Recently, George Soros was on a panel about the new edition of Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty”, I believe Ronald Hamowy, Richard Epstein and Bruce Caldwell where also on the panel. However it appears that Soros published his remarks in Politico here while praising Hayek for his opposition to scientism Soros conflates Hayek with Chicago School economists and in particular tries to saddle him with rational expectations and efficient market hypothesis. How Soros could get Hayek’s views so wrong while understanding some of his crucial insights against Scientism are beyond me.
Soros was a student of Karl Popper, who was a close friend of Hayek. So I would expect him to have some knowledge of Hayek,
Soros was a friend of a friend of Hayek, which is still not the same.
EMH is an entirely new, heterodox concept that has nothing to do with ideas of older economists of Hayek’s generation. EMH itself is the very example of the scientism that Soros just said that Hayek opposed. Strange…
Yeah, knowing Popper, who knew Hayek, in the 1940s doesn’t mean much of anything. A teenager reading any of Hayek’s work today would be more qualified to write about him. It doesn’t look like Soros has read much of Hayek’s economic work, or at least not recently. I also like that he attributes modern Chicago ideas to Hayek, but does not do the same for Frank Knight.
He accuses Hayek of an inconsistency, which is born from his own severe mischaracterization of Hayek’s economic beliefs. More embarrassing than strange, especially since he presented this speech in front of Bruce Caldwell.
Indeed, Cato said they would release a video of the event which I would love to see considering Soros’ remarks.
So you’re a fan of cringe-humor?
That would be an added benefit. However I would like to see how Soros responds and see if he sticks to his narrative.
It appears that the video is up and Reason has a piece on it and a link to the video here.