REVIEWS
"Does Hayek’s critique of socialism and defense of liberalism in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom have any relevance for the very different challenges the international order faces today? Yadav’s ambitious goal is to answer that question via a close reading of Hayek’s classic text. The result is a penetrating, insightful, sometimes provocative and always stimulating performance."
— Bruce Caldwell | coauthor of "Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950" | Duke University
"Yadav debuts with a vigorous reappraisal of 20th-century economist Friedrich Hayek in light of todayʼs increasing authoritarian encroachment on liberal, meritocratic, free-market societies. . . . Seamlessly intertwining political philosophy, intellectual history, and textual criticism, this is an expansive and robust defense of capitalist liberalism."
— Publisher's Weekly
“Well-written, well-researched, and engrossing, the great accomplishment of Liberalism's Last Man is its engagement with modern political theory through the lens of Hayek. It’s a highly original work—and refreshing in that it takes Hayek’s critics seriously while also refraining from shortchanging Hayek for his supposed intellectual sins.”
— Peter Boettke | author of "F. A. Hayek: Economics, Political Economy and Social Philosophy"
"Liberalism’s Last Man performs an exceptional service in recasting The Road to Serfdom in a form that modern readers may find easier to appreciate than the original work. For too long Hayek has been treated—by admirers and critics alike—as a slogan or a caricature rather than a serious thinker. It’s time for a comeback."
— The Wall Street Journal
"In Liberalism’s Last Man, Vikash Yadav argues that Hayek has been mischaracterized as an extreme libertarian and market fundamentalist. Yadav points out [Hayek's] support for several progressive positions, including the state’s provision of a minimum income, the promotion of social mobility, the taxation and regulation of pollution, and antitrust laws to restrain monopolies."
— The New York Review of Books
"Hayek is a complex figure. A careful analysis of his work is necessarily complex. Yadav provides clarity and understanding around this oft-misunderstood intellectual who is too important to misconstrue or misrepresent."
— Law & Liberty
"Liberalism’s Last Man is, in many respects, one of the most remarkable contributions to Hayekian scholarship post-1989...Vikash Yadav’s book is outstanding in its approach, originality, and relevance."
— The Independent Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One: The Abandoned Road
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0001
[laissez-faire;illiberalism;garden;Western civilization;individualism;idealism;Confucianism;Buddhism;Franklin Delano Roosevelt;Slavoj Žižek]
Chapter one explains Hayek’s argument that laissez-faire liberalism was abandoned even before the First World War due to a counter-revolution of illiberal ideas refined in German intellectual circles. The chapter maps Hayek’s political space in order to lay out his argument of the commonalities between the illiberal ideologies of socialism and national socialism. The emergence of “political capitalism” in the 21st century implies that the challenge to liberalism will come from a new vertex rather than simply replaying the defining conflicts of the 20th century. Unlike socialism and national socialism, the new rivalry exists within variants of a hegemonic capitalism. Nevertheless, the battle of ideas must be engaged, particularly as even the high-income countries are increasingly tempted to adopt a range of illiberal policies on the flow of goods and bodies and to elect populist leaders who promise to use coercive means to implement those policies
Chapter Two: The Great Utopia
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0002
[economic security;minimum income;people's capitalism;hierarchy of rights;Soviet Union;Ho Chi Minh;Lee Kuan Yew;Friedrich Hölderlin;Margaret Thatcher]
In chapter two, Hayek locates the ideological origins of socialism in efforts to squelch the French Revolution. Hayek argues that socialism disguised its authoritarian pedigree by appropriating and bifurcating the liberal concept of freedom. Socialism’s prioritization of “economic freedom” over “political freedom” continues to resonate in political capitalism’s derogation of human and civil rights to the right to subsistence or the right to development. Hayek will offer a response to socialism’s insistence on the antecedent nature of economic freedom by advocating for a minimum income. The rationale for Hayek’s policy solution requires careful unpacking to distinguish it from the extravagant promises of socialist prophesy. It will be argued that innovative policy solutions will only grow in popularity in the 21st century as liberal meritocratic capitalist societies struggle to create a “people’s capitalism” that manages growing income inequality, and thereby restores preeminence to its variant of capitalism.
Chapter Three: Individualism and Collectivism
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0003
[collectivism;aesthetic politics;environmental regulation;corporatism;developmental states;industrial policy;sovereign wealth fund;state owned enterprise;Élie Halévy;Walter Benjamin]
Chapter three discusses Hayek’s classification of socialism and national socialism as a species of the genus “collectivism,” united in their reliance on centralized planning. The chapter defends Hayek’s taxon by examining commonalities and critiquing a reading of Walter Benjamin’s “artwork essay” that seems to frame fascism and socialism/communism as polar opposites. Next, the characteristics of liberalism in contrast to collectivism are laid out. Hayek’s fierce attack on centralized planning across the political spectrum is moderated by his acceptance of the legitimacy of state regulation, including environmental regulations. The discussion distinguishes Hayek’s moderate liberalism from dogmatic variants of libertarianism. Finally, Hayek’s understanding of planning for competition also complicates the distinction between liberal states and the industrial policies and corporatist arrangements of developmental states.
Chapter Four: The “Inevitability” of Planning
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0004
[artificial intelligence;radical uncertainty;technology;standardization;electric vehicles;solar panels;Project Cybersyn;Benito Mussolini;Salvador Allende;Jack Ma]
The fourth chapter explains Hayek’s critique of centralized planning in the context of increasing societal complexity and emerging technological possibilities. The chapter critiques both the technophiles who believe that advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning justify a revival of centralized planning, as well as those who seek to use the state to force technology adoption by limiting market competition. The chapter emphasizes the ways in which Hayek’s embrace of radical uncertainty and spontaneous orders might be even more relevant for the contemporary phase of globalization and technological development.
Chapter Five: Planning and Democracy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0005
[parliamentary democracy;accountability;common good]
The fifth chapter exposes a flaw in Hayek’s argument about the inherent tension between centralized economic planning and parliamentary democracy. Hayek argues that collectivism requires the establishment of a comprehensive, hierarchical, ethical code. To the extent that democratic procedures can be used by proponents of centralized planning to engineer greater agreement than actually exists and to delegate authority to an opaque bureaucracy, Hayek conditions his support for democratic regimes. He even argues that authoritarian regimes may preserve greater cultural and spiritual freedom than some democracies. Unfortunately, Hayek’s conditional support of democracy renders his argument vulnerable to proponents of political capitalism, who would agree that authoritarian regimes may exceed the virtues of their democratic rivals. Hayek will not propose an institutional solution to buttress democracy until near the end of his book.
Chapter Six: Planning and the Rule of Law
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0006
[rule of law;rule by law;Rechtsstaat;embedded autonomy;international norms;late capitalism;legal positivism;fazhi;Karl Mannheim;Carl Schmitt]
Chapter six concerns the rule of law as a mechanism to restrain centralized planning. As political capitalism deliberately sets aside the rule of law in favor of “rule by law,” Hayek’s defense of the rule of law in a free enterprise system requires careful analysis. Hayek’s assumption that the rule of law prevents arbitrary governance (i.e., centralized planning) occludes his ability to contemplate a scenario in which deliberately creating an unstable legal environment and endemic corruption is functional for enhancing state autonomy and rapid economic growth.
Chapter Seven: Economic Control and Totalitarianism
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0007
[servile state;Climate Lenin;Eco-Marx;Eco-Hayek;environmental regulation;sustainability;economic inequality;employment;Hilaire Belloc;Max Weber]
In the seventh chapter, Hayek argues (through a somewhat misleading epigraph from Hilaire Belloc’s The Servile State) that as the economy interconnects with every sphere of the lifeworld, economic decisions are antecedent to all other freedoms. Of course, there are considerable grey areas to be negotiated between the autonomous individual and the subjugating state within a liberal order. Socialism traditionally sought to overcome these complex tradeoffs by promising an era of “potential plenty” generated by centralizing production that would liberate the individual. In recent decades, the socialist discourse has shifted from promises of plenty to promises of sustainability in an effort to bridge the red-green divide. The transparently eco-authoritarian demand to create a “Climate Lenin” is contrasted to Hayek’s flexible, humble, and open approach to address the challenge of climate change.
Chapter Eight: Who, Whom?
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0008
[inequality;race;social justice;French Revolution;segregation;critical race theory;capabilities approach;Alexis de Tocqueville;Lord Acton;Amartya Sen]
Chapter eight grapples with Hayek’s tolerance for economic, religious, and racial inequality. While Hayek presents a refreshingly frank discussion of inequalities in a commercial society, his tolerance for inequality as opposed to advocacy for greater formal equality is a missed opportunity in the argument. Hayek is correct to warn that efforts to promote social justice in a collectivist society through the redistribution of income may ultimately cross an unmarked threshold beyond which the extension of political and economic control becomes comprehensive. While centralized planning has fallen in popularity, Hayek’s conception of inequality may still be fruitfully contrasted with Amartya Sen’s “capability enhancement” approach to illustrate the enduring value of Hayek’s logical, political, and moral argument for equality rather than equity.
Chapter Nine: Security and Freedom
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0009
[minimum income;social insurance;liberty;coercion;security;freedom;Leon Trotsky;Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin;Otto von Bismarck]
Chapter nine presents Hayek’s argument in support of a minimum income and social insurance for citizens of a given polity to limit coercion in the marketplace. Hayek is careful to circumscribe these provisions to maintain the competitive market order. He contrasts the market to the barracks to explicate the relationship between choice and risk. Hayek’s primary concern is to foster a moral society that values liberty more highly than security. In essence, Hayek’s preference ordering is diametrically opposed to the values that sustain political capitalism.
Chapter Ten: Why the Worst Get on Top
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0010
[collectivism;individualism;ethics;strongman rule;particularism;incentives;Caesar Augustus;Friedrich Nietzsche;Lord Acton]
In the tenth chapter, Hayek argues that the repellant features of totalitarian regimes are not due to historical accident but ethical and social incentive structures. In other words, the embrace of totalitarian political regimes (e.g. fascism or communism) cannot be reformed through a more careful and routinized selection of upstanding leaders. Regardless of the moral character of political leaders, successful totalitarian rule requires the disregard of conventional morality and the coercive imposition of a hierarchy of values in a collectivist framework. The unscrupulous and uninhibited are thus more likely to acquire power in this context and overwhelm those collectivists (e.g., democratic socialists) who feel restrained by democratic institutions and norms. Moreover, the ethics of a collectivist system is likely to be radically different from the high-minded moral principles or objectives which brought it into being. Thus, Hayek’s critique of “strongman” rule as reflecting an impatience with the pace of political and economic development under liberal democracy and grounded on a naïve understanding of the relationship between morality and political incentives provides useful counterarguments to the growing global popularity for rapid economic growth under political capitalism.
Chapter Eleven: The End of Truth
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0011
[propaganda;science;totalitarianism;XQ;Uyghur;fake news;Adolf Hitler;Joseph Stalin;Edward Hallett Carr;Xi Jinping]
The eleventh chapter links the necessity of propaganda and dogmatic indoctrination in planned societies to the impossibility of reaching full agreement on a hierarchically ranked list of values. Unsurprisingly then, the myths on which public policy in collectivist societies ultimately rest is often merely instinctive prejudice. Hayek argues that as the totalitarian state develops not only is truth sacrificed, but absurdities multiply and an intense dislike of abstract thought emerges. Hayek’s conception of propaganda is too narrow and oversimplified. Historically, totalitarian regimes continued to fund basic science and advanced technology research. Political capitalist regimes, which often inherited propaganda bureaucracies and techniques from their totalitarian predecessors, increasingly use sophisticated information operations to manage public opinion in their core areas but apply more crude and coercive techniques in their periphery.
Chapter Twelve: The Socialist Roots of Nazism
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0012
[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck;Werner Sombart;Johann Plenge;NSDAP;corporatism;tripartism;nationalism;Xi Jinping Thought;People's Action Party]
Chapter twelve traces the trajectory of leading socialist intellectuals who converted to fascism in order to crush liberalism. The puzzle is how the views of a reactionary minority came to be held by the great majority in different societies. Hayek’s argument concerns the socialization of the state and the nationalization of social democracy. The mechanisms through which illiberal ideas become mainstream is worth outlining as political capitalism congeals as a putatively superior alternative to liberal meritocratic capitalism. Notably, liberalism is still targeted for two of its defining features: its internationalism and its link to democratic government. Political capitalism is increasingly marked by nationalism and elements of corporatism, but the end result is far from national socialism.
Chapter Thirteen: The Totalitarians in Our Midst
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0013
[realism;statism;organization;intellectuals;scientists;organized capital;organized labor;anti-corruption;International Relations;Edward Hallett Carr]
The thirteenth chapter is a fierce, frontal counter-attack against realism in the disciplines of political science and international relations; German scientists and engineers who served the national socialist regime; monopolistic owners of capital and union leaders. For Hayek, these individuals are an example of the “totalitarians in our midst.” The argument belies the popular notion that only the ignorant and gullible masses manipulated by a demagogue support authoritarianism. The chapter is useful in understanding the attraction of authoritarian capitalism among elites. Hayek is correct to warn elites that a totalitarian state will seek to subordinate autonomous bases of power and criticism, however, the use anti-corruption campaigns and rule by law tactics of contemporary political capitalist regimes implies that authoritarian capitalist states can retain autonomy without capturing all bases of private power.
Chapter Fourteen: Material Conditions and Ideal Ends
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0014
[post-materialism;non-rational order;John Milton;Ezra Pound;William Wordsworth;William Blake;Peter Drucker;Adam Smith;Ronald Inglehart]
Chapter fourteen builds Hayek’s case for non-rational submission to impersonal market forces against the perennial belief that high-income economies have entered a “post-materialist” age and transcended the material considerations of capitalism. Hayek argues that the market is a non-rational order that lies between instinct and reason. The order is built upon moral and cultural foundations, including the irrationality of religion. Despite its non-rational character, submission enables the growth of civilization. Hayek’s critique of the refusal to submit to non-rational forces echoes the argument of Adam Smith against the “man of system.” Failure to submit to market forces and accept the reality of tradeoffs opens the door to pseudo-theories of “potential plenty” and utopian schemes to improve general prosperity. For Hayek, utopian schemes and shortcuts to transcend market forces and relieve individuals of the responsibility to make trade-offs endanger individual freedom and morality. While post-materialist discourse rings increasingly hollow in affluent societies (even with rising awareness of human-induced climate change), political capitalist regimes are under no illusion that a post-materialist age is dawning.
Chapter Fifteen: The Prospects of International Order
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226827360.003.0015
[Edward Hallett Carr;federalism;federation;imperialism;race;BRI;SEZ;trade war;Thomas Erskine May;Karl Polanyi]
In chapter fifteen, Hayek argues against the realists, particularly E. H. Carr, in favor of a post-nationalist, interstate federalism that champions individual workers and entrepreneurs regardless of location or race. Hayek argues against the realists’ neo-colonial strategy to use intergovernmental institutions to regulate the affairs of colonized peoples after the war. He does not completely rule out the role of intergovernmental organizations (e.g., regional (con)federations) as such organizations can play a critical role in limiting the power of the state to coerce individuals. Thus, Hayek displaces the centrality of the nation-state without naturalizing the domination of great powers. Notably, political capitalist regimes have also shown a remarkable ability to use (asymmetric) federalism domestically and development assistance internationally to enhance state power, improve performance, and reduce interstate friction. Finally, the use of surgically targeted tariffs by political capitalist regimes to weaken adversarial federations in trade wars makes the return to liberalism in international trade more urgent.
