Hayek's Modern Family in Cato Policy Report

Steven Horwitz

My new book Hayek's Modern Family:  Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions will be available tomorrow from Palgrave and at Amazon. An excerpt from the book's chapter on parental rights is now available as the lead article in the September/October  Cato Policy Report. It also includes my response to Rothbard's argument that parents can neglect their kids. A snippet is below.

A key part of Hayek’s intellectual framework is the idea that knowledge is dispersed, contextual, and often tacit. No one knows everything, and it is those closest to choices and their direct consequences who are in the best position to know what to do. This argument is at the core of Hayek’s objections to socialism and his case for the market: by establishing well-defined and well-protected property rights, we allow people to develop and use their local knowledge in ways that make the best use of resources. In the same way, it is parents who have the right incentives and best relevant knowledge to know what is best for their children. Establishing well-defined and well-protected parental rights encourages parents to act on this local knowledge and thereby helps to ensure the best outcomes for children.

The intimacy of the family provides parents with deep and often tacit knowledge of their child that can be deployed in finding the most effective ways to transmit social rules and norms. A great deal of the parent-child socialization process works through imitation, as imitation is a way to pass on knowledge that otherwise cannot be articulated. The family provides an ideal setting for this sort of imitative learning.

Comments

[NotesOnLiberty]

Congrats!

[Jule R. Herbert Jr.]

From the Cato excerpt link, I comment as follows: Just who is the "rest of us," supposedly "contracting" with the sub-par set of parents, and who, in a concrete sense speaks for the "us." Is it some two-year graduate of the School of Social Work from State College working for some state bureaucracy, or, simply, the impact of the social mores of the community acting with no "force of law" but just persuasion and the threat of ostracism or whatever is available.

Am I, as a member of the "rest of us," really morally compelled to learn and be concerned about what goes on in some community in Wisconsin or West Virginia, or in some family across town? Or be coerced into hiring intrusive policepersons to do this task on my behalf? Is this not, for better or worse, a matter for family and, in really shocking cases, very local concern. That, was, as I recall, the case when I was being reared.

Let's leave contract law out of all this. It has already been beaten up rather badly in the last period of statism, without being brought into this particular problem. And "quasi-contract" should be left to dealings among actual individual parties.

[Barkley Rosser]

Congrats on the book, Steve, which I have not read. But, following on Julie, it does seem to me that there are some situations where the state, probably at the local level, has the right and responsibility to put some limit on the power over their children of parents. The obvious sort of situation would involve some sort of violent or sexual abuse of the children by the parents, and, unfortunately, these sorts of things do occur.

I am also fine with the state setting some sorts of rules regarding education and health care for children as well, although how strict those should be or the form they take I see as clearly wide open to discussion.

[Steve Horwitz]

What gives you the impression that I think parents can abuse their kids Barkley? How best to handle that is a good question, but really... why would you feel the need to make the first comment? Particularly when you admit to not having read the book (in which I argue that such behaviors are not acceptable).

[Barkley Rosser]

Fair enough complaint, Steve, and glad you are not for child abuse. But, i did not "make the first comment." Third, I think.

[Jerry O'Driscoll]

My congratulations to Steve.

The family is a pivotal institution in society, and deserves a classical liberal or libertarian analysis. Hayek is a great starting point.