The Hayek Century

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It's as if the New York Times editorial page were suddenly to crown Ronald Reagan as the greatest president of the 20th century. Or as if the ultra-liberal British daily, the Guardian, were suddenly to call Margaret Thatcher the worthiest prime minister in British history. Well, that was my reaction when I picked up the current New Yorker magazine, whose liberalism I thought was unquenchable, and found a long essay in praise of Friedrich von Hayek, a Nobel laureate in economics who died in 1992.

For half a century, the Austrian-born Hayek was belittled by contemporary liberalism because he mocked the received ideas of mainstream economists: central planning, Marxism, nationalization of industry, social engineering, pervasive government intervention in the economy. Because of his anti-socialist views he was …