The paradox of principles: the dialectics of Hayek's liberalism

Abstract

The success of Hayek's ideas and the political project they served is especially attested by the appreciation and appropriation of his theories by socialist intellectuals whose rehabilitation was one of his life-long preoccupations. His work, however, continues to elicit contradictory epithets such as ‘remarkable consistency’ and ‘irremediable eclecticism’, ‘propaganda’ and ‘social science’. The apparent paradox is underlined by Hayek’s own forceful rejection of dogmatic rationalism and all forms of intellectual and political eclecticism. This paper attempts to relate and resolve these conundrums by re-examining his work in the light of yet a third question that haunted him ever since his youthful conversion from Fabian socialism to militant liberalism, namely how to reconcile the decline of liberal capitalism, considered the freest and most efficient order conceivable, with an evolutionary discourse that precluded such a possibility. By anchoring the discussion in this central question, rather than the customary focus on a particular theory, tradition, discipline or set of privileged texts, this paper demonstrates that both eclecticism and ideological closure are intrinsic to Hayek’s singular quest to advance the cause of ‘progress’ against the permanent threat posed by collectivism.