Hayek III: The Necessity of Social Rules of Conduct
Steve Fleetwood and
Jochen Runde
Chapter 7 in Hayek: Economist and Social Philosopher, 1997, pp 155-183 from Palgrave Macmillan
Abstract:
Abstract Whilst the literature on the question of periodising Hayek’s work is controversial (Caldwell, 1988), it is perhaps not too controversial to follow Hutchison (1981, pp. 210-18) and take the year 1936 as marking the emergence of Hayek I from Hayek II. This chapter adds the year 1960 and the publication of The Constitution of Liberty as marking the site of yet another episode in a continuing transformation, this time from Hayek II to Hayek III. This periodisation does not, of course, imply that a fully formed Hayek III emerges ab initio in 1960: the date is merely a useful benchmark. The basis of this sea change after 1960 lies in Hayek’s recognition of the necessity of agents following social rules of conduct. This recognition allows several themes that he has gradually been developing in the proceeding two decades to be combined to form a coherent perspective. These themes are (1) the implicit recognition that the price mechanism, or as Hayek refers to it, the telecommunication system’ (Hayek, 1945, p. 527) cannot single-handedly meet society’s needs vis-à-vis the acquisition and communication of knowledge; (2) the extent of ignorance; and (3) the complex nature of knowledge itself. After 1960 Hayek develops his ideas on social rules of conduct, which, by interacting with the telecom system allow agents to acquire and communicate knowledge when they possess it, and to cope with ignorance when they do not.
Keywords: Tacit Knowledge; Telecom System; Price Movement; Price Mechanism; Successful Action (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-25991-5_7
Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349259915
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-25991-5_7
Access Statistics for this chapter
More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().