Absurd topic for a paper

[Physiocrat]

@GilesStratton

I don’t really see how you’ve addressed my points, nonetheless, on the Hoppe paper (which I’m skimming throught now):

He states that Hayek is unknown for his work in economics and that it is largely Mises work. Now, Hayek introduced capital theory to business cycle considerations (Mises only considered the monetary effects, due to the fact that the ABCT began as a byproduct of Mises’ work on the non neutrality of money). Of course, Hayek won the nobel prize and has been cited by Garrison, Huerta de Soto, White etc. as the main inspiration for their works on banking theory and business cycle theory.

He then says that Hayek hands the government a blank cheque because there are an infinite number of services not provided by the government (which isn’t true). But how this follows from Hayek’s statement that the government must provide those services that couldn’t be provided by the market, is beyond me (also, why is this bad? Hoppe is essentially presuming that Hayek is wrong and then using this to “refute” him, it’s just question begging).

Indeed, whilst I agree with Hoppe that Hayek’s scheme in The Denationalization of Money is somewhat unfeasible, it’s perhaps preferable to Hoppe’s 100% reserve banking preferences. Moreover, Hayek’s desire for monetary stability is defensible on economic grounds,and defenses have been provided by Hayek, Selgin, White and Horwitz. The only “bizarre” aspect, is Hoppe’s use of the word “bizarre”. (By which he presumably means “Hayek disagrees with me and my Rothbardian buddies”)..

I’ll get to the rest of it later, although, it seems like a typical Hoppean screed. Full out of context quotations and missing the important parts of Hayek’s theory.

Giles please state which points I didn’t address of yours?

I quickly re-read the article and the pertinent points regarding spontaneous order are in the cultural selection and epistemological parts of the essay.

On the first of your points we’ve been through this before- Mises invented it and Hayek expanded it. As I side note I seem to remember Hulsmann question Hayek’s contribution of the ABCT: he didn’t make an argument but just a questioning comment. If anyone knows of any works by Hulsmann on hayek please link me.

On the second he does quote Hayek directly giving a lot of positive obligations on the government from which it’s easily extrapolated to modern social democracy- he doesn’t say Hayek supported it but that his position is unprincipled and unsystematic- he was a moral relativist.

Thirdly he uses Hayek’s Denationalisation of money paper as an example of Hayek’s confused thought based on his odd conceptions of spontaneous order.

I agree more context in his quotations would be helpful but the essay gets at the main points: Hayek was an ethical relativist, biological and cultural determinist and anti-rationalist and Hoppe attacks those three positions effectively.