Hayek, Friedrich August

(1899–1992)

   Though an advocate of the classical liberal values of private property and individual initiative, Hayek is firmly enshrined in the pantheons of modern conservatism. A student of the Austrian School of Economics at the University of Vienna, he was, in 1927, one of the founders of the Austrian Institute for the Study of the Business Cycle, today the Institute for Economic Research.

   Hayek had a long and influential career in Europe before becoming a British subject in 1931. His teaching position at the London School of Economics brought him into contact and debate with John Maynard Keynes, whose theories on the role of government intervention in economies differed sharply from Hayek’s views. Hayek also taught at the Universities of Chicago, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Salzburg. His most important work was in monetary and business theory, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974 with the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdahl.

   Hayek was a scathing critic of National Socialism and of Bolshevik communism, which he analyzed in his best-selling The Road to Serfdom (1944). Both ideologies, in his view, promoted the collectivism that characterizes totalitarian societies. These, in turn, undermine the “spontaneous social order” that is part of the basic human condition of freedom. Nevertheless, while Hayek deeply respected human reason and its role in advancing human welfare, he believed that it could lead to what he called a false individualism. This, in turn, made people overlook the important role that tradition and experience played in sustaining a truly free society.