Gray, John. “F.A. Hayek and the Rebirth of Classical Liberalism.” In Literature of Liberty, Winter 1982, vol. 5, No. 4 (1982).

Excerpt:

In the recent revival of public and scholarly interest in the values of limited government and the market order, no one has been more centrally significant than Friedrich A. Hayek. His works have figured as a constant point of reference in the discussions both of the libertarian and conservative theories of the market economy; they have also provided a focal point of attack for interventionist and collectivist critics of the market. Hayek’s return to such a pivotal position in intellectual life is remarkable when we recall that for several decades his work was subjected to neglect and obscurity. It was not until 1974 at the age of 75 that he was belatedly acknowledged by being awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. During the three decades after 1945, when certain Keynesian ideas seemed to have been vindicated by the prevailing government policies of economic interventionism, Hayek may have seemed an intransigent and isolated figure, whose chief importance was that of an indefatigable critic of the spirit of the age. It was, however, during these very same years, in which he turned from economic theory to political thought, that Hayek made his greatest contributions thus far to the formulation of a public philosophy, including most notably his Constitution of Liberty (1960), surely the most powerful and profound defense of individual freedom in our time. It is noteworthy that, in the revival of interest in Hayek’s work, his contributions to political philosophy have attracted as much interest as have his works in economic theory.

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