Friedrich Hayek

This essay examines the plural nature and meaning of the word "bond" in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, dispelling popular readings of the play as anti-market. The Merchant of Venice is open to an array of interpretations favorable to commerce, and Shakespeare's Venice anticipates certain Hayekian notions about societies that accommodate competing interests and cultures.

Neoliberal economists, notably Milton Friedman and Friedrich A. Hayek, frequently lauded Hong Kong as a model of a free market society, where individuals could pursue their economic ambitions untrammeled by government restrictions or directives. In September 1978, Hayek’s Mont Pèlerin Society of likeminded economists and businessmen even met in Hong Kong to honour their founder’s eightieth birthday. One journalist covering this gathering rather hyperbolically described the territory as “the most libertarian major civilized community in the world today.” For decades, Hong Kong was the much admired poster child for neoliberals, who viewed its lack of democratic institutions as the epitome of a system that maximized profits while minimizing political pressures for social welfare provisions. Yet this arrangement was the product of very specific circumstances, the result of effective cooperation among the British colonial authorities, business interests within Hong Kong, and not least, if at first tacitly, the Beijing government. It also rested on the capacity of the system to function at a level that permitted the delivery of tangible if modest prosperity and the promise of additional future incremental improvements to the majority of the population. Postwar Hong Kong was never a worker’s paradise, but it offered its largely immigrant labour force stability, a certain level of security, and hope of a better tomorrow. The fundamentals of that implicit bargain have now dissolved, leaving Hong Kong polarized and bitter, with many of its once famously pragmatic residents harboring sullen resentment toward the status quo. Winning hearts and minds and attracting instilling enthusiastic loyalty are tasks that seem beyond the capabilities of Hong Kong’s current rulers, be they homegrown or from over the border. Present-day Hong Kong seems trapped in a blind alley. One is left wondering whether its state foreshadows the ultimate outcome of the free-market, anti-regulatory paradigm of globalization that around the world for several decades became a virtual economic mantra.

I provide a review of the authors' dissection of authoritarianism into its fundamental theoretical components. I recommend exploring connections between Alexis de Tocqueville and Theodor Adorno's late epistemologies and the concept of self-incurred tutelage as outlined by Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault in future research.

An keinem Punkt sind sich die Vertreter der unterschiedlichen Strömun-gen des Neoliberalismus so einig wie in der Ablehnung des ‚Laisser-faire’. Walter Lippmann bezeichnet ‚Laisser-faire’ als den „Kardinalfehler des Liberalismus des 19. Jahrhunderts” (Lippmann 1937/41, 249-50). Friedrich Hayek unterstreicht: „Nichts dürfte der Sache des Liberalismus so sehr geschadete haben wie das starre Festhalten […] an dem Prinzip des Laissez-faire“ (Hayek 1944/2003, 37). Wilhelm Röpke spricht vom „Grundirrtum des Laissez-faire-Prinzips“ (Röpke 1942/79, 394). Alexan-der Rüstow betrachtet „die soziale und wirtschaftliche Katastrophe des wirtschaftlichen Liberalismus“ im Wesentlichen als „eine Folge der Abso-lutheit, mit der er seine Maxime ‚Laissez faire, laisser passer’ … durch-führte“ (Rüstow 1945/2001, 26). Karl Popper betont, dass „Liberalismus und das Eingreifen des Staates […] nicht im Widerspruch (zueinander stehen)“ (Popper 1945/92, Bd. I, 133). Und auch Milton Friedman zielt in dieselbe Richtung, wenn er formuliert: „Eine Regierung, die für Ruhe und Ordnung sorgt, die die Eigentumsrechte definiert, […] hat zweifellos eine Reihe wichtiger Funktionen zu erfüllen. Der konsequente Liberale ist kein Anarchist“ (Friedman 1962/2002, 59). ‚Planung für den Markt’ oder – um Hayeks Losung aufzunehmen – „Planung zum Zwecke des Wett-bewerbs“ (Hayek 1944/2003, 66) – in dieser kurzen Formel kommt nicht nur der Unterschied des Neoliberalismus zu früheren Formen des ökono-mischen Liberalismus, sondern auch seine Ambivalenz gegenüber der bewussten Durchsetzung gesellschaftspolitischer Ziele prägnant zum Ausdruck. Wer von der Vorstellung ausgeht, dass eine Position, die sich auf die Spontaneität der Ordnung beruft, logischerweise eine Laisser-faire Position sein müsse, d.h. wem das Plädoyer gegen Laisser-faire als ein Widerspruch einer Position erscheint, die sich auf die Tradition des Liberalismus beruft, der hat die Logik des Neoliberalismus (bzw. den Un-terschied zwischen klassischem Liberalismus und Neoliberalismus) nicht verstanden.

Chociaż termin "totalitaryzm" jest przedmiotem wieloletniej debaty akade-mickiej, w której niejednokrotnie był dyskredytowany, w krajach postsocjali-stycznych, które miały w pewnym okresie cierpieć pod tegoż "totalitaryzmu" jarzmem, wciąż potrafi wzbudzać spore emocje jako oręż polityczny (Conelly 2010). Celem artykułu jest pokazanie ograniczeń funkcjonalności tego terminu na bazie istniejących studiów krytycznych, jak również przykładów niespójno-ści koncepcji tych myślicieli, którzy go szczególnie afirmują i propagują. Za-sadniczym punktem wyjścia są tutaj znakomite analizy, które wykonali włoscy badacze-Domenico Losurdo (2004) i Enzo Traverso (2017). Ponadto w ni-niejszym artykule wykorzystano szereg innych studiów odwołujących się do badań historycznych, analiz politologicznych i społecznych, a także refleksji filozoficznej poświęconej "totalitaryzmowi". W pierwszej części została przed-stawiona geneza terminu "totalitaryzm" i zarysowany stan debaty akademickiej towarzyszącej jego konceptualizacji. W drugiej części została zakwestionowa-na słuszność esencjonalnego utożsamienia nazizmu z komunizmem. W trze-ciej przeanalizowano próby prezentacji marksizmu jako "ideologii totalitarnej" w zimnowojennej filozofii politycznej. W ostatniej zaś zostały podkreślone niektóre rasistowskie i imperialistyczne konotacje związane z koncepcją "to-talitaryzmu". Prowadzi to do konkluzji, gdzie pokazano główne kontrowersje "modelu totalitarnego".

Hayek is relatively silent on the issue of emotion. When he does discuss it, he critiques emotions in two main ways: the problematic desire to promote social justice, and the longing to return to tribal society. I argue that while Hayek seems to view emotions in a negative light, arguing that they have no place in political economy, his project depends on emotion. First, his references to the work of David Hume and Adam Smith, who discussed emotion extensively, suggest that there is space for emotion in his thought. Second, Hayek does not suffer from the pretense of reason. Finally, emotion is central for the kind of social coordination resulting in spontaneous order that Hayek praises. Arguing that emotions are non-rational processes, I position emotions as an important part of political economy more broadly because they facilitate relationships among individuals and therefore make social coordination through the market process possible. Understanding the complex nature of emotion in Hayek’s thought shows both that Hayek is not as strong a proponent of rationality as he is sometimes characterized, and that emotion is necessary for a free society and a robust political economy.

O presente trabalho se propõe a estudar a concepção de Estado de Direito para F. A. Hayek. Parte-se do seguinte problema: quais os fundamentos de uma ordem liberal que constituem o Estado de Direito para F.A. Hayek? O objetivo central é compreender como o economista austríaco, que era doutor em Direito e Ciência Política, pensou as bases e os contornos do Estado de Direito em uma ordem liberal, analisando suas eventuais incoerências teóricas e práticas. Por meio de uma metodologia de pesquisa documental e uma discussão eminentemente bibliográfica, investigar-se-ão os contornos e formato da concepção de Estado de Direito para o pensador liberal austríaco. A importância dessa pesquisa se dá pela ampla influência do modelo de Estado de Direito proposto por Hayek. Com o Prêmio Nobel de Economia em 1974 e com a chegada ao poder do presidente dos Estados Unidos, Ronald Reagan, e da Primeira Ministra britânica, Margaret Thatcher, nos anos 80, a influência da ideia de Estado de Direito em uma ordem liberal no pensamento de Hayek se expandiu pelo mundo. Suas lições sobre liberdade como ausência de coerção, seu evolucionismo social e defesa do império da lei aplicável de modo imparcial formam a base de uma ordem liberal. Essa última, por sua vez, possibilita que o juiz e o legislador se tornem descobridores das normas gerais em uma tradição de common law, que a justiça seja imparcial e não assuma características sociais e que a democracia, em crise por sua expansão garantista, volte a ser um método formal de troca de poder. Para o autor austríaco, sua proposta de Estado de Direito consiste na volta ao modelo liberal clássico que se interpõe ao coletivismo que tem levado ao declínio do Estado de Direito. Seu objetivo é evitar que as sociedades ocidentais adentrem no caminho da servidão. Porém, seu formato de Estado de Direito tem suas fragilidades e incoerências.

In the first part of the paper, the concepts of “planning for freedom” by Friedrich Hayek and Karl Polanyi are compared. Hayek rejects “central planning” and also all kinds of “planning for specific aims,” but he defends the principle of “planning for competition” as the main condition of a free society. This principle
includes the provision of a pertinent institutional framework and state intervention to create markets in spheres of society previously ruled by nonmarket principles. Polanyi agrees that “planning” is necessary in order to achieve freedom in
a complex society, but he criticizes the liberal understanding of freedom as a vain “illusion” and considers the principle of “planning for competition” a political ideal that endangers the cohesion of societies. The starting point of Polanyi’s argumentation is Marx’s theory of reification, but he goes beyond this, complementing it with the concept of “social freedom” based on knowledge and responsibility. Considering the Latin American experience in recent decades, the paper compares Hayekian and Polanyian concepts of “planning for freedom” in their real political and social dimensions.

Friedrich A. von Hayek zitiert in seinem Text „The Principles of a Liberal Social Order“ (deutsch: „Grundsätze einer liberalen Gesellschaftsordnung“) Teile des Kapitels 57 aus dem daoistischen Klassiker Laozi 老子 (alternative Umschriften sind Laotse, Laotzu etc.; der Text ist auch unter dem Titel Daodejing oder Tao Te King 道德經 bekannt). Dass dieses Zitat in einem vor allem dem Begriff der „spontanen Ordnung“ gewidmeten Text auftaucht, eröffnet Fragen hinsichtlich des Verhältnisses von Liberalismus und Daoismus, denen ich mich in diesem Vortrag widmen möchte. Er besteht aus drei Teilen. Zunächst werde ich mich (1.) der von Hayek zitierten Übersetzung zuwenden und auf dem Wege eines Übersetzungskommentars versuchen, Zugang zu den Motiven des „Ohne-Tuns“ (wúwéi 無為), des „Selbstwandels“ (zìhuà 自化) und der „Selbstregierung“ (zìzhì 自 治 ) zu finden; sodann werde ich (2.) in einem hermeneutischen Kommentar einige Deutungsansätze nachzeichnen, die sich dazu in der chinesischen Literatur finden; darauf aufbauend werde ich (3.) transkulturelle Korrespondenzen skizzieren, in denen ich versuche, die politische Bedeutung des daoistischen „Ohne-Tuns“ und der Idee „spontaner Ordnung“ im Kontext des diskursiven Kampfes zwischen „demokratischem Westen“ und „autoritärem China“ zu erkunden.

In this article, I seek to compare two quite different social theorists: Friedrich August von Hayek and Niklas Luhmann. These two author’s theoretical approach seems to present more differences than similarities and indeed, it is not apparent that either reflected upon the other’s work. Society as a whole is, for Hayek, a self-organizing system of relations. Hayek uses the phrase „spontaneous order” to refer to the condition of dynamic equilibrium that results from the free operation of society. Without such freedom, the social system cannot achieve social benefits. It is through the Haykian idea of „spontaneous order” that I would like to connect his work with that of Luhmann. In Luhmann’s case, society is an assemblage of „functional systems”, self-organizing units that transform themselves and adapt to their environments. Unlike Hayek’s theory of society as a spontaneous order, in the Luhmannian framework social systems are self-organizing units independent of the intentionality of human agents. Social systems are „autopoietic”, meaning that they create and stabilize their own inner structures. In this article, I shall refrain from utilizing the entirety of Hayek and Luhmann’s substantial bibliography, an exacting task that would demand an entire monograph, and focus on two of their most systematic works: Hayek’s immense Law, Legislation and Liberty, first published in 1973, and Luhmann’s Soziale Systeme, originally published in 1983. Through the common thread of self-organization, I hope to connect these two important thinkers.

Hayek’s business cycle theory in the thirties was pioneering both in developing the general equilibrium framework  and in integrating capital with monetary theory. From published and unpublished work and correspondence a more complete picture of the evolution of Hayek’s thought emerges. This article traces how Hayek’s effort to produce a consistent business cycle theory led him to redevelop important parts of capital theory, and the theory of expectations. The inherent difficulties of combining ‘fixed’ with ‘circulating’ capital, and his evolving views on knowledge and expectations led him to abandon his project of developing a definitive version of Austrian business cycle theory.

Procuraremos neste trabalho descobrir de que forma se articulam no pensamento de Friedrich August von Hayek as exigências morais e as exigências jurídicas que se colocam em relação a qualquer ordem social. Isto é, trata-se de saber se, na ordem liberal defendida por Hayek, há lugar nas regras de direito a considerações de ordem moral. O direito pode consagrar determinadas concepções morais? Se sim, quais? Se não, reduzir-se-á o campo da moral a uma esfera meramente privada, ou haverá ainda algum espaço para ela na esfera pública? Estas são algumas questões para as quais procurarei respostas no pensamento de Hayek.

Money is one of mankind's earliest and greatest inventions. Money, as we know it today has a long
evolutionary history. The process started from barter in ancient times and evolved into
cryptography-based money in modern times. The evolution process of money has always been
closely connected with the technological advancements in an economy and modern economy is
high-tech. The global economy is inevitably moving towards a digital eco-system which requires
a new and auspicious payments solution that better address the needs of the people involved. Over
the last couple of years, cryptocurrencies have gained rapid market growth as well as serious public
attention. The creator of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto,
wrote a white paper titled ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ and in his paper he
describes Bitcoin as a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash (Nakamoto, 2008). The
motivation of the creator behind Bitcoin was to develop an alternate payments solution to cash
while retaining the advantageous properties of cash.

This paper gives an account of the debate between F.A. Hayek and J.M. Keynes in the 1930’s written for the general public. The purpose for this is twofold. First to provide the general reader with a narrative of what happened, and pointers to further reading that are accessible to the non-specialist. Second, to discuss how academics can fruitfully bridge the gap between their specialist work and the public without reducing complex themes into one-dimensional narratives. I use the Keynes vs. Hayek debate as a case study on how this may be achieved.

Defenders of “free-market" environmentalism have often appealed to the writings of F.A. Hayek to support their favored approaches to environmental political economy. Yet Hayek’s power to vindicate such perspectives is controversial. In fact, some writers have found in Hayek’s writings an invitation to extensive political interventions in the environmental arena. In this paper, I develop three environmentally relevant themes in Hayek’s writings in order to clarify his true legacy for environmental political economy. I argue that Hayek’s most important contributions to environmental debates can be found in his guidance for making public policies compatible with the functionality of the market order.

The Covid State, apart from its destruction of lives, societies and economies, has caused a rethink of our explanations of political life. What we assumed to be the basis of liberal democratic polities, the social contract, if you will, has been rendered obsolete. Forty odd years ago, longer than I care to remember, I wrote a political science thesis on Robert Nozick, Friedrich Hayek and the state. Hayek and Nozick were classical liberals, and concerned to promote and defend the liberal, minimal state. Nozick was a Harvard philosophy professor. Hayek was the doyen of Austrian economists. They had little in common except for their love of individual freedom. Today we would call them libertarians. What would they make of the state in 2022?

« Théorie (de la théorie) du complot », Kairos 49, avril/mai 2021, pp. 10-11

Peut-on penser le complot ? Les médias « mainstream » considèrent que l'impensable doit rester impensé. Derrière eux se rangent, cela va sans dire, les bienpensants, toutes tendances confondues. Mais de quoi parle-ton au juste ? D'une réalité qui appartiendrait au domaine (philosophique) de la raison pure ? Des conditions de possibilité (politiques) de la démocratie ? Ou de la difficulté (psychologique) extrême de comprendre, et de révoquer, les manipulations perverses 1 ? Commençons par planter le décor lexical.

Conceptul de „dreptate socială” este, fără îndoială, unul dintre conceptele cheie ale filosofiei politice. În orice caz, el este unul dintre cele mai utilizate concepte de către filosofii politici recenţi. Bănuiala mea este că foarte puţine concepte – precum, spre exemplu, cel de „democraţie” – pot rivaliza din acest
punct de vedere conceptul de „dreptate socială”. Pe ce îmi bazez această bănuială? Pe faptul că, aşa cum se poate constata examinând cărţile sau revistele din acest domeniu, dreptatea socială este unul dintre cele mai abordate şi mai dezbătute subiecte din filosofia politică a ultimilor cincizeci de ani.
        Această situaţie nu este rezultatul întâmplării. Problema identificării principiilor organizării drepte a unei societăţi este considerată – şi, fără îndoială, este – una dintre cele mai importante probleme ale filosofiei politice. Pentru mulţi filosofi politici, ea este chiar cea mai importantă problemă a filosofiei politice, la fel cum dreptatea este cea dintâi virtute a unei „societăţi bune”. John Rawls, spre exemplu, filosoful care a avut cea mai mare contribuţie la concentrarea filosofiei politice recente pe problema dreptăţii sociale (din păcate, de multe ori în detrimentul celorlalte probleme importante ale acesteia), şi-a dezvoltat celebra sa teorie a dreptăţii sociale (şi) ca urmare a convingerii că dreptatea „este prima virtute a instituţiilor sociale, la fel cum este adevărul pentru sistemele de gândire. Oricât de elegantă sau economică ar fi, o teorie trebuie respinsă sau revizuită dacă nu este adevărată; la fel, indiferent de cât de eficiente sau bine organizate ar fi, instituţiile trebuie reformate sau abolite dacă sunt nedrepte. (…) Singurul lucru care ne permite să acceptăm o teorie eronată este lipsa uneia mai bune; în mod analog, o nedreptate este tolerabilă numai atunci când este necesară pentru a evita o nedreptate şi mai mare. Fiind primele virtuţi ale activităţilor umane, adevărul şi dreptatea sunt de necompromis”.
      Conceptul de „dreptate socială” este, însă, şi unul dintre cele mai controversate concepte ale filosofiei politice. Foarte puţine aspecte legate de acest concept nu sunt înconjurate de controverse şi dezbateri argumentative. Cred că nu greşesc dacă afirm că există doar trei astfel de aspecte. Primul este acela că
dreptatea, fie ca virtute individuală, fie ca virtute a unei societăţi, constă, în esenţă, în a da fiecăruia ceea ce i se cuvine (sau ceea ce i se datorează, ceea ce este îndreptăţit să primească). Al doilea este acela că, spre deosebire de conceptul de „dreptate distributivă”, introdus în vocabularul filosofic încă de Aristotel,
conceptul de „dreptate socială” este unul mult mai recent, utilizat pentru prima dată abia în prima jumătate a secolului XIX. În sfârşit, al treilea este acela că dreptatea socială nu trebuie confundată cu dreptatea legală sau retributivă (dreptatea în pedepsirea celor vinovaţi de infracţiuni).
      Unii autori ar introduce pe lista aspectelor necontroversate legate de conceptul de „dreptate socială” şi un al patrulea aspect. Mă refer la ideea că dreptatea socială se distinge în mod clar de caritate. Este adevărat, cei mai mulţi filosofi operează o astfel de distincţie. De obicei, caritatea este prezentată ca o
virtute morală privată şi strict voluntară faţă de ceilalţi membri ai societăţii, în vreme ce dreptatea este prezentată ca o virtute sau o datorie morală a cărei respectare poate fi impusă (enforced) în mod legitim de către stat. Există însă şi filosofi care au contestat, mai mult sau mai puţin explicit, legitimitatea şi semnificaţia morală a acestei distincţii. Doi dintre aceşti filosofi sunt Allen Buchanan şi Jeremy Waldron. Ambii au încercat să arate că, de fapt, şi respectarea exigenţelor carităţii poate fi uneori impusă în mod legitim din punct de vedere moral de către stat. Buchanan a făcut chiar mai mult: a încercat să demonstreze caracterul problematic al tuturor modalităţilor prin care filosofii politici au încercat să traseze o distincţie netă între dreptatea socială şi caritate.
        Unele dintre cele mai importante controverse declanşate de conceptul de „dreptate socială” sunt cele legate de definirea, de specificarea şi de legitimitatea acestui concept. Prima este, în esenţă, o controversă în privinţa răspunsului la următoarea întrebare: care este cadrul conceptual care surprinde cel mai
bine trăsătura fundamentală a dreptăţii şi nedreptăţii sociale? A doua este o controversă în privinţa exigenţelor sau a principiilor „corecte” sau „adecvate” ale dreptăţii sociale. În sfărşit, a treia este o controversă pe marginea acceptabilităţii apelului la conceptul de „dreptate socială”.
      În cea mai mare parte a capitolului de faţă prezint pe scurt principalele idei, poziţii şi argumente invocate de filosofii politici recenţi în cadrul fiecăreia dintre aceste controverse. Pentru a respecta specificul unui capitol introductiv, am încercat să fiu cât mai imparţíal în prezentarea lor. Există însă şi locuri în care am exprimat sau măcar am sugerat propriile mele opinii. Sper totuşi că acest lucru nu îl va împiedica prea mult pe cititor să caute să-şi formeze şi să-şi întemeieze cât mai solid propriile sale opinii cu privire la chestiunile în dispută.

This article examines historicism as the expansion of historiography beyond its bounds, analogous to Physicalism, Naturalism, Psychologism, and Scientism. Five senses of historicism are distinguished: Ontological Historicism claims ultimate reality is, and only is, historical. Idiographic historicism considers historiography an empirical science that results in observational descriptions of unique singular events. Introspective historicism considers the epistemology of historiography to be founded on self-knowledge.  Scientistic historicism considers historiography an applied psychology or social science that can expand to overtake the social sciences. Methodological historicism extends the use of historiographic methodologies to unreliable or dependent evidence. The first four historicisms are inconsistent with historiography within bounds and implode. Methodological historicism describes proper historiographic methodologies that are applied out of their proper bounds, but are used in historiography based on the epistemology of testimony and the tracing of the transmission of information from historical event to historiographic evidence.

Key terms: Historicism, philosophy of historiography, Physicalism, Scientism, Epistemology of Testimony, Idiographic science, Introspection, self-knowledge, Neo-Kantian philosophy.

MICHAEL HAAR, professor of contemporary philosophy at the University of Paris, struggles in The Song of the Earth with the ancient problem of being. Metaphysics is traditionally divided into epistemology (what and how we know) and ontology (what sort of beings there are). Following Martin Heidegger and Georg Hegel, Haar regards ontology as more important and defines truth as
the revelation of being. Applying this theory of truth to art, Haar maintains that a work of art reveals aspects of the Earth that would otherwise remain hidden, and he draws many fine examples from the poetry of Friedrich Holderlin to illustrate this. 

Haar supports the natural, but he fails to see that the drives behind technology—people's curiosity, exploration and desire to control—could not be more natural. They are, after all, part of our evolutionary heritage. As Konrad Lorenz, the famous ethologist, shows in Behind the Mirror, these characteristics become increasingly evident as we look along the phylogenetic series leading to Homo sapiens sapiens. I contrast Haar’s work with other perspectives (Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek and William Warren Bartley III) on the nature of alienation and whether it is avoidable and necessarily a bad thing.

The paper traces three readings (respectively by Poggio Bracciolini, Friedrick August von Hayek
and Maurizio Viroli) of the famous maxim of Cicero «Legum … omnes servi sumus ut liberi esse
possimus» (Cic. Pro Cl. 53.146), highlighting the complex lines of influence that Cicero has had
on modern political and legal thought.

"L'articolo si propone di ripercorrere tre letture politiche della celebre massima ciceroniana '… legum … omnes servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus' (Cluent. 53.146), rispettivamente da parte di Poggio Bracciolini, di Friedrick August von Hayek e di Maurizio Viroli. 
La frase, di sicuro effetto quanto – e, probabilmente, proprio in quanto – generica, andando a definire il ruolo della legge nella vita associata ma anche nella libertà individuale, ha del resto goduto – anche rispetto a più nutrite riflessioni, contenute soprattutto nel de legibus  – di straordinaria ‘fortuna’.
L’analisi condotta porta a osservare come la massima, generica e utilizzata dal suo autore in contesto processuale, si ponga, per le sue caratteristiche stesse e per una lunga tradizione, al centro di una casistica complessa. Ciò contribuisce a sottolineare l’influenza che Cicerone ha avuto sul pensiero politico e giuridico moderno, influenza che si afferma non da ultimo attraverso le ‘non citazioni’. Tale influenza, sebbene sottolineata dalla critica più recente con sempre maggiore incisività, non parrebbe ancora a rischio di sopravvalutazioni."

The research task in this master's thesis was to conceptualize, analyze and evaluate international political economy (IPE) in a systemic manner. The result is an attempt to define what Stephen Gill has labelled market civilization and what in this research is denominated as neoliberal civilization.

Research is based on both normative and descriptive theoretical work. It's theoretical framework consists of poststructuralism in IPE, neoliberalism and classical liberalism with a portion of Swedenborgian (and theocentric) philosophy

This is chapter 1 of "Nine Lives of Neoliberalism" edited by Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian,  Philip Mirowski, published by Verso in May 2020.

Neoliberalism was born out of a collision between the controversial importation of the methods and authority of the experimental sciences into politics on the one hand, and the acknowledgement of the social and political conditions for the discovery and justification of knowledge on the other. It made the pursuit of knowledge and truth a political question, and gave the question of social order an epistemological answer: what we can do depends ultimately on what we can know. Nevertheless, this proclivity for epistemological investigations did not imply a unity of views among neoliberals, nor that their conclusions were devoid of political motivations. Moreover, in their contention to reclaiming the mantle of science, neoliberals shared many premises with progressive scientists regarding the position and “function” of science in society. This apparent paradox explains both the fluidity of neoliberal thinking and the inspiration it has drawn from its detractors at a sociological and organizational level, two dimensions still relevant today in accounting for the steadiness of neoliberalism and its success in cannibalizing competing ideas.

The first part of this chapter situates the scientific controversies in which neoliberal philosophers of science developed their intuitions. The second part revisits the socialist calculation debate as the cradle of their epistemological arguments for the superiority of the market. The third part deals with their common fight against the planning of science and the reciprocal relation they established between liberal institutions and the conduct of science.

La notion de libéralisme crée un sentiment trompeur de familiarité : sa présence envahissante dans le débat public brouille le plus souvent sa compréhension. Mais le terme, inventé dans un contexte de luttes politiques, a toujours été chargé d’ambiguïtés. Aussi les recherches réunies ici visent-elles, non à le réduire à une définition dogmatique, mais à en explorer la complexité et les tensions internes. Pour ce faire, elles adoptent un biais particulièrement éclairant : la façon dont la tradition libérale s’est définie en se confrontant aux exigences de la normativité juridique.
Les auteurs, spécialistes de philosophie moderne et contemporaine, montrent que le libéralisme ne se réduit pas à une opposition globale à l’idée de norme au nom du « laisser-faire, laisser-passer ». À travers l’étude de moments particulièrement significatifs de son histoire (Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, Bentham, la critique contre-révolutionnaire du libéralisme, Constant, Tocqueville, les anarcho-capitalistes contemporains), ils donnent plutôt à voir un certain nombre de déplacements dans l’ordre de la normativité. Ils éclairent les débats et les arguments suscités par une réflexion renouvelée sur le statut de l’individu, sur le fondement du droit de propriété ou sur la fonction du pouvoir.
Ces études peuvent constituer une initiation à la connaissance de quelques unes des principales figures de la tradition libérale. Elles intéresseront aussi les spécialistes : s’appuyant sur les interprétations classiques de cette tradition, discutant et enrichissant ces interprétations, elles visent à en approfondir les enjeux théoriques.

La scelta di procedere in uno studio su Hayek e il suo concetto di libertà, e più in generale sulla libertà liberale, è stata dettata dall’esigenza, sempre più preminente dal basso della società civile ma non dall’alto della politica che la governa, sia di una riflessione profonda sul rapporto che intercorre fra la libertà dei singoli individui e quella della collettività di cui essi fanno parte, sia una riflessione su uno stato che legifera troppo e incide sulle libertà individuali o al contrario non legiferando affatto produce dei vuoti normativi che non possono essere colmati con la creatività teorica e etica dei singoli.

In this paper, I return to the drafting of the Universal Declaration and trace a spirited conflict about whether or not a society that guaranteed human rights would be, by definition, good. My focus is on the (partly successful) efforts of the Soviet Bloc delegates to strip the new human rights bill of a proposed 'right to a good social and international order'. By 1947, as the drafting began, Russia’s own revolutionary days were long in the past. Nonetheless, Soviet diplomats continued to argue that a good society would be achieved by workers’ revolutions, not rights declarations. I also argue that this debate about the good society requires us to reconsider the standard story according to which the nascent Cold War saw the Eastern Bloc push for social and economic rights while the Western Bloc sought civil and political rights. I show that Soviet delegates were contemptuous of the belief that declaring economic rights would heal class antagonisms or overcome poverty and economic inequality, and deeply sceptical about the realisation of such rights under capitalism.

To make machines look intelligent it was necessary that the sources of their power, the labor force which surrounded and ran them, be rendered invisible. -Simon Schaffer If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent. -Alan Turing

Today, ‘‘scientism‘‘ is a concept with a negative connotation in every language. Although many definitions arecirculating, they have the assessment in common that scientism implicates a blind faith in science, which is wrong,simple-minded and even dangerous. However, the question is, who actually is defending that kind of position? Isscientism not just a ghost, a projection, an intellectual scarecrow in order to use many people’s fear of science inorder to bash rationalistic opinions? This article develops the argument that scientism is a real historical currentwhich can be analyzed in a concrete way. It starts by outlining the history of the French word ‘‘scientisme’’ and thedebates around it and discovers that the word is not at all of recent invention, but goes back to the 1840s andreceived its negative emphasis in the late nineteenth century when ‘‘scientific spiritism’’ on the one hand andCatholicism on the other were struggling against the ‘‘exaggerated’’ claims of natural science. A polemical counter-concept wastherefore needed.Soonafterward some scientistsand philosophers emerge,like Félix Le Dantec, AbelRey or Marcel Boll, who turn around the invective in order to describe their own optimistic and rationalistic con-ceptionofscience.Inconclusionthearticlearguesthatscientismhastobeunderstoodasanintellectualprojectandas an optimistic thought-style in science that does not at all correspond to the prejudices of the amoral scientist orthe power-hungry technocrat, but is represented mostly by outsiders and nonconformists.

Between the late 1930s and the 1950s, Michael Polanyi came in close contact with a diverse cast of intellectuals seeking a renewal of the liberal doctrine. The elaboration of neoliberalism happened through a transnational collaboration between economists, philosophers, and social theorists, united in their rejection of central planning. Defining a common agenda for this early neoliberalism offered an opportunity to discard the old laissez-faire doctrine and restore a supervisory role of the state. Ultimately, postwar dissensions regarding the direction of these efforts led Polanyi away from the neoliberal core. Between the publication of his pamphlet on the failures of economic planning in the Soviet Union in 1936 and that of The Logic of Liberty in 1951, Michael Polanyi progressively lost interest in chemistry and started to investigate the political and sociological conditions necessary to scientific freedom and the pursuit of truth. During that time, he became involved with a group of scholars who, equally, perceived the democratic collapse of Europe as a wake-up call for a restatement of its liberal tradition. Whereas the values of individual dignity and social progress that liberalism carried were needed then more than ever, they agreed that the method to achieve these ideals had become obsolete. Therefore, they focused their efforts on revamping a science of liberalism, which could answer the scientific claims of planning and totalitarian ideologies.

“La llamada de la tribu”, último ensayo político de Mario Vargas Llosa, constituye una interesante pieza de análisis para la discusión contemporánea sobre el liberalismo. En particular, los desafíos que enfrenta a principios del siglo XXI. Desde p. 8 a 18.

This essay examines the plural nature and meaning of the word "bond" in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, dispelling popular readings of the play as anti-market. The Merchant of Venice is open to an array of interpretations favorable to commerce, and Shakespeare's Venice anticipates certain Hayekian notions about societies that accommodate competing interests and cultures.

John Maynard Keynes was certainly the most famous and arguably the greatest political economist of the twentieth century. His seminal publication, The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, published in 1936, changed economics irrevocably. Unfortunately, Keynes was not well-served by his followers, and much of his bold vision is missing from standard textbook treatments of his work. This essay sets the record straight by having four key objectives. First, as context, it provides a biographical sketch of Keynes achievements and the ‘interesting’ times which he experienced, the single most important event being the Great Inter-War Depression. Second, as further context, it introduces the essentials of the classical orthodoxy, the pre-Keynesian macro-economic theory of how economic society worked, and its conservative policy agenda, from which Keynes departed. Third, the core of the essay, it faithfully explains the key concepts and ideas of his new workable classification in which effective demand was the driving force, and the many-layered policy programme known as the Middle-Way, which he fashioned over time to meet the challenges posed by the Great Depression, World War 2 and the post-war world. Lastly, it sets-out the reasons why Keynes can be described as one of the greats of political economy.

Los trabajos aquí reunidos fueron presentados en el marco de los sesenta años de la UCAB, con los auspicios de los Programas de Postgrado de Ciencias Económicas, Teología y Humanidades y Educación, en unión con el Centro de Investigación y Formación Humanística y la Escuela de Filosofía con el nombre de Jornadas de Ética, Economía y Religión y a su vez sirvió de enlace con la séptima edición del Seminario de Ética. Evento que tuvo lugar los días 20 y 21 de mayo de 2013 en la Sala Simón Planas de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Se trata de examinar si la ética puede entrar a formar parte del habitual cálculo económico, enfocado únicamente en el privilegio de la razón instrumental.

While in the early 1930s Keynes and Hayek were the major figures in a heated academic debate about money and capital, in which Keynes also and especially involved the Italian Piero Sraffa, it might seem at first sight that the Austrian economist set aside an organic demolition of the ideas expressed in 1936 by his rival in the General Theory. Hayek himself, in the future, would regret not having devoted an organic work to criticising the new Keynesian theories. However, as demonstrated in Sanz Bas (2011), although it is not possible to find a debate such as the one on the Treatise on Money, Hayek’s subsequent works do include timely and reasoned criticisms as regards the main conclusions of the new Cambridge macroeconomics.
But the ‘Austrian knight’ of a new Vienna-Cambridge debate, in the subsequent decades, was the German economist Ludwig M. Lachmann (1906-1990), a student of Hayek at LSE during the 1930s and later a professor in Johannesburg and New York. Lachmann was one of the protagonists of the Austrian revival after 1974 and the founding leader of the ‘hermeneutic stream’, opposed by the Rothbardian stream.
Lachmann, defending Keynes’s subjectivism and expectation theory, revived the Vienna-Cambridge controversy, criticising not Keynes but his followers, in particular the ‘new’ Cambridge School, developed by Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa. Lachmann’s life sight was to build a new economics paradigm, centred on the idea of market process, expectations and kaleidic society (Shackle); in order to do so he developed a deep attack toward the new Cambridge macroeconomics mainstream, arising from World War II ashes during the 1950s and 1960s. His polemic toward the ‘modern’ macroeconomics can be read in all his books and papers, but it is particularly evident in Lachmann (1973, 1986a).
His preferred targets were Sraffa and Joan Robinson, ‘guilty’, according to Lachmann, to overcome Keynes’s subjectivism and to develop a new Neo-Ricardian approach. The resulting macroeconomics is accused to be excessively formalist, ignoring the microfoundations that are at the very root of human action and choice.
But Lachmann’s attack was not only an epistemological one. He intensively tried to demolish all the pillars of the Cambridge macroeconomics: capital as aggregate, long run equilibrium, the absence of innovation and technological change and the conception of rate of profit. His starting point was an economics based on human expectations as the only possible source of human actions. A source, however, never at rest, and continuously influenced by technological change and changing information.
In conclusion, we will see how to extend the traditional Austrian theory of business cycle, taking in account Lachmann’s insight about expectations and technological change. We will try to demonstrate that, under such perspective, economic fluctuations are inevitable, even if the boom arises in the way that Austrian terminology labels ‘sustainable’. We will define natural cycle the cycle characterized by a liquidation crisis after a ‘sustainable’ boom.

This paper brings together critical theory and general praxeology while pushing the limits of institutional economics. Drawing on the work of Jürgen Habermas and Friedrich Hayek, the paper differentiates three forms of social-systemic, spontaneous order: the (1) instinctual (2) traditional, and (3) societal. Together, they constitute the structural background for deliberate human action, yet deliberate action has instinctual, cultural-traditional, and societal effects. Focusing on this reciprocal dynamic, the analysis suggests the interplay between micro and macro dimensions of institutional-economic evolution; in the process, it reveals how the three forms of spontaneous order correspond to what Habermas has proposed as the three functions of the socio-cultural lifeworld: (i) the socialization of succeeding generations, (ii) the propagation of cultural traditions, and (iii) the integration of groups via preferences, rules, or norms. The wider ramifications--via the work of Alfred Schutz--synthesize the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas with the Hayekian, praxeological tradition, by proposing how general social-systemic coordination emerges--via rule-based behavior--from concretely embodied instances of consensus formation in language.

From Erik Davis: "Here's an article that provides some insight into my overall perspective on critical theory and classical liberalism. My view has certainly evolved more since then. I tried to approach interdisciplinary social science by pushing the limits of institutional economics. I now approach it from the philosophy of the social sciences--and more generally through political and social philosophy. Where I now disagree with the article, I mainly think the conclusion was too critical of Habermas and unemphasized my indebtedness and incorporation of his work. Where I do still agree with the article, I would no longer necessarily articulate much of it in the way I did. . . However, the article still brings up and addresses issues key to the overall project of collective individuation and the Marx:Freud::Hayek:Jung quartet."