Hayek is famous among libertarian academics for being a critic of 19th century laissez faire. (See, for example, Walter Bock, “Hayek’s Road to Serfdom”). Indeed, one of the most famous lines in Hayek’s mega-seller The Road to Serfdom is an attack on 19th century laissez faire: ““Probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rough rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez faire.”
But the facts don’t stop professor Richard Peet of Clark U. from publishing this classic bit of misinformation in the Business Standard:
The mentor of the Mont Perelin [sic] Society, founded in 1947 to propagate laissez-faire capitalism, was Friedrich von Hayek, an Austrian economist who glorified the “classical liberalism” of late 19th century Britain as the perfect form of society.
Ironically, Hayek’s inaugural address to the Mont Pelerin Society called for a rethinking of the case for market competition within free society.
Richard Peet is a professor of Geography who specializes in globalization and economic development.
Of course, none of these idiots actually READ Hayek, or even understand them if they do.
I think I’ve read The Constitution of LIberty six times. And I still get something new out of it each time. Four or five times on Law, Legislation and liberty, three times on Road to Serfdom.
(And for that matter: Three times on Mises Human Action. Twice on the General Theory. Once on Treatise on Probability.)
On the other hand, I’ve also read Marx. (and Galbraith) And while it’s all pretty silly to me, at least when I criticize Marx, it’s because I’ve actually read it.
What I like is when someone like Mark Thoma sponsors a “fair” debate on whether or not Hayek beats his wife, or some similarly unfounded and made up proposition.
Thoma and others pride themselves on their “fairness” in sharing “both” sides of the “debate” over whether or not Hayek beats his wife.
In one of his books Peet characterizes Hayek as having _attended_ the “Austrian School of Economics” as if this was an academic university like the New School for Social Research.