Original scientific paper
Hayek's Criticism of Collectivism and Revitalization of the Ideas of Classical Liberalism
Marko Dokić
Abstract
Friedrich August von Hayek was an Austrian economist and one of the greatest political philosophers of the twentieth century. His works represent defense of the classical Iiberalism and individual freedom, against collectivist thought which dominated in the mid-20th century. This paper portrays Hayek's criticism of collectivist planning and the main ideas of his classical liberalism. At the beginning it is exposed his criticism of various forms of collectivism, and it is pointed to the difference between constructivist and critical rationalism. Then Hayek's main ideas- idea of the spontaneous order and the idea of the rule of law - which are the main ideas of classical liberalism, are presented and scrutinized in a more detailed way. Hayek believed that collectivist economic planning leads towards totalitarianism and argued that in centrally-planned economics planners must determine the distribution of resources, but that they will never have enough information to carry out this allocation reliably. According to Hayek, social order is identical with the web of economic relations characteristic of a market society. And that spontaneous order is the result of human action but not of human design. Hayek's doctrine of the rule of law is meta-legal doctrine - it is a set of standard against which we can judge any laws, regardless of their particular content. Finally, there is a li.st of Hayek's main works that represent his philosophy of individual freedom.
Keywords
collectivism; classical liberalism; individual freedom; spontaneous order; the rule of law
Hrčak ID:
290955
URI
Publication date:
27.12.2007.
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