Will the Real F.A. Hayek Please Stand Up!

In this essay, I will argue that neither of these two presentations of Hayek represent the real Hayek. In Part II of this essay, I criticize Koppelman’s contention that there is little distance, if any, between Hayek’s stance on distributive justice and Rawls’s difference principle. In Part III of this essay, I dispute Koppelman’s claim that Hayek is quite receptive to the development and expansion of the regulatory-administrative state. Each of these stances is rejected by Hayek for the same sorts of reasons that stand behind his rejection of central economic planning.

Hayek’s critique of central economic planning, his rejection of doctrines of distributive justice, and his concern about the growth of the interventionist-administrative state are each a part of a single, coherent, doctrinal package.