Hayek regards his own understanding of spontaneous orders as scientific. For all his talk of the distribution of knowledge in society, knowledge of society was concentrated among people initiated into the science of complex orders, and consequently Hayek sees as the major problem of politics how to bypass the tendency of people to be seduced by the idea that there are plausible alternative ways of organizing society.
You want people to resist conceding authority to those who claim to have scientific knowledge that they can use to design programs and regulations. But does that mean you have to tell people to cede authority to Hayekians?
Sort of related to this conundrum is Buchanan’s idea of using a constitution to prevent a democracy from degenerating into a rent-seeking free-for-all. That suffers from the “a Republic if you can keep it” problem.
Moore wonders whether there is not an authoritarian undertone to Hayekian liberty. Does it take a dictator to establish a free-market state? Lee Kuan Yew comes to mind. As does the idea of competitive government subject to “foot voting,” which is attractive in theory and problematic in practice.
UPDATE: I think that this comment is related.
…one of the big contradiction of the libertarian movement. Which is libertarians love the movement of increase of people and goods can not co-exist their love small local governance, institutions and religion. Long term the free movement destroys the the local governance at some point. In reality the EU has increased this flow of people and goods over the decades although in very clumsy bureaucratic way. Most likely the UK & EU breakup will be minor (I am amazed people voted leave without even a real plan here.) but there is potential for further rejection of the EU and decrease movement of people and goods….
LKY ruled over a mostly Chinese state and didn’t allow low skilled immigration. If he had to rule over a worse body politic, I doubt he could accomplish much. He understood this and stated it in public many times.
He also wasn’t a free marketer. Healthcare, real estate, and retirement savings are highly regulated markets in Singapore. He allowed the free market where empirical results said it made the most sense.
LKY is an example of the complete absence of ideology such as libertarianism. It’s extreme pragmatism based on dispassionate empirical findings. All the more of an accomplishment for such an obviously passionate man to channel and control his feelings in such a positive way. He exercised *wisdom* in the complete sense.
A way to salvage the example is to say it took a semi-dictator like LKY to keep as much of Singapore’s economy and market as free – and to keep government interventions as low – as they currently are, given the conditions of the Singaporean population and society, and the political trends there over his tenure, especially early on. More democracy would have been clearly worse if judged by the standards of Libertarianism.
Some have made the same argument about FDR in the 30’s. Indeed, FDR often made the argument (or not-very-veiled threat) himself when leaning on some potential opponents to his agenda, “Go along, because this is the best deal you’ll be offered. Without the New Deal, people will demand things that are even worse for your interests.”
I’d like to see anybody try with our demos. Then you’ll have my attention. Bonus points for having the population of a small state and a geography larger than a medium city.
“But does that mean you have to tell people to cede authority to Hayekians?”
No. It means convincing people to grasp spontaneous order themselves, not to accept it based on deference to ‘Hayekian Authorities’ and — as a result — not to concede authority to anyone at all. Is that practical? Will it ever happen? Perhaps not — but that’s the idea. It’s not merely an alternate form of authoritarianism led by a different set of authorities.
As to practicality — I do think there has been a lot of progress in the last 75 years or so. People around the world were much more ready to endorse technocratic authoritarianism and to accept the pronouncements of academic experts as gospel in the several decades following the 1930s than they are now. In the U.S. It’s almost impossible to imagine something like the Civil Aeronautics Board or Nixon’s wage and price controls now — or to imagine people feeding babies on a rigid ‘scientific’ schedule as laid down by white-coated experts. I’m also old enough to remember when the NY Times and the CBS Evening News were treated with (undeserved) deference bordering on reverence. The internet has made it *vastly* easier for ordinary citizens to expose and challenge and heap derision on those who ‘buy ink by the barrel’.
Wasn’t infant formula amazing progress? Now progress is breastfeeding shamer shaming.
If Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution had been enforced absolutely, the central government wouldn’t control the huge share of GDP that it does through “social insurance” schemes and regulations. Absolutism probably requires some kind of dictatorship, or at least governance by a self-sustaining oligarchy committed to minimal government. It’s evident that democracy, as practiced in America, results in a rent-seeking free-for-all.
“It’s evident that democracy, as practiced in America, results in a rent-seeking free-for-all.”
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that recent trends will continue indefinitely At different periods in the past, the U.S. has been both much more libertarian and much more statist/authoritarian than it is at present.
It’s worse than a rent-seeking free for all. It’s looting. The clock’s running out, and soon enough there won’t be anything left to grab. That’s the kind of thinking going on in every welfare state in the world.
We got regulations to benefit wealthy looters, plus welfare for the middle class looters, huge pensions for government employee looters, and it’s only when it comes to immigration that the libertarians get a look in, by accident.
As von Mises pointed out in his ‘Liberalism’, all modern political parties are parties of special interests. Regardless of the party’s philosophical PR, ultimately they work to benefit their groups special interests. It’s more overt with the multi-party parliamentary system, but make no mistake, our two parties are balancing their special interests to collect enough votes.
“It [classical liberalism] promises special favors to no one. It demands from everyone sacrifices on behalf of the preservation of society. … Because of this, liberalism finds itself, from the very outset, in a peculiar position in the competition among parties. The antiliberal candidate promises special privileges to every particular group of voters: higher prices to the producers and lower prices to the consumers; higher salaries to public officeholders and lower taxes to taxpayers.”
Mises, Ludwig von (1927). Liberalism (p. 179).
The abolition of authority ranks with the abolition of the state, or of coercion, in its disconnect with reality.
Specialization *is* deference to authority. If one partner in the vast supply chain that creates pencils questions the authority of the logging company on matters of logging, they are unlikely to do a bunch of research on logging themselves, and anyway what they could learn would be of limited use without practical experience. Instead, they might consult rivals with similar claims to authority on the matter.
Hayekians often have a problem articulating their position in a way that avoids the seeming paradox described by Moore. But a charitable explanation of Hayekian economics would draw a similar distinction as Aristotle about the amount of precision available (or appropriate!) to a given subject matter. This in turn would not mean economists have *no* authority, but the *nature* of that authority would be precisely what was being contested by each side.
People are too quick to jump from any authority to authoritarianism. Acknowledging authority as a legitimate thing doesn’t mean you’re automatically committed to supporting illiberal regimes.
That said, I am surprised you didn’t pick Pinochet as your example.
Isn’t Hong Kong the rebuttal to the Update quote?
There is a category error here. It confuses statements like “I approve of many of Singapore’s policies” with “I approve of anything that yields such policies”.
A Hayekean can recognise sponaneous order and the limits of planning without wanting to become a planner herself. Her recognition just shifts her view on political issues towards individual liberty.
Every democracy that survived more than five minutes (including even ancient Athens) had traditions that partially protected individual rights against the will of the polity. There is nothing authoritarian about having a tendency to favour those rights.