Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 19 (Volume 19)

Law, Legislation and Liberty #1-3

by Friedrich A. Hayek, Jeremy Shearmur (Editor)

A new edition of F. A. Hayek’s three-part opus Law, Legislation, and Liberty , collated in a single volume
In this critical entry in the University of Chicago’s Collected Works of F. A. Hayek series, political philosopher Jeremy Shearmur collates Hayek’s three-part study of law and liberty and places Hayek’s writings in careful historical context. Incisive and unrestrained, Law, Legislation, and Liberty is Hayek at his late-life best, making it essential reading for understanding the philosopher’s politics and worldview. 

These three volumes constitute a scaling up of the framework offered in Hayek’s famed The Road to Serfdom . Volume 1, Rules and Order , espouses the virtues of classical liberalism; Volume 2, The Mirage of Social Justice , examines the societal forces that undermine liberalism and, with it, liberalism’s capacity to induce “spontaneous order”; and Volume 3, The Political Order of a Free People , proposes alternatives and interventions against emerging anti-liberal movements, including a rule of law that resides in stasis with personal freedom. 

Shearmur’s treatment of this challenging work—including an immersive new introduction, a conversion of Hayek’s copious endnotes to footnotes, corrections to Hayek’s references and quotations, and the provision of translations to material that Hayek cited only in languages other than English—lends it new importance and accessibility. Rendered anew for the next generations of scholars, this revision of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty is sure to become the standard.

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Law, Nonfiction, Public Policy, Classics

624 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Friedrich August von Hayek CH was an Austrian and British economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought. He is considered by some to be one of the most important economists and political philosophers of the twentieth century. Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate signals which enable individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics. Hayek also wrote on the topics of jurisprudence, neuroscience and the history of ideas.

Hayek is one of the most influential members of the Austrian School of economics, and in 1974 shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with Gunnar Myrdal "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." He also received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from president George H. W. Bush.

Hayek lived in Austria, Great Britain, the United States and Germany, and became a British subject in 1938.

Reviews

[Otto Lehto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hayek's 3-volume "LLL" is his last major work, and one he worked on for many decades. Too bad that it is exceedingly badly written: more repetitive than Hegel and even drier than Kant.

But it is worth reading. Sort of. It doesn't add much to Hayek's earlier books. If you want to read one book by Hayek, read Constitution of Liberty. If you want to read two, read also The Road to Serfdom. But if you want to get the full picture, and read a third book, you are in the right place.

Volume 1 deals with the cultural evolution of the spontaneous order and the law of justice. This part is the driest and the most repetitive, but it also contains some of the most fascinating material. The difference between "nomos" and "thesis", or between law proper and law in the legislative sense, is introduced: the former (and limited government) is defended against the latter (and unlimited government). Abstract and general rules of justice are defended as the best source of protection for individual freedom and the progressive flourishing of the complex society ("The Great Society"). The notion of law that no one has invented; and that some rules should be obeyed "blindly"; and the impossiblity of trying to rationally invent a new system; are fascinating and enduring insights. The book is badly written and would have benefitted from an editor, however.

Volume 2 is primarily a negative book: a critique of the notion of "social justice." Hayek argues that a complex market society, where individuals are free to pursue their own ends, cannot and should not have a unified conception of justice applied to its (freely evolved) outcomes. Although his criticism of the term "social justice" is quite harsh and venomous, the underlying point is clear. He wants to argue that politics and law should not have the power to grant special privileges, or issue specific orders, to specific individuals or groups within the complex society. This means that inequalities of outcome, or disappointed expectations, cannot be a cause for a "balancing of the scales" in favour of the less fortunate. Law that tries to take from the "haves" and give to the "have nots" will destroy the foundations of the free society - which ALONE has the power to give rise to increased wealth and well-being to everybody (in the long term).

Volume 3 is the positive program of the classical liberal society. Surprisingly for many libertarians, Hayek does NOT advocate perfect laissez-faire or the absence of government intervention. He mainly argues against certain KINDS of government interference: namely 1) legislation that grants monopolies and privileges to specific groups or individuals, 2) legislation that aims to apply "social justice" in the sense of micromanaging the affairs of individuals; 3) legislation that does not respect the rules of justice and the spontanous order of the market. 4) legislation that is UNLIMITED (by a morality encoded in a constitutional framework). So, to sum up, Hayek argues against unlimited government - and "unlimited democracy" - while defending the notion of granting certain powers of legislation to an assembly of elected men (under the rule of law). The end result, nonetheless, is a market society that has real power to legislate common goods, rules of conduct, safety regulations, public parks, enviromental legislation, social welfare and much more. In fact, he argues the society SHOULD probably legislate "welfare" - in the form of a "guaranteed minimum income" for all citizens equally; and the society should also legislate against many immoral and dangerous things; but he claims the end result is still far from socialism. There is contradiction here, perhaps, but the end result is a powerful recapitulation of liberalism - with all its inherent contradictions (government is bad but also necessary) still visibly intact.

OVERALL VERDICT: Somewhat inferior to the Constitution of Liberty, to which it doesn't add much. But the little it adds - emphasis on cultural evolution and a positive new constitution - polishes out some of the rough patches of the Hayekian doctrine. It still doesn't answer all questions - just how do we separate a law in the sense of "nomos" from law in the sense of "government degree"? But at least it gives us a firm grasp of the limits and powers of government - and is thus a source of great hope for the future, because it gives us tools to both attack and defend (i.e. radically reform AND improve) the existing welfare-democratic market economies of the West.

[Xander · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a terrible book. It is written in a very cumbersome and non-accessible way; the material is dry and abstract; and Hayek tends to endlessly repeat himself. For a book spanning about 500 pages, this is too much for me.

Hayek's main argument can be read in volume 1: law is an emergent property of society. Human beings interact with each other to achieve ends and in this process there arises a system of rules of conduct. In other words: human institutions have evolved and have NOT been deliberately designed. This point is important, because Hayek's book is one long argument against the constructivist delusion of social justice advocates. Social justice, or distributive justice, is an attractive ideal in intellectual circles: there should be a system that will redistribute wealth and help the poor. (It is interesting that these intellectuals always know what's good for others, and they themselves are always the ones coming out on top in their vision of futuristic societies.)

Hayek shows this is impossible. Human beings are fallible and not omniscient. We don't know what the consequences of our actions will be, simply because we haven't got access to all the variables. So what do we do? We use very general rules of conduct that cannot predict who will get what, and when. In this way, if we stick to our principles, society will be just, since it will be impossible to predict the detailed consequences for specific individuals.

Law should be negative, in the sense that it protects certain basic necessities for a functioning society: protection of life and limbs, protection of properties and the duty to compensate damage. For the rest, Hayek advocates that everyone should be able to use his or her knowledge to obtain his or her ends - no authority should interfere in this process. Why? Because no authority has the insights needed to predict specific actions. We should leave it to individuals to adapt themselves to continuously changing environments. This is the liberal conception of justice: rules of conduct that enable individuals to flourish, or perish, without interference of someone else.

According to Hayek, the unpredicitability of the future and the unforeseeable consequences of our current actions begs for a society that evolves institutions. Any society in which government designs institutions will end in totalitarianism, since the unpredictability of the (unintended) consequences requires more and more legislation, up to the point that everything in society is governed by legislation. This metaphorical end point is a delusion, though: even the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia couldn't control the flow of society.

One could say that Hayek advocates applying the market mechanism to all aspects of our life. If every human being tries to achieve his or her goals and desires by applying his or her knowledge to the situation, a society with evolved institutions will emerge. This is the difference between order and organization: order is a natural product of social interactions, while organization is a designed form of social interactions. The 'invisible hand' is impartial and non-particular (hence, more just) than any government will ever be.

For readers of Hayek, this is nothing new: in The Road to Serfdom (1943) he warned his fellow Englishmen for the dangers of collectivism. Any policy of governmental intervention in economics, culture, etc. opens the door to totalitarianism. Planned economies require absolute governmental control over the population, there is no different outcome possible. In The Constituion of Liberty (1960) Hayek explained how the (negative) principles of liberty are the requirement for individual freedom and wealth of the society.

In Law, Legislation and Liberty (1979), Hayek works out these key ideas into three volumes of new material; yet it is clear from the outset that it really offers nothing new. Hayek sees general principles as the only means to evolve a free and wealthy society and he warns time and again for constructivist delusions (especially socialism). We should stick to these liberal principles and let society unfold (i.e. evolve) itself - we should leave individual decisions to individuals, who have more knowledge about their particular situation than any outsider will ever have. The market mechanism creates institutions and is the only bulwark against oppression and collectivism.

I cannot really recommend this book to anyone. As I mentioned, it is dry, long and abstract; it also contains no really original or new ideas. If one wants to understand Hayek, read his earlier two works (The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty).

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suppose I wish that in the early 70s, while I was ploughing through Marx and Engels in search of something to believe in - encountering mainly obscure and incomprehensible secondhand arguments with already-ancient dudes called Feuerbach and Duehring, and peculiar mechanistic interpretations of Hegel - I had instead discovered the then-very much alive Friedrich Hayek. It wouldn't have confirmed my juvenile intellectual conviction that IT WASN'T FAIR and that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE about 'it', whatever it was - but it would have made a bloody sight more sense in terms of philosophical clarity, and might have taught me something about why totalising systems of thought, like Marx's, that purport to explain everything about society, resolve its contradictions, and lay down inalterable rules for its future betterment, are (a) intrinsically flawed in their reasoning, and (b) condemned not only to fail but also to produce a totally contrary result to that ostensibly intended.

This great book, while a little ponderous in places, is so because it continually returns to first principles in order to ensure that it does not glide over into cliche, assumed truism, or a partial notion of "common sense". It sets out with admirable clarity the argument for individual liberty and freedom of action as the primary good in human society, and the necessity for organisation of that society along organically-developed lines by the impulsion to preserve such liberty, as the most effective and "progressive" approach to managing human coexistence. I would defy any socialist or affiliate to any other all-subsuming political philosophy to debate its principle contentions without falling back on unwarranted assumption or calculated sophistry. In doing so, it almost-paradoxically points up links between various fields of human activity in which certain fundamental ideas hold good - the mechanism of evolution, for instance, or the development of convention - without recourse to the boastful, and misleading claim of Marxists to be "scientific" in an abstract and overriding sense.

Perhaps this is not the easiest introduction to Hayek, since it is lengthy and also - having apparently started as a brief history of legal philosophy - a bit specialised. However, it is eminently readable, and well worth the effort. See also "The Road to Serfdom", which I *must* reread soon.

[molosovsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this attemting to understand certain conservative/liberal politic stances better.
I am astonished how entertaining it was, given the ›dry‹ subject matter and that Hayek repeats certain arguments over and over again. I get it, why this is an important source book for the lore of the free market. I understand Hayeks fear of totalitarian order and with certain bewilderment I enjoy his critique of and warnings about how particular (sinister) interests can spoil democracy, especially when he states, that these interests like to stir up strong feelings concerning race, religion, nation, class ect to muddle the discourse.

I had to laugh out loud every time, when Hayek insists that no man made order can work or last because human understanding is limited only to come up with rigid plans how things should be ordered to guarantee the best possible development of the free market competition. Or when he states again and again certain issues can never be solved because bulletproof definitions of important terms are not possible only to state, that others’ definitions are erroneous.

The theory of evolution and cybernetics as Hayek understands them are not the theories I recognize. Too much competition und struggle (and fatal remnants of teleological perspectives on evolution), not enough cooperation and mutualism.

[Amy Ma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hayek is lowk a cooker

[Robert Jere · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the definitive statement on political economy and political theory by F A Hayek. The book is separated into three volumes.
The first volume distinguishes between two kinds of social arrangements. One is called a "spontaneous order" and the other an "organization". An organisation is an arrangement of human interaction that has been designed by the human mind to achieve certain objectives. A spontaneous order arises out of the many actions of individuals without the deliberate design of a human mind; "It is a product of human action but not of human design".
Hayek further takes time to distinguish between judge made law and "legislation". The former being primarily concerned with figuring out the right rules of conduct when parties in a spontaneous order have a disagreement. He also points to what he sees as a confusion between the "law" as in rules of just conduct and "legislation" that is intended to administer an organisation. This confusion he considers as partly responsible for the situation where legislatures have taken over the role of making rules of a spontaneous order we call society.
The second volume is called, "the mirage of social justice". Hayek basically argues that "social justice" is a nonsensical concept, he compares it to a "moral stone". He contends that justice as a concept can only be applied to results of the human will and the rules of just conduct in a society. If a person is born with a disability, that has nothing to do with justice because no one is responsible for bringing about that state of affairs.
Hayek argues that it is only in organisations that the results of rules can be said to be just or unjust because they aim at particular results. In a spontaneous order, the results of rules are a product of interaction with other rules such that the specific results do not fall under justice. This was a rather confusing part of the book for me.
Hayek attacks the idea of unlimited democracy quite a lot in the book. He believes that any law worth the name should apply equally to every member of society. Further, he links social justice to socialism.
There is also an appendix in the book that launches a spirited attack on the UN declaration of human rights, particularly the "economic rights". He says that it is not useful to speak of rights without a corresponding obligation on an individual or organisation. Economic rights are bogus rights because they can not be applied equally to all members of society.
The final volume is about the kind of political system that Hayek thinks would be most conducive for a free, peaceful and prosperous society. Hayek, like Bertrand Russell, considers democracy as necessary for avoiding tyranny. He thinks of it as the only way for peaceful exchange of power. However, he is very skeptical of using democracy for decision making. He says that the majority should be bound by certain rules of just conduct for the democracy to be legitimate.
This is a long and dense book. It is not for the faint of heart. But it is very rewarding for the patient reader. It reminds me of "A theory of justice" by John Rawls. Every student of politics or political theory should read this book.

[Satkirath Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cards on the table: I am a big fan of Hayek. With that out of the way, I found this book to be challenging, and at times even painstaking, but ultimately worthwhile for a distilled understanding of Hayek's most matured thoughts. Personally, I think this book would be best conceived as a counter-revolution to the 20th century doctrine (religion?) of "social justice", whose roots can be largely traced back to John Rawls. And while it is Nozick who is most typically antagonised against Rawls, I find Hayek's work to be a more compelling and palatable treatise as not only against social justice, but as a positive case for a return to classical liberalism. Hayek surveys contemporary thought and travels all the way back to classical antiquity, extracting the common elements that have guided various societies ("laws"), and examines how they emerge, and why it is that they endure across time and peoples.

Hayek also roots his ideas with firm epistemological underpinnings, and demonstrates the relationship between how we know, and what we know, which in turn defines the boundaries of possibility in attaining a "Great Society". From all this Hayek synthesises a defence of the state that is wholly different - and (in my opinion) more convincing - than Nozick's, and concludes with the role of the state as being for the preservation of a spontaneous order as emerging from what Hume would refer to as social "convention", or what Burke would refer to as "tradition". Overall this is a great book, and I recommend it without compunction.

[John Badger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely repetitive, so not an easy read, nor an enjoyable one. The first two parts (books) were pretty empty of ideas, an occasional good one. The third was a bit more interesting in the first half of it, and then faded back into repetitive statements of basic economics. Definitely has 5-10 good ideas in there and a lot of relevant history of other authors on these ideas, but a slog and could have been condensed to 50 pages. If you have read road to serfdom, read it first, it’s better written.

[Ali Benchekroun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent livre, une fois vous l'aurez lu, l'économie, l'actualité politique, l'histoire et bien d'autres informations vous seront plus faciles à digérer et à être juger, ce livre est incroyablement transformateur

[Kuba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather simple ideas presented in a very unclear and unapproachable way. Constant repetitions. Good insight into extreme liberal and capitalist philosophy.

[Avil Ramírez Mayorga · Rating 4 out of 5]

El último gran libro de Hayek, que en esencia constituye una declaración (o reiteración) de la importancia del orden espontáneo de los mercados, una severa crítica a eso que denominan justicia social y lo que podría considerarse como los principios para una constitución según su visión liberal. El segundo libro, sobre la justicia social, es imperdible.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An insult to the reader’s intelligence. Only getting points for pure energy and mania, but not a good book of ideas.

[Luke Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first in 3 volumes, Hayek turns his attention to what can make a truly free society. A dense, difficult read this is still worth the effort for the searing insights which makes the argument for personal responsibility and at diminishing the role of the state.

[Sean Rosenthal]

"At the moment our concern must be to make clear that while the rules on which a spontaneous order rests, may also be of spontaneous origin, this need not always be the case . . . The spontaneous character of the resulting order must therefore be distinguished from the spontaneous origin of the rules on which it rests, and it is possible that an order which would still have to be described as spontaneous rests on rules which are entirely the result of deliberate design. . .

"That even an order which rests on made rules may be spontaneous in character is shown by the fact that its particular manifestation will always depend on many circumstances which the designer of these rules did not and could not know."

-F. A. Hayek, Law Legislation and Liberty Volume I

Hayek sure is careful explaining exactly what he means and does not mean. This distinction explains well how one country can deliberately adopt the spontaneously created rules of another country.

On the other hand, this accurate statement seems to undermine, or at least substantially qualify, his claim about a spontaneous order being an order that lacks a purpose. A country can most certainly deliberately design a spontaneous order to bring about a desired expected outcome of the spontaneous order, such as adopting market processes to alleviate poverty and facilitate innovation. The final shape of it will be unknown, but the deliberately designed spontaneous order having shades of indeterminacy is quite different from it having no purpose.

[Giovani Facchini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece!

By reading this book I understood why many people hold Hayek so dear. When I read The Constitution of Liberty, I found many ideas hard to digest because it had seemed to me that there was lack of consistency and some statements/ideas would still lead to an unfree society. However, this book has a highly consistent line of thought, ideas are clearer and Hayek seems to be more careful with positive description of government action in a free society in order to avoid coercion and oppression.

Hayek constructed the ideas of law (nomos), legislation (thesis) and liberty (lack/minimum coercion, rules of just conduct applied to all, equality under law) building the ideas slowly, with very profound details, researching hundreds of other books, bringing historical evolution of ideas and the consequences of today's unlimited democracies.

Hayek clearly still believes in Democracy, but he states clearly the dangers of the unlimited power ones (totalitarian) since his book "Road to Serfdom". This time, he was able to explore some aspects that are happening across countries that were known to be highly free like USA and UK. In both, even the constitution was not able to avoid Parliament to obtain almost unlimited powers breaking completely with the concept of limited democratic government, rule of law and equality under the law.

His attempt to describe a Constitution has interesting ideas for separation of powers, although I think it can be more explored.

The book is FABULOUS and I strongly recommend it.

[Jayesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this book with much trepidation, almost certain that it would be too technical for me. However the last two weeks that I have been reading this book have been the most intellectually satisfying time in a long while. The author's stated purpose for this three volume book was very ambitious, to identify why democracy has degenerated into demagoguery, and to propose a new constitution to eliminate some of the defects in present constitutions by incorporating the learning of the last two hundred years. I think in this aim, Hayek not only succeeds but succeeds with great flourish. Chapter 16 - THE MISCARRIAGE OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL and chapter 17 - A MODEL CONSTITUTION must be the two most important chapters written in the last century and hold the answers of how to fix the broken democratic principle. On his way he destroys socialism, communism, fascism and annihilates the ideas of Marx and Freud. He shows that belief in liberty is not just ideal speak but an internally consistent ideology responsible for the great wealth that we now enjoy. Probably a book that will influence all your thinking once you read it.

[Italo Machado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Na verdade eu li foi esse aqui...3 em 1.

[Lomig ExpressionLibre · Rating 5 out of 5]

en cours