2008 Essay Topic
In The Constitution of Liberty Hayek says that "we are probably only at the threshold of an age in which the technological possibilities of mind control are likely to grow rapidly and what may appear at first as innocuous or beneficial powers over the personality of the individual will be at the disposal of government. The greatest threats to human freedom probably still lie in the future."
Has Hayek's gloomy warning been borne out by events, or has technology become more a force for liberating people from government?
2004 Essay Topic
F. A. Hayek in his discussion of spontaneous order states:
"The extension of an order of peace beyond the small purpose-oriented
organization became thus possible by the extension of purpose-independent ('formal')
rules of just conduct to the relations with other men who did not
pursue the same concrete ends or hold the same values except those
abstract rules - rules which did not impose obligations for particular
actions (which always presuppose a concrete end) but consisted solely
in prohibitions from infringing the protected domain of each which
these rules enable us to determine. Liberalism is therefore inseparable
from the institution of private property which is the name we usually
give to the material part of this protected individual domain." F.
A. Hayek, "The Principles of a Liberal Social Order, " (A paper submitted
to the Tokyo Meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, September 1, 1966
and published in Il Politico (December, 1966) in Chiaki Nishiyama
and Kurt R. Leube, editors, The Essence of Hayek (Stanford, CA, Hoover
Institution Press, 1984) p. 368.
Hayek proposes the Rules of Just Conduct as the basis for a peaceful
society of reciprocity and free exchange among peoples of different
cultures. How do the Rules of Just Conduct emerge in any society?
What are the standards for the "prohibitions from infringing the
protected domain"? Is mutual adherence to the Rules of Just Conduct
the basis for peaceful intercourse among cultural different peoples?
Why is private property an indispensable condition for the creation
of these Rules of Just Conduct?
