FRIEDRICH HAYEK FACT FILE

Who is Friedrich Hayek?

Friedrich Hayek was a political economist in the 20th century, who had a tremendous
influence on how people in capitalist societies understand the concept on liberty.

Friedrich Hayek’s life:

Hayek was born into a minor part of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy. Place of birth-Vienna, Austria
He went to Old Whig, classic liberalism and Austrian school. He earned Born- May 8, 1899
doctorates in law and political science in 1921 and 1923 at the Died- March 23, 1992
university of Vienna. He founded and served as director of the Mother-Felicitas Juraschek
Austrian institute for business cycle research. In 1931, he joined the Father-August Von Hayek
London school of economics. Then till the 1940s, he spent most of his
time at the London school of economics where he concerned himself with many of the
macroeconomic debates of the day.
Then, In Chicago and later Freiburg, Los Angeles, in Salzburg, Hayek wrote and lectured on a
whole range of subjects. In 1974, he was awarded a Nobel prize in economic sciences.

Friedrich Hayek’s Work:

Hayek published a number of books throughout his career. His works include Profits,
interest and investment (1939), The road to serfdom (1944), The counter revolution of
science (1952), law, legislation and liberty-3 volumes (1972,1976,1979) and the fatal conceit
(1988).

Friedrich Hayek’s Ideas and contribution:

Hayek was against too much central control of economy and society. He strongly defended
liberalism and free market capitalism. He believed that liberty was a policy that deliberately
adopts competition, markets and prices as its ordering principles. According to him markets
guaranteed individual liberty and it was the interference of state in markets that disrupted
that operation of liberty and started society down to ‘the Road to serfdom’ as he put it.
John Maynard Keynes was another influential economist of the day who believed that the
problem was in the demand rather than the supply. Keynes promoted full employment and
believed that it would stimulate economic growth. Hayek in turn argued that this would
cause the government to print more money and hence cause severe inflation. The two
economists popularly argued over their economic policies.
In Hayek’s book ‘road to serfdom’, which is his most famous work, he wanted to save people
from the central government. He put forward several key arguments in the book, such as:
There was nothing about German culture or them as a race of people that had caused them
to adopt an authoritarian government.
He also argued that undertaking state planning that interfered with the natural operations
of the free market was a mistake. As it would eventually lead to dictatorship.
Hayek also believed that no single individual could make rational decisions in regards to
economic problems due to them not having enough information to base their decision
upon. For Hayek, a free market represented a form of collective agreement amongst all the
people operating in the market and there is no single planner that can offer a superior form
of liberty.