Author: F.A. Hayek was an Austrian-British economist and philosopher, winner of the “Nobel Prize” in 1974 for his pioneering work on the theory of money and economic fluctuations. After being the most brilliant student of LvMises, he has been considered one of the leading contributors of the Austrian School of Economics.Book: The central idea is that civilization, both in its formation and in its maintenance, depends on what Hayek describes as an extensive order of human cooperation, in which the individual, subjected to abstract rules of conduct that “nobody” has explicitly created, develops his capacities in pursuit of purposes that the rich information disseminated in society presents as the most appropriate. This is a vision radically different from the one that inspires socialism, and in general to all forms of constructivist rationalism, whose arrogance leads it to pretend to design and systematically organize, through coercive measures of "social engineering", any area of the rich, complex and interminable network of human interactions that constitute the market and society. The civilization depends on an elaborate system of rules of conduct that are not the result of an explicit and deliberate rational construction but have been developed spontaneously through a process of evolutionary selection that overcomes any arrogant claim of reason.Opinion: The book is fantastic; however, I wouldn’t say that it’s easy to read. It may be a bit complicated for those not familiarized with the subject. (In my case, I remember reading it much more slowly than usual.) As it is full of insights, I’ll attach some interesting quotes that I underlined (see Instagram page). This book, as many others from both Hayek and Popper, constitutes the base of some of the ideas presented by NNTaleb. Perhaps the latter explains them in a clearer way. I think this could be a good book recommendation for pseudo-intellectual socialists who want to organize society “rationally”.
Comments