Ulrich Witt — Friedrich Hayek. Intellectual Hero or Ideologue?

I came to know Hayek in the last years of his life when I joined the Faculty of Economics at the University of Freiburg in Germany in 1988. He was still around then as an emeritus professor and, although his health status was quickly deteriorating, he was always open to an exchange with a new faculty member. Social philosophy was not my field of research, but I got interested in Hayek’s version when I noticed how eager he was to give it an evolutionary foundation. Evolutionary theory is, of course, far away from any political messages which social philosophy usually imply. For me the evolutionary underpinnings therefore offered a framework against which Hayek’s project could be assessed, independently of the political motivation that had inspired its beginnings and kept it going thenceforth.

Witt brings out some aspects of Hayek that I haven't seen discussed, especially Hayek's evolutionary views and criticism of them. Worth the read.

Evonomics
Friedrich Hayek. Intellectual Hero or Ideologue?
Ulrich Witt | former director of the Max Planck Institute of Economics and a retired scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, also an adjunct professor at Griffith University's Business School in Australia