Friedrich Hayek (May 8, 1899 - March 23, 1992) was an economist of the Austrian School noted for his defense of free-market capitalism against a rising tide of socialist thought in the mid-20th century. In The Road to Serfdom (1944) and subsequent works, Hayek said that socialism necessarily led to fascism as central planning overrode individual preferences in economic and social life. Hayek contended that in Centrally Planned Economies, an individual or a group of individuals decided the allocation of resources for the whole country. This accumulation of power led to misuse and growth of fascism. Though an academic outcast for much of his career, Hayek's work gained new attention in the 1980s and 1990s with the triumph of right-leaning governments in the United States and Great Britain (Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, was an outspoken devotee of Hayek's writings) and the fall of communism. Hayek shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974.
Hayek is often referred to as F. A. Hayek, and sometimes by his full name Friedrich Augustus von Hayek.
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