Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/234316 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CHOPE Working Paper No. 2021-05
Publisher: 
Duke University, Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE), Durham, NC
Abstract: 
F.A Hayek is one of the most important and influential advocates of liberalism in the 20th century. His theory is famously based on the concept of spontaneous order, an order emerging from the interaction of individuals without central control and appears critical of every form of interventionism. At the same time Hayek also defends the necessity to improve or even to constitute a liberal order. This seminal tension, between an evolutionary strand and a designing strand in Hayek's political theory, gave birth to a set of debates regarding the consistency of Hayek's thinking. In this article I argue, against several commentators and critics, that the theory of spontaneous order, which draws on complexity theory and cultural evolution, does not clash with Hayek's defense of liberalism, but allow for a better understanding of it. My analysis puts forward the importance of a liberal design of a framework enhancing spontaneity, a radical liberalism, which goes beyond a whiggish liberalism defending the slow piecemeal evolution of social norms and institutions. I thus defend that Hayek provides a theory of a liberal design of spontaneity. Since Hayek is concerned by the liberal framework allowing for the growth of a beneficial spontaneous order, his liberalism should not be defended on evolutionary grounds, which are flawed, but on normative grounds, which are debatable.
Subjects: 
Hayek
Liberalism
Spontaneous order
Complexity
Cultural Evolution
JEL: 
B25
B31
B41
B53
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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