RoR: Forum

I discovered Hayek only recently. I knew the name of course, but never read the books until the rap video. You will find some of my comments here on RoR. I appreciated much of what I read. However, I caution anyone who highly values the opinions of Ayn Rand that Ayn Rand did not like Hayek.

He was a strong rationalist.
His embrace of liberalism was broad enough to include Walter Lippmann at Mt. Pelerin.

Post 1

Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 4:45pm

Bill, when I click on your link it only shows me one paragraph. Frustrating, as I really wanted to know what the article said.

Post 2

Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 10:29pm

Phil,

Curiously, I had the same problem, although when I linked it initially, I was able to read the entire article. I tried to access via google, and I was able to.

The URL that I was able to access it by is the following:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704911704575326500718166146.html

If this doesn't work, google it and try to get it that way. In any case, let me know if the URL that I've posted here works.

Post 3

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - 3:32am

Hi Bill,

The URL doesn't work. But googling it does work (you get a couple links...one of them works, one doesn't.)

,,,,,,,,,,,

"He championed four important ideas worth thinking about in these troubled times."

Finally, a terse and well-written summary of key ideas in Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom". I've been looking for this for decades and instead I've seen lots of Oist and libertarian windbags [not you Bill!] posting whether or not Hayek is consistent with laissez-faire or whether they agree with him or why Rand didn't like him but liked Mises: "Shut the eff up and lay out fully and precisely what he said first."

About one paragraph for each of four central ideas is right for an op ed, as you see when you read this. Not too abstract and not concretes only. The clarity of this piece is in its simply telling us what the thinker said.

That's how one gets published in a top paper like the WSJ.

Post 4

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 11:50am

Missing from the four points is Hayek's argument in support of a social safety-net. I think that part of his argument makes him a more complex defender/advocate of freedom. He is not so readily spray-painted as a 'supply sider.'

His analysis of 20's Germany("the great Volksgemeinschaft") , and the conditions that seeded the rise of Hitler and Nazism, along with his characterization of the war in Europe as a turf war between competing totalitarian infections, is an interesting accompaniment to Peikoff's "Ominous Parallels."

What is most interesting to me in this article was the distinction made -- or rather, the point made that there is no distinction to be made -- between economic and political freedom.

That is a powerful assertion, currently being powerfully fought.

regards,
Fred

Post 5

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 11:57am

The issue with the WSJ link might be the difference between paid/premium and non-subscription access?

Post 6

Friday, July 9, 2010 - 7:32pm

Missing from the four points is Hayek's argument in support of a social safety-net. I think that part of his argument makes him a more complex defender/advocate of freedom.

Hayek, for someone who is widely regarded as a defender of free markets in "The Road to Serfdom", made quite a few arguments for statist intervention near the end of that book, undercutting his thesis. So, I'd rephrase the second sentence above as "I think that part of his argument makes him a more ~~complex~~ inconsistent and incomplete defender/advocate of freedom."

Basically, Hayek started out as a typical socialist of his time, during a period when socialism was widely regarded as the future of mankind, and became disillusioned about most of socialist theory, but couldn't bring himself to make a complete break and advocate full-frontal freedom.

Not knocking "The Road to Serfdom" and its wonderful insights about distributed knowledge and the need for price discovery, etc., just noting that Hayek was considerably more statist than most people realize despite all he did to discredit socialism.

Post 7

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 6:22am

Well, laws, cops, courts, and jails are 'statist' interventions, as are traffic lights and double yellow lines on the road, utopic assertions that they are superfluous notwithstanding. Those 'statist interventions' are an impediment to freedom only when they start to be filled with political/economic prisoners. When they are filled with murderers, rapists, thieves, and others who project the first use of violence, they are accessories to freedom, not impediments. If by 'full-frontal freedom' you mean anarchy under no rule of law, then mea culpa, I am also no advocate of that definition of full frontal freedom. I've seen places on earth that are much closer to 'full frontal freedom', and there is very little resembling freedom there, they are places ruled instead by brute local force and whim, where the only traffic laws in place are based on 'physics', where commerce is ruled by the larger man in the 'exchange' of value(what the smaller man has and what the larger man wants)for value(his life.)

There is no mistaking where Hayek stands in the political spectrum. Sowell, quoting Hayek, in Conflict of Visions:

"The phrase 'social justice' is not, as most people probably feel, an innocent expression of good will towards the less fortunate," but has become in practice "a dishonest insinuation that one ought to agree to a demand of some special interest which can give no real reason for it." The dangeorus aspect, in Hayek's view, is that "the concept of social justice; .... has been the Trojan Horse through which totalitarianism has entered" -- Nazi Germany being just one example.

regards,
Fred

Post 8

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:21pm

Fred,

Wasn't trying to spark yet another minarchism versus anarcho-libertarianism debate.

I was referring in post #6 to Hayek's policy recommendations that go beyond roles of government that minachists would advocate. Unless my memory is off, Hayek in the "Road to Serfdom" proposed some things that could be labeled "welfare state lite", not just things minarchists are comfortable with a monopoly government performing such as police and courts and law making bodies.

Post 9

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:37pm

Jim:

In his 3 volume "Law, Legislation, & Liberty", Hayek lays out in detail his view of a prototype government -- I always regarded, as an attempt to hypothesize his view of what the least amount of government consistent with freedom might look at, as a hypothetical.

Sure enough, for some, 'his view' was too much, for others, not enough.

Yes, at the very least, he made an argument for a minimal 'social safety net' which goes beyond what some would sanction.

regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 7/10, 12:39pm)

Post 10

Saturday, July 10, 2010 - 12:55pm

Well, laws, cops, courts, and jails are 'statist' interventions, as are traffic lights and double yellow lines on the road, utopic assertions that they are superfluous notwithstanding.

Traffic lights and double yellow lines on a road are not what I would label statist interventions. The owners of a property have the right to set rules for how people they allow onto that property behave, whether that owner is a government or a corporation or a private individual. Private roads, such as the ones in Laie on Oahu owned by the Mormon church, have road markings, stop signs, and speed limits sign, and the drivers there are expected to comply with the same sets of traffic laws as people passing by on the adjacent publicly-owned roads.

Police forces too can be privatized, or at least subjected to competitive pressures. I own a house in Broadmoor Village just south of San Francisco, and this unincorporated area has a semi-public police force that can be fired and replaced by the neighboring Daly City or Colma police forces. Their funding is subject to periodic elections where the residents of Broadmoor Village vote on whether to continue funding this police force or disband it.

As a consequence, the members of this police force are incredibly courteous, professional, and deferential. I was pulled over once for a broken tail light on my car that I was on my way to have repaired, and I was expecting the usual brusque treatment police give suspected perps. Instead, I was shocked at the deferential and polite treatment I received, no tickets, just a polite discussion of the circumstances and a strong recommendation that I proceed immediately to the repair shop so I didn't cause an accident. That traffic stop was about safety and problem-solving, not about mindless enforcement of laws regardless of whether they made sense.

Security guards are an entirely private quasi-police force, and I have yet to be mistreated by a security guard. A pre-emptive clarification -- if someone shoplifts and get busted by a security guard, that is not mistreatment, so long as only the minimal amount of force is used to arrest the perp that is needed to make them surrender, whether that is meekly submitting to being taken into custody or something more physical if they resist.

Competition matters -- a monopoly governance structure with the usual consequence of essentially unfireable public workers encourages abuse, especially if there are enough of those public workers that they rule the legislature, as is most certainly the case in Hawaii.

Whereas, a competitive governance, whether private or semi-public, where inefficiency or attitude or high prices leads to the people getting fired, leads to much better service.

Post 11

Monday, July 12, 2010 - 8:24pm

FB:: "Well, laws, cops, courts, and jails are 'statist' interventions, as are traffic lights and double yellow lines on the road, utopic assertions that they are superfluous notwithstanding."

A project implemented by the European Union is currently seeing seven cities and regions clear-cutting their forest of traffic signs. Ejby, in Denmark, is participating in the experiment, as are Ipswich in England and the Belgian town of Ostende.
The utopia has already become a reality in Makkinga, in the Dutch province of Western Frisia.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html

From September 12, all traffic controls will disappear from the center of the western town of Bohmte to try to reduce accidents and make life easier for pedestrians.
In an area used by 13,500 cars every day, drivers and pedestrians will enjoy equal right of way, Klaus Goedejohann, the town's mayor, told Reuters.
"Traffic will no longer be dominant," he said.
The idea of removing signs to improve road safety, called "Shared Space," was developed by Dutch traffic specialist Hans Monderman, and is supported by the European Union.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGOR14512420070911

To prod drivers to better share the road, in February Nieder-Erlenbach got rid of all traffic signs and traffic lights in the town center. It also erased marked crosswalks, leaving only one sign that says �common street� and calling for a reduced speed of 30 km/h (18 m.p.h.). The only other rule: �Always give way to the person on the right.�
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0331/What-happens-when-you-remove-all-traffic-signs-A-German-town-finds-out

ROAD TOWN, Tortola, VI.- After being installed last year by a company hired from Trinidad and Tobago by Government and causing much public debate, the controversial traffic lights placed at the Wickhams Cay Service Station roundabout was removed In the dead of night.
Earlier this year Premier Ralph T. O�Neal, in response to a question on his ruling Virgin Islands party talk show Let�s talk, apologised for the lights being installed at the roundabout and decaled that they will �rest in peace.�
http://www.virginislandsnewsonline.com/news/controversial-road-town-roundabout-traffic-lights-laid-rest/comment-page-1

I came across this interesting news item the other day.Traffic planners in the Dutch town of Drachten are conducting an experiment which has seen nearly all the traffic lights removed from the streets!
http://anthonysdrivingschool.com/blog/dutch-town-removes-traffic-lights/

Ealing found evidence to support its theory when the lights failed one day at a busy junction and traffic flowed better than before. Councillors have approved a report which recommended that they �experimentally remove signals since experience of signal failure showed that junction worked well�.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6207518.ece

Post 12

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - 5:19am