The Fatal Conceit

The Fatal Conceit
Author Friedrich Hayek
Country United States
Language English
Series The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek
Subject Socialism
Publisher University of Chicago Press (US), Routledge Press (UK)
Publication date
 1988
Media type Print
Pages 194
ISBN 0-226-32066-9
OCLC 24815557

The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988) is a non-fiction book written by the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek and edited by William Warren Bartley. Bruce Caldwell has questioned how far Bartley was the editor and how far the author.

The title of the book is a reference to a passage from Adam Smith, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).

Summary

In the book, Hayek aims to refute socialism by demonstrating that socialist theories are not only logically incorrect, but that the premises they use are incorrect as well. According to Hayek, civilizations grew because societal traditions placed importance on private property, leading to expansion, trade, and eventually the modern capitalist system and an extended order.[1] Hayek says this demonstrates a key flaw within socialist thought, which holds only purposefully designed changes can be most-efficient. Also, he says statist (e.g., "socialist") economies cannot be efficient because dispersed knowledge is required in a modern economy. Additionally, Hayek asserts that since modern civilization, and all of its customs and traditions, naturally led to the current order and are needed for its continuance, fundamental changes to the system that try to control it is doomed to fail since they are impossible or unsustainable in modern civilization. Price signals are the only means of enabling each economic decision maker to communicate tacit knowledge or dispersed knowledge to each other, in order to solve the economic calculation problem.

Controversy

There is scholarly debate on the extent of William Warren Bartley's influence on the work.[2] Officially, Bartley was the editor who prepared the book for publication once Hayek fell ill in 1985. However, the inclusion of material from Bartley's philosophical point of view and citations that other people provided to Bartley[3] have led to questions about how much of the book was written by Hayek and whether Hayek knew about the added material. Bruce Caldwell thinks the evidence "clearly points towards a conclusion that the book was a product more of [Bartley's] pen than of Hayek's. ... Bartley may have written the book".[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hayek, F.A. "The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism". The University of Chicago Press. 1991. p. 6.
  2. ↑ Alan Ebenstein. "The Fatal Deceit". Liberty. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22. Retrieved 2008-07-06.
  3. ↑ Friedman, Jeffrey (1998). "What's Wrong with Libertarianism?". Critical Review. Summer 1998: 463.
  4. ↑ Karl Popper, a Centenary Assessment Vol. 1: Life and Times, and Values in a World of Facts, p. 120
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