The Quotable Hayek

[maradydd]

I feel like the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek gets a bad rap from today's liberals and progressives, mainly because his support of free markets (particularly free global markets) made him the darling of Republicans from the beginning and especially the Reagan administration. I recently re-read his essay "Why I am Not A Conservative", which

Comments

[whimsywanderer]

Liberty is important. But I feel -opportunity- is at least nearly as important. And sadly, free markets tend to create vast gulfs of difference in opportunity. And since you are a fan of evidence-based theory, it turns out there is a high correlation between inequity and many social ills. Free society and liberty do not solve the issue of the tragedy of the commons, or the tendency for markets to reward behavior that actually hurts competition, and often society as a whole

[xthread]

The question I ask is, what should be the deciding value? That which best suits those who best play the game of markets? Or that which brings the greatest benefits to the people as a whole?

What we think we observe in the world is that that is a false dichotomy in practice - that our experience of the world is that the more a society optimizes for greatest benefits to the people as a whole, the less successful they have actually been at delivering those benefits, and that the more societies have optimized for best suits those who best play the game of markets, the more they've delivered opportunity, liberty, and broad material wealth. Certainly self-determination is its own goal, but I'd be much, much happier with it being trampled on if it looked like trampling on it actually worked.

Liberty is important. But I feel -opportunity- is at least nearly as important. And sadly, free markets tend to create vast gulfs of difference in opportunity. And since you are a fan of evidence-based theory, it turns out there is a high correlation

[whimsywanderer]

Except that's just not true. In fact the -only- instances where that's been true have been those nations where the attempt to minimize inequity has been part of a centralized military regime. Which yes, is a poor manner of running a country. Yet there are numerous examples of 'Welfare States' and other more equal styles of nation that despite America's huge economic advantage as the producer of the international reserve currency(you do realized what a huge advantage that is, yes?) have actually outperformed America in the last 40 years

[xthread]

I think the data argues that Japan is a deeply centrally planned economy, which was going absolutely gangbusters until the late 1980s... and then fell off a cliff from which they have not yet recovered. An entire generation of stagnation is not a happy model.

Northern / Western Europe - that was actually the part of the world I was thinking about when I was making observations about large permanent dole. Who are you thinking of a strong counter-examples? There have certainly been periods of time when Europe has outperformed the US, but none of them have lasted that long, and being a few percentage points of growth behind adds up when you do it for a few decades.