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Is Hayek less important today?

Nicolai Foss writes:

I have the feeling that the thought of Friedrich von Hayek is receiving less and less attention...among economists and other social scientists Hayek is increasingly attaining the status of a classical writer in the sense of Schumpeter — namely somebody who is cited and invoked, but mainly for ceremonial/ritualistic reasons and more often in footnotes than in the main text. In contrast, little use is made of his work for purposes of actual theory development.

The "Hayek Industry" continues, but it feels less focal to the profession.  It is also less fashionable for outsiders to respond to Hayek, as did Lucas and Stiglitz.  I attribute this to two factors.  First the shift toward empirical work makes Hayek less relevant to many mainstream debates.  Hayek's work had implications for the work of Kenneth Arrow, but not for how abortion legalization affects the crime rate.  Furthermore central planning and business cycles -- two of Hayek's main areas -- are no longer such hot topics.  Second is the blogosphere.  Many of Hayek's insights are deep and relatively philosophical; it is hard to put them into a snappy blog post.  For better or worse, it is easier for a market-oriented blogger to follow Becker, Alchian, or even Mises than Hayek.  I also believe that the blogosphere will, in the long run, favor the thought of Tullock over Buchanan, for similar reasons.

By the way, here is Nicolai on economists' autographs.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 28, 2007 at 03:19 AM in Economics | Permalink

Comments

"Second is the blogosphere. Many of Hayek's insights are deep and relatively philosophical; it is hard to put them into a snappy blog post."

Who would need to when blogging is the very living out of his ideas on spontaneous order, the localism of knowledge and the inability of the centre to possess perfect knowledge?

Posted by: Tim Worstall at May 28, 2007 7:52:26 AM

Over the long run the blogosphere itself will also face the market test.

Posted by: Ed Lopez at May 28, 2007 10:59:22 AM

Tullock over Buchanan? Is this because Gordon has an office down the
hall from you, Tyler, and Buchanan does not?

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 28, 2007 12:10:04 PM

"Many of Hayek's insights are deep and relatively philosophical..."

I'd very much like to hear about one of these. It would be educational to see what people think is "deep and relatively philosophical", and whether it amounts to much.

Posted by: Mike Huben at May 28, 2007 2:56:47 PM

Thirty years after grad school, I finally got around to reading Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (http://www.econlib.org/Library/Essays/hykKnw1.html)

It is stunningly good. Especially fun to read the week that Congress passes gas gouging legislation. So much of the old stuff is useful only for understanding past ideas; this article speaks to today's issues.

Posted by: Bill Conerly at May 29, 2007 1:08:11 AM

Mike wrote: "I'd very much like to hear about one of these"

Chapter 1 Line 1 of _The Constitution of Liberty_:

"We are concerned in this book with that condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as is possible in society".

Most commentaries on free markets use property rights as the base argument. Hayek, in one line, redefines the issue as a moral one of minimizing the amount that some individuals coerce other individuals (not the usual Libertarian rant of govenment coercing us, but the issue of us coercing each other). Property rights follow as a consequence, not as an assumption (if I am prevented from coercing you how can I take away your property without your consent).

.. and that's just one example of his insights.

-KP

Posted by: KP at May 29, 2007 2:06:27 AM

Non-economists want to know why economists can't produce a viable macroeconomics around which any theoretical consensus exists. Non-economists want to know why economists adopt then abandon one formalistic fashion after another. Non-economists want to know why economists so often use statistics in violation of the formal logic of that science. Non-economists want to know why economists use such silly models to understand growth (e.g. "one good" models) or money and the trade cycle ("representative agent" models. And non-economists want to know why economists are abandoning economics in favor of statistical sociology, neuroscience and psychology, etc.

In other words, non-economists want to know why economics is a pathological discipline. For answers to those questions the work of Friedrich Hayek will be continually relevant.

Posted by: PrestoPundit at May 29, 2007 10:57:25 AM

"blogging is the very living out of his ideas on spontaneous order, the localism of knowledge and the inability of the centre to possess perfect knowledge."

- I don't get this at all. Is there an equivalent to "price" in the world of blogs? I don't think so. Are "market" analogies useful in thinking about blogging? I don't think so. There is not even any meaningful aggregation of information within the world o'blogs save by the very loose mechanism of linking.

Posted by: tom s. at May 29, 2007 1:11:56 PM

Did Stiglitz respond to Hayek? I recall Stiglitz (in Whither Socialsim) saying he couldn't
evaluate Hayek. Hayek wrote in English and not math. Poor Stiglitz couldn't
understand that, apparently. Yet, he does seem to understand Keynes.

Posted by: Sinclair Davidson at May 29, 2007 6:12:51 PM

KP: I see nothing "deep and relatively philosophical..." about baldly stating that you are using a montonic scale of coercion. That smacks more of simplistic ideology.

Isaiah Berlin pointed out what it takes to be deeper: "Liberty and equality, spontaneity and security, happiness and knowledge, mercy and justice - all these are ultimate human values". The sentence you quote shows no consideration of this.

Posted by: Mike Huben at May 29, 2007 6:16:47 PM

I think, currently, the most interesting use of Hayek is outside economics. I've cited him in development anthropology essays.

Posted by: Ben at May 29, 2007 8:21:23 PM

Here is an example of the use of Hayek in society today --
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says:
"Hayek's work on price theory is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project. (...) One can't understand my ideas about Wikipedia without understanding Hayek."
see article:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/119689.html

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