. It is not the intricacy of his thoughts as such - it is that our thinking is so compartmentalised, so trained not to think in a truely interdiciplinary way. I cannot read Hayek without finding instructive messages I have missed before.
Kind regards,
Igor
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 15, 2007 7:47:02 PM
Dear DJ Superflat,
Message 1: What are your thoughts on "Does Hayek Make Sense?"
Message 2: Anyone who (non-vicariously) feels he has reason to complain about bad behaviour on my part, let me know.
Kind regards,
Igor
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 15, 2007 8:23:56 PM
Dear Mike,
I find it hard to comment on your contribution. Your quote suggests that Hume was part of the Enlightenment. Fair enough - but which strand of the Enlightenment are we talking about? He had a great fight with Rousseau, to put it mildly. And the Scottish Enlightenment deviated dramatically from the core propositions of leading figures of other, more well known strands of the Enlightenment - such as Voltaire. Hume a positivist - would you explain in what way he deserves to be treated as a positivist? And finally, regarding your own, immediate, prolific contribution ("Or Hayek.): I first read Hume, and when eventually coming across Hayek, I was struck by the extent of agreement to be found between the two. Do you mean to suggest that from a Humean point of view, Hayek ought to be regarded as a madman? Let us have more on that, please.
Kind regards,
Igor
Posted by: Igor Uszczapowski at Feb 15, 2007 8:37:59 PM
Mike,
Do you believe any of Hayek's views on spontaneous order to be false? If so, why don't you quote Hayek and explain why he's incorrect rather than demonstrate your abilities to cut, paste, and assert?
Posted by: James at Feb 16, 2007 12:49:17 PM
James:
Hayek's "spontaneous order" versus "designed order" is a typical false dichotomy that obscures the reality of evolutionary systems. Evolutionary systems develop due to accretion (among other things.) Take for example his claim 'We have never designed our economic system. We were not intelligent enough for that'. That's nonsense: our economic system is a product of accreted designs, selected deliberately by central planners who thought we needed stable property, stable currency, transparent financial institutions, and a host of other things. There are aspects that are spontaneous and aspects that are designed.
Igor:
If you don't know which strand of the enlightenment Hume occupied, look it up. It's pretty damned obvious.
David Stove's point of view was that supposedly great thinkers were pathological. The quote was from his chapter "What is Wrong with Our Thoughts." My view of Hayek is that his writings are pathological because of his fixation on propagandizing capitalism.
I'm far from the only person who thinks this way:
"[What Hayek] does not see, or will not admit, [is] that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter."
George Orwell, in a 1944 review of "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek and "The Mirror of the Past" by K. Zilliacus
"But let us never forget, either, as all conventional history of philosophy conspires to make us forget, what the 'great thinkers' really are: proper objects, indeed, of pity, but even more, of horror."
David Stove
Posted by: Mike Huben at Feb 16, 2007 5:14:58 PM
