“TODAY IT IS rarely understood that the limitation of all coercion to the enforcement of general rules of just conduct was the fundamental principle of classical liberalism, or, I would almost say, its definition of liberty.”
Wow! That is a great essay. Thanks! I might add that it was the principle of Christianity, too. Traditional Christianity put the law of God, or the natural law, above any man-made law. As the US became less Christian, it lost that respect for natural law.
It seems to me that Hayek’s idea of a perfect government was achieved in the US with the Supreme Court acting as the branch of government that decided general law and prohibited the enactment of laws that favored particular groups. However, the change in attitude among the people caused the Supreme Court to abandon its legitimate role. As Mises always said, you can’t rule against the will of the majority for very long. The majority has to want the real rule of law or it will never succeed.
It may not be amiss to see in my calculations of comparative productivity [measuring centrally planned communist economies against entrepreneurial market economies] verification of a prescient forecast [made by F. A. Hayek in 1935]. — Abram Bergson
“TODAY IT IS rarely understood that the limitation of all coercion to the enforcement of general rules of just conduct was the fundamental principle of classical liberalism, or, I would almost say, its definition of liberty.”
Wow! That is a great essay. Thanks! I might add that it was the principle of Christianity, too. Traditional Christianity put the law of God, or the natural law, above any man-made law. As the US became less Christian, it lost that respect for natural law.
It seems to me that Hayek’s idea of a perfect government was achieved in the US with the Supreme Court acting as the branch of government that decided general law and prohibited the enactment of laws that favored particular groups. However, the change in attitude among the people caused the Supreme Court to abandon its legitimate role. As Mises always said, you can’t rule against the will of the majority for very long. The majority has to want the real rule of law or it will never succeed.
Greg, Have you seen William Easterly’s powerpoint “How to Get Rich without Knowing How”? He quotes Hayek about four or five times in it.