Hayek and Occupy London

|Peter Boettke|

The Financial Times features an opinion piece written by the the economics working group at Occupy London that discusses how Hayek helped them understand the flaws of capitalism.

Calling on Greg Ransom to fly to London and lead a discussion group.

HT: Stephan Boehm

Comments

[Roger Koppl]

This is great. Be sure to click the link to the Occupy teach out featuring Steve Baker and others:
http://occupylsx.org/?p=2835

We have to admit that they're not all the way there yet. They say, "we are committed to incorporating different preferences before coming up with policies." But the point is that in a market system our preferences and actions do not have to be pre-coordinated through policy. We can peacefully coexist while practicing antithetical values. Nevertheless, they are thinking about the idea that "distributed intelligence in a voluntary co-operative is a hallmark of real economy," which is pretty awesome.

I hope Austrian economists will use the crisis and the Occupy movement as an occasion to revisit Hayek's essay, "The Corporation in a Democratic Society" (Studies pp. 300-312). We need to think about how to reign in corporate power and unwind corporatism.

[Greg Ransom]

They'd be pleased to know that Hayek spent a summer in a proto-socialist commune / hippie festival / "Occupy The Forest" camp out lead by Othmar Spann, time spent beating drums, not bathing much, jumping over fires, and discussing how the Spirit of the Collective Whole created something greater than the individuals within it, offering a critique of the pathologies of British selfish individualism.

[Greg Ransom]

"Man has been civilized very much against his wishes."

Discuss.

[Barkley Rosser]

Hayek really liked beating drums, not bathing much, and jumping over fires, Greg?

[Greg Lindsay]

If the three policy recommendations in the article are anything to go by they haven't learnt a thing from Hayek.

[Mario Rizzo]

This article is SO STUPID. I was thinking of responding by writing a letter to the FT. But then a friend remarked, "Spend you time attacking the powerful, not the stupid and powerless." Yes, I'd rather watch TV.

[Mark Brady]

Mario, there's a good letter from Mr. Peter Smaill in Friday's issue of the Financial Times.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/225776de-4784-11e1-b646-00144feabdc0.html

[Greg Ransom]

Think the FT piece was dumb?

Try this for dumb -- Nicholas Wapshott goes Reductio Ad Hitlerum on Hayek:

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/austerity-could-again-sow-seeds-of-extremism-in-europe/

[Roger Koppl]

Greg, Please give us a cite on the stuff about Hayek jumping over fires.

[Greg Ransom]

Bruce Caldwell talks about Spann and jumping fires in his _Hayek's Challenge_ book, but doesn't specifically cite Hayek as one of the jumpers.

I'm trying to remember the place were Hayek talks abou this "hippie" experience with Spann. It's a typical set piece of Hayek humor, laughing about strumming instruments and rejecting the basics of civilization.

[Greg Ransom]

From the 1978 UCLA Oral History interviews with Hayek:

"[Spann] was resorting to taking us to a midsummer celebration up in the woods, where we jumped over fires and — It's so funny [laughter], but it didn't last long, because we soon discovered that he really didn't have anything to tell us about economics."

[Greg Ransom]

In other interviews Hayek talks about the 1920s era romantic/hippie German/Austrian youth movement, Spann's celebrations being an early precursor.

[Roger Koppl]

Got it. Thanks, Greg.

[Josh S]

I got about halfway through the article before I realized it's the usual collectivist trash. If they still think "equality" is a meaningful economic category, they haven't been paying attention to Hayek at all.

This is just another example of how ideologues hear exactly what they want to hear, nothing less, and nothing more.