University celebrates von Hayek

The University’s recognition of the 100th anniversary of the birth of famed economist Friedrich von Hayek, who died in 1992, will continue Friday, Nov. 12, and Saturday, Nov. 13, with a conference in Swift Hall, Room 312.

Gary Becker, University Professor in Economics, will welcome participants to the conference, The Legacy of Friedrich von Hayek, at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12. In addition to the conference, three lectures on von Hayek’s work were presented in October.

Von Hayek, a Professor on the Committee on Social Thought from 1950 to 1962, was the author of The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944. The book was an important challenge to prevailing economic theories that supported communism, socialism and other planned economies. Von Hayek organized the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1947 to advance support for free society.

“Von Hayek found, at Chicago, colleagues who shared his skepticism of planned economics,” said Robert Pippin, the Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor and Chairman of the Committee on Social Thought.

“With Aaron Director, Ronald Coase, Milton Friedman, George Stigler and others, von Hayek helped shape the intellectual movements in legal theory and economics that, decades later, profoundly affected world affairs.”

While at the University, von Hayek wrote The Constitution of Liberty, which was published in 1960 and considered his magnum opus. In the book, he discusses the legal and economic basis for a free society. He left the University in 1962 to accept an academic post at the University of Freiburg in Germany. His interests were broad and included philosophy, political theory and psychology in addition to economics and law. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974.

Other conference presenters are Lord Ralph Harris, director emeritus, Institute of Economic Affairs, who will speak about “Hayek, Radical Reactionary” at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12. At 4 p.m., Kurt Leube, professor in economics at California State University-Hayward, will discuss “Hayek’s Legacy.”

On Saturday, Nov. 13, at 2 p.m., Kenneth Minogue, professor emeritus in political science at the London School of Economics, will talk about “Hayek and the Fate of Liberty in the 20th Century.”

At 3:45 p.m., James Buchanan, Harris University professor in economics at George Mason University and Nobel laureate, will give the talk “Morality and Community in the Extended Market Order.”