Re: Re: Hayek's Conception of Knowledge (wasRe:Harry Magdoff

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 07/19/00 05:14PM >>>
This is surely not fair to Hayek, at least with respect to war.
War as a means
of obtaining resosurces etc. is not part of the market system.

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CB: How not ? At the least, I am not willing to assume that the enormous increase in the scale of war since the market society became dominant is just a coincidence. Without war, the market economy would be confined to the tiny area of the earth called Europe. War and conquest have made the world a market economy. North America would still be without private property.
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The rule of law and peaceful competition would be necessary
conditions for free market operation.

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CB: I'm talking about what has been the factual history of the market, not the market in the mind.

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Wars disrupt market
operations. Indeed they even result in command type features
within nations at war. It is capitalist desire for resources and
power over markets that often give rise to wars not markets per
se.

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CB: I don't follow you. The market economy is capitalism and capitalists. How can you set them against each other ? The vast majority of the wars and armament of the last sixty years have been capitalists trying to force the market on non-market economies.

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		Unlike the neo-classical abstract paradigm of free markets
Hayek seems to imagine he is talking about markets in which there
is not perfect knowledge, costless transfer of capital from one
use to another, etc.
Hayek seems to be somewhat contemptuous of the Walrasian nc
paradigm. In his
responses to critics on the calculation problem he denies that
there are such things as the equilibrium prices that a central
planning bureau might use (or discover) as the Walrasian
auctioneer does.
Failure and bankruptcy are intrinsic to his model. As Yoshie
pointed out
they help reveal the truth! But Hayek's view that this
spontaneous order is
nevertheless better than any human, political intervention, is
just a complete non-sequitur. No empirical data from public
choice theory, or failures of specific plans is going to come
even close to establish any sort of probability to such an
extreme conclusion.
	In the exchange I mentioned in an earlier post the Popperian
suggested that Hayek's view that the spontaneous order was always
superior to intervention was a type of mysticism. There is an
anti-rationalist streak in Hayek that is entirely missing in Von
Mises.
	

Timework Web wrote:
>
> Charles Brown wrote,
>
> > Secondly, this theory ignores the fact that the only "market" that has
> > ever existed in the real world causes mass poverty and war. In other
> > words, Hayek's satisfaction with the performance of the market in
> > history ignores some very critical facts.
>
> I don't know whether or not the "theory" ignores poverty and war, but the
> central political practice that justifies itself by reference to the
> theory holds that poverty and war are corrective mechanisms -- mysterious
> proof, like business bankruptcies, of the uncanny wisdom of the invisible
> hand. Of course, there is ample theological precedent for taking
> catastrophe as a sign of God's providence. Poverty is God's/market's way
> of punishing faithlessness and sloth. Don't ya know? War is God's way of
> trampling out the vinyards where the (rogue) grapes of wrath are
> stor'd. Glory Hallelujah.
>
> Temps Walker
> Sandwichman and Deconsultant