Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek, CH (German: Friedrich August von Hayek, May 8, 1899 - March 23, 1992), an Austrian-born economist, political philosopher and social theorist who was later naturalized in Britain, is one of the important representatives of the Austrian school of economics and classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek and Swedish economist Gunnar Murdal jointly won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Hayek has taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom, the Council on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg in Germany. In his early days, he mainly studied monetary theory, capital theory and business cycles. His discussion of the price mechanism in coordinating decentralized economic activities is considered one of his important contributions to economics. Later, Hayek's research gradually turned to the fields of epistemology, cognitive science, law, political philosophy and social order. His discussion of the dispersion of knowledge, spontaneous order, and competition as a process of discovery had an important impact on economics, political philosophy, and social theory. Hayek criticized central planning, collectivism, and the viability of socialist economic calculation, and advocated free markets, the rule of law, general rules, and limited government. His masterpieces include Prices and Production, The Road to Serfdom, The Charter of Liberty, Law, Legislation and Liberty, and The Fatal Conceit. Among them, "The Road to Serfdom" is one of his most publicly influential books, with cumulative sales of more than 2 million copies as of 2010. In 1947, he participated in the founding of the Mount Pilgrim Society. In 1984, he was awarded the British Honorary Order of Merit. Received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.