Hayek and the Evolution of Capitalism

Hayek and the Evolution of Capitalism PDF Author: Naomi Beck
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022655614X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Few economists can claim the influence—or fame—of F. A. Hayek. Winner of the Nobel Prize, Hayek was one of the most consequential thinkers of the twentieth century, his views on the free market echoed by such major figures as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Yet even among those who study his work in depth, few have looked closely at his use of ideas from evolutionary science to advance his vision of markets and society. With this book Naomi Beck offers the first full-length engagement with Hayek’s thought from this perspective. Hayek argued that the capitalism we see in advanced civilizations is an unintended consequence of group selection—groups that adopted free market behavior expanded more successfully than others. But this attempt at a scientific grounding for Hayek’s principles, Beck shows, fails to hold water, plagued by incoherencies, misinterpretations of the underlying science, and lack of evidence. As crises around the globe lead to reconsiderations of the place of capitalism, Beck’s excavation of this little-known strand of Hayek’s thought—and its failure—is timely and instructive.

Hayek and the Evolution of Capitalism

Hayek and the Evolution of Capitalism PDF Author: Naomi Beck
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022655614X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

Get Book Here

Book Description
Few economists can claim the influence—or fame—of F. A. Hayek. Winner of the Nobel Prize, Hayek was one of the most consequential thinkers of the twentieth century, his views on the free market echoed by such major figures as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Yet even among those who study his work in depth, few have looked closely at his use of ideas from evolutionary science to advance his vision of markets and society. With this book Naomi Beck offers the first full-length engagement with Hayek’s thought from this perspective. Hayek argued that the capitalism we see in advanced civilizations is an unintended consequence of group selection—groups that adopted free market behavior expanded more successfully than others. But this attempt at a scientific grounding for Hayek’s principles, Beck shows, fails to hold water, plagued by incoherencies, misinterpretations of the underlying science, and lack of evidence. As crises around the globe lead to reconsiderations of the place of capitalism, Beck’s excavation of this little-known strand of Hayek’s thought—and its failure—is timely and instructive.

Hayek

Hayek PDF Author: Bruce Caldwell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816826
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 869

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Book Description
A 2022 Economist Best Book of the Year. The definitive account of the distinguished economist’s formative years. Few twentieth-century figures have been lionized and vilified in such equal measure as Friedrich Hayek—economist, social theorist, leader of the Austrian school of economics, and champion of classical liberalism. Hayek’s erudite arguments in support of individualism and the market economy have attracted a devout following, including many at the levers of power in business and government. Critics, meanwhile, cast Hayek as the intellectual forefather of “neoliberalism” and of all the evils they associate with that pernicious doctrine. In Hayek: A Life, historians of economics Bruce Caldwell and Hansjörg Klausinger draw on never-before-seen archival and family material to produce an authoritative account of the influential economist’s first five decades. This includes portrayals of his early career in Vienna; his relationships in London and Cambridge; his family disputes; and definitive accounts of the creation of The Road to Serfdom and of the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society. A landmark work of history and biography, Hayek: A Life is a major contribution both to our cultural accounting of a towering figure and to intellectual history itself.

F. A. Hayek

F. A. Hayek PDF Author: Peter J. Boettke
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137411600
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This book explores the life and work of Austrian-British economist, political economist, and social philosopher, Friedrich Hayek. Set within a context of the recent financial crisis, alongside the renewed interest in Hayek and the Hayek-Keynes debate, the book introduces the main themes of Hayek’s thought. These include the division of knowledge, the importance of rules, the problems with planning and economic management, and the role of constitutional constraints in enabling the emergence of unplanned order in the market by limiting the perverse incentives and distortions in information often associated with political discretion. Key to understanding Hayek's development as a thinker is his emphasis on the knowledge problem that economic decision makers face and how alternative institutional arrangements either hinder or assist them in overcoming that epistemic dilemma. Hayek saw order emerging from individual action and responsibility under the appropriate institutional order that itself emerges from actors discovering new and better ways to coordinate their behavior. This book will be of interest to all those keen to gain a deeper understanding of this great 20th century thinker in economics.

Conceptualizing Capitalism

Conceptualizing Capitalism PDF Author: Geoffrey M. Hodgson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022641969X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
Capitalism is the dominant economic framework in modern history, but it s unclear how it really works. Relying on the free movement and spontaneous coordination of seemingly infinitesimal market forces, its very essence is remarkably complex. Geoffrey M. Hodgson offers a more precise conceptual framework, defines the concepts involved, and illustrates that what is most important, and what has been most often overlooked, are institutions and contractsthe law. Chapter by chapter, Hodgson focuses in on how capitalism works at its very core to develop his own definitive theory of capitalism. By employing economic history and comparative analysis toward explanatory and analytical ends, Hodgson shows how capitalism is not an eternal or natural order, but indeed a relatively recent institution. If anyone were qualified to venture such a comprehensive and definitive analysis of such an important economic, legal, and social phenomenon, it is Geoffrey Hodgson. "Conceptualizing Capitalism" will significantly alter and carry forward our understanding of markets and how they work."

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics PDF Author: Nicholas Wapshott
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039308311X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
“I defy anybody—Keynesian, Hayekian, or uncommitted—to read [Wapshott’s] work and not learn something new.”—John Cassidy, The New Yorker As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Freidrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous. The battle lines thus drawn, Keynesian economics would dominate for decades and coincide with an era of unprecedented prosperity, but conservative economists and political leaders would eventually embrace and execute Hayek's contrary vision. From their first face-to-face encounter to the heated arguments between their ardent disciples, Nicholas Wapshott here unearths the contemporary relevance of Keynes and Hayek, as present-day arguments over the virtues of the free market and government intervention rage with the same ferocity as they did in the 1930s.

Capitalism

Capitalism PDF Author: Bruce R. Scott
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9781489989017
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Two systems of governance, capitalism and democracy, prevail in the world today. Operating simultaneously in partially distinct domains, these systems rely on indirect governance through regulated competition to coordinate actors; inevitably, these systems influence and transform each other. This book rejects the simple equation of capitalism with markets in favor of a three-level system, a model which recognizes that markets are administered by regulators through institutions and governed by a political authority with the power to regulate behavior, punish transgressors, and redesign institutions. This system's emergence required the sovereign to relinquish some power in order to release the energies of economic actors. Rather than spreading through an unguided natural process like trade, capitalism emerged where competitive pressures forced political authorities to take risks in order to achieve increased revenues by permitting markets for land, labor, and capital.

The Great Persuasion

The Great Persuasion PDF Author: Angus Burgin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674067436
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Just as economists struggle today to justify the free market after the global economic crisis, an earlier generation revisited their worldview after the Great Depression. In this intellectual history of that project, Burgin traces the evolution of postwar economic thought in order to reconsider the most basic assumptions of a market-centered world.

Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism

Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism PDF Author: Francesca Gagliardi
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785365002
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
In just over 30 years, Geoff Hodgson has made substantial contributions to institutional economics, evolutionary economics, economic methodology, the history of economic thought and social theory. To mark his seminal work, this volume brings together original contributions by world-leading scholars in specific areas that have played a significant role in influencing his thinking or represent key debates to which he has contributed. Building on some of the most significant philosophical and methodological foundations underlying Hodgson's work, the volume is organised around the recurring themes of institutions, evolution and capitalism.

Hayek's Modern Family

Hayek's Modern Family PDF Author: Steven Horwitz
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781137448224
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Scholars within the Hayekian-Austrian tradition of classical liberalism have done virtually no work on the family as an economic and social institution. In addition, there is a real paucity of scholarship on the place of the family within classical liberal and libertarian political philosophy. Hayek's Modern Family offers a classical liberal theory of the family, taking Hayekian social theory as the main analytical framework. Horwitz argues that families are social institutions that perform certain irreplaceable functions in society. These functions change as economic, political, and social circumstances change, and the family form adapts accordingly, kicking off the next wave of developments in the social structure. In Hayekian terms, the family is an evolving and undesigned social institution. Horwitz offers a non-conservative defense of the family as a social institution against the view that either the state or "the village" is able or required to take over its irreplaceable functions.

The Constitution of Liberty

The Constitution of Liberty PDF Author: F.A. Hayek
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429637977
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
Originally published in 1960, The Constitution of Liberty delineates and defends the principles of a free society and traces the origin, rise, and decline of the rule of law. Casting a skeptical eye on the growth of the welfare state, Hayek examines the challenges to freedom posed by an ever expanding government as well as its corrosive effect on the creation, preservation, and utilization of knowledge. In distinction to those who confidently call for the state to play a greater role in society, Hayek puts forward a nuanced argument for prudence. Guided by this quality, he elegantly demonstrates that a free market system in a democratic polity—under the rule of law and with strong constitutional protections of individual rights—represents the best chance for the continuing existence of liberty. Striking a balance between skepticism and hope, Hayek’s profound insights remain strikingly vital half a century on. This definitive edition of The Constitution of Liberty will give a new generation the opportunity to learn from Hayek’s enduring wisdom.