The Essential Hayek

by Donald J. Boudreaux

Nobel laureate economist F.A.Hayek firstt revolutionized economists' understanding of markets, and then profoundly challenged the public's understanding of government. Hayek is one of only a few social scientists over the past 200 years who thoroughly rethought the relationship between individual people and both the market and the state. While countless works have discussed the importance of Hayek and his ideas, none have focused on making his core ideas accessible to average people. This volume highlights and explains Hayek's basic insights in plain language to ensure that his critical ideas about the nature of society are both accessible and enduring.

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, Biography, History, Finance

108 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Essential Hayek (2015) by Don Boudreaux presents an overview of Hayek’s work and ideas. Boudreaux is a professor of economics at George Mason University. Boudreaux blogs at cafe Hayek and has been on the Econtalk podcast a number of times.

The book has an introduction by Vaclav Klaus who was the president of the Czech Republic. After that there are 10 chapters where each chapter has a paragraph from Hayek and then an explanatory chapter.

There are chapters on spontaneous order, the value of information in prices, how laws can arrive in ways other than legislation, the value of ideas and the impact of inflation.

The Essential Hayek isn’t bad, but it was a bit disappointing. It could have been a bit longer and included more on Hayek’s life and perhaps some criticism of Hayek’s work. It’s not bad and will hopefully encourage people to read more of Hayek.

[rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a nice and short introduction to Hayek's key ideas. Hayek's work is primarily aimed at professional economists, so I can only imagine, at least to the common person who lacks economic expertise, it's not easy to get into it right away without feeling incredibly overwhelmed. With this in mind, that's all this book is: a simple and straight to the point introduction with accessible language and examples that ends with a few recommendations to further extent the knowledge behind it. Overall a good read for those interested!

[Lawrence Hung · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous and insightful read! The depth of Hayek's thoughts on the economic model of capitalism is explained by Donald in a clear and systematic manner, drawing real life examples to application of the core concepts. This is not a basic economic textbook stuff, nor is it a book only academic can understand. A general people is smart enough to understand all the writings in this book.

Altogether the book has 10 chapters. It starts with the basic premise that price is a signal to the market for allocating resources, effectively and efficiently, according to priorities the society's needs. Above all, the society is organized, mobilized in a seemingly effortless and thus far less costly way. As a whole, "human cooperation is powerfully productive" as a result of a decrease in information cost as it is embedded all in the prices. The "puzzle" will self-organize into a beautiful whole. Individuals in a market economy flourish and prosper economically by serving the interests of others. The market expands and so do the range of options, particularly the higher options, available to the society. The author then examines the relationship between the rule of law, freedom and prosperity in the context of the market economy, in which modern prosperity springs from the use of the knowledge of multitudes, who is subject to no one and free. They divide the task of discovering and acting upon knowledge in an incredibly complex and competitive manner. The rule of law steps in and applies to everyone equally to ensure everyone is bound by the same rules, while it does not guarantee equality of outcomes. The rule of law should be formulated impartially, i.e. not to achieve particular outcomes.

That is why Hayek distinguishes carefully legislation from law. Legislation is the deliberate making of law, an instrument of great power to achieve some good but ultimately, and perhaps un-intendedly, turn into great evil. What Hayek advocates is that the law emerges without centralized design but like words and languages, it evolves as a result of human actions - the merchant activities in the Mediterranean region. The law settles the conflicts arising out of the commercial disputes, in a codified manner. Rules consciously designed by government are "legislation" and we obey them because the government can "retaliate" upon who don't obey it. A corrupt or unwise government will legislate in many ways that are socially destructive and that's why legislation should be debated carefully before enactment, as it is man-made, not something evolved out of nature. I see this a very crucial opinion in Hayek's theory on social contract, very much different from that of Rosseau.

At root, the case for economic freedom is a case for the freedom of consumers, not for businesses! "Consumer sovereignty" reigns in an economy that is geared toward satisfying consumers, not producers! Each individual's livelihood is tied proportionately to the extent of satisfying the consumers. At the expense of others, when government seeks to protect producers via legislation, for them to suffer no declines during bad time, trouble arises and in Hayek's view, paves the road to serfdom and widespread poverty.

[Baktash · Rating 5 out of 5]

بسیار جمع و جور و بدرد بخور بود. جناب بودراکس خودش اقتصاد دان هست و مثال های بسیار ساده و کاربردی برای فهم اندیشه های هایک زده.  در بحث تزریق نقدینگی به بازار واقعا مطالب بسیار آموزنده ای یادم گرفتم.

نام کتاب چاپ شده در ایران "اندیشه های اقتصادی و سیاسی فردریش هایک" و از انتشارات دنیای اقتصاد است.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a class. Hayek was insightful and had many ideas that made sense.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not expect so many revolutionary insights enclosed in such compact little book in a fashion so eloquent and compelling. Hayek’s advocacy for individual and societal flourishing via spontaneous order and his disdain to central planning are conveyed through relatable anecdotes and analogies. This is a delightful read that proves to be simultaneously thought provoking and entertaining.

[Robson Castilho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livro curtinho e de fácil leitura (dado o contexto do tema). O autor utiliza boas metáforas e coisas do dia-a-dia para explicar economia.

Serve como ótima introdução para economia, em especial a economia de livre mercado, passando por vários temas como o sistema de preços, estado de direito, inflação, expansões e crises econômicas, entre outros.

[Adolfmemati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Son dönemde Türkiye siyasetinde gündemden düşmeyen konular, ve bu konuların ne kadar saçma olduğu anlaşılabilir. Enflasyon laneti bölümü de a.
k. partisinin özetidir. Okuyun okutturun. DJB abimizin kitapları da okunmalıdır.

[Martin von Haller Groenbaek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and sweet introduction to a great thinker

[Francis Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise and coherent. It makes me want to read more by and about Hayek.

[Muhsin Dogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

İlk defa okuyanlar icin de Hayek’i önceden okumuş olanlar icin de güzel bir kitap olmuş. Naçizane tavsiye ederim.

[Marcus Goncalves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple language with essential vision and criticism for a good reflection on Hayek’s ideas the nature of society and markets. It is just an overview.

[Waris Ahmad Faizi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful!
Donald J. Boudreaux explains Hayek's philosophies very well. He takes essential quotes from Hayek and explains Hayek's point, and puts his ideas in context.
Likewise, the author does an admirable job of providing just enough thought-provoking material to encourage readers to seek out publications included in the recommended reading list.
Here are the ten key ideas of Friedrich Hayek which have been described in this book.
1. How we make sense of an incredibly complex world
2. Knowledge and prices
3. Individual flourishing and spontaneous order
4. The rule of law, freedom, and prosperity
5. Legislation is distinct from law
6. False economic security and the road to serfdom
7. Economic booms and busts
8. The curse of inflation
9. The challenge of living successfully in modern society
10. Ideas have consequences
Recommended for Economists!

[Remus · Rating 5 out of 5]

For someone completely unfamiliar with Hayek or macro-econmics, this book is a great introduction to both, presenting some new perspective on the meaning and evolution of prices in an economy and the impact of some regulations imposed onto those.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about (even if just out of mild curiosity) a rather informed perspective on economical flows surrounding them daily.

[Jacob Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to libertarian ideas and Hayek's other work.

I gave this book 4 stars because it is a great introduction as my title says. There is a lot more that could have been covered which is why I didn't give 5. I do believe this is worth the read for anyone interested in how the economy works and where to find more information on specific ideas.

[Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic and very accessible introduction to the valuable and still very relevant contributions of F.A. Hayek to various fields. The ideas selected are well chosen and Don Boudreaux's presentation of them shows a deep familiarity with Hayek's work and experience conveying those ideas effectively.

[Choonghwan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the greatest thinker.
He argues economics and politics go hand in hand, without political underpinnings market economy will not prosper.
And many policies out of good intentions often fall into hubris which will be, sooner or later, met with nemesis of reality.

[Konstantin Samoylov · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief summary of Hayek ideas. Hayek was a genius. Reading his ideas reflected in other people minds is a pleasure.

[João Paulo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma visão resumida e apaixonada da espetacular obra de Hayek

[Isaac Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was probably the single best guide to Hayek that I’ve come across, and it even strengthened my understanding of various Hayekian insights into the economy. I’m now highly optimistic for the rest of the ‘Essential Scholars’ series - there’s much to look forward to.

I have long accepted the classic dispersed knowledge argument, and it is easy enough to intuitively understand - but ‘Road to Serfdom’ insights on the causes of the desire for security to outweigh the desire for freedom, and how that fundamental human envy will eventually incentivize the government to satisfy more and more groups which requires nearly unlimited expansion of governmental power, were new to me. Intuitive insights on inflation - how government monopoly on money incentivizes it to inflate certain sectors to delay their eventual correction, but then that just increases overall inflation which then forces the government’s hand to inflate said sectors at a higher and higher rate, made me wonder why it took me literally 6 years to understand this simple point as to why QE requires an accelerating rate just to achieve the same results. The intuition regarding the relative prices of capital goods vs consumer goods, and how the distortion of this relative price is the chief cause of the boom and bust, was also fascinating, and now makes me itch to buy a copy of ‘Prices and Production’.

But the fact remains that Hayek seems to have lost the intellectual battle - Keynesian econ is clearly in full throttle now, with a Fed choosing the policy rate and influencing the money supply as it sees fit. The US has also just taken a big step in industrial policy by taking a 10% stake in Intel. I maintain that history has proven Hayek wrong since Western democracies that expanded their welfare state did NOT result in serfdom, and I remain uncertain on how to incorporate Hayek’s dogma into a deeply entrenched global central banking culture anyway. Ideas will always have consequences, but for me personally I’ve come to struggle to make the leap from robust theoretical ideas to actionable policy recommendations.

[Frumenty · Rating 2 out of 5]

My initial impression on commencing to read this book was that it was written to order, and with reluctance. The first chapter takes 10 pages to explain an idea that could be more than adequately explained in 3. I was thinking that, if Boudreaux is a teacher, his students deserve my pity. However, after the first chapter he appears to warm to his subject a little and the writing becomes, if not less prosaic, at least less prosy.

Friedrich August Hayek (1899 - 1992) was an economist and Nobel laureate. I don't remember what prompted me to go in search of information about him (I do listen to a lot of podcasts), but this is the book I found on Amazon. I was expecting to be intellectually challenged but found the ideas presented in the book pretty easy to grasp ; perhaps, having lived through so many years of neo-conservative economic innovation, many of Hayek's ideas have come to seem commonplace. In addition to simplicity, this book has the virtue of being mercifully short.

I mentioned Hayek to my wife, who knows lots of things, and she said he was "right wing". Having read this little tome I think that is a little unfair, though there is much in Hayek that would appeal to people of that description ; Margaret Thatcher is notable among his admirers. Hayek provided an alternative to the great Keynesian orthodoxy of his time ; he opposed market interventions (particularly subsidies and tariffs) because he believed that the market has a way of punishing such interference with inflation and other undesirable outcomes. It is remarkable that in the wake of the recent Global Financial Crisis so many of the politicians who were so hot for governments to take a "hands off" approach to the market were falling over themselves to bail out troubled banks ; Hayek is very congenial when "hands off" means letting the rich get richer, but not so when he says let them take their medicine and go to hell.

I'm giving this just 2 points. If you want a quick potted account of Hayek it's OK, but Wikipedia could probably do almost as well.

[Greg K · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reduces the works of a great economist to the level of a term paper of a lazy sophomore.


The single-minded obsession with the refutation of the centrally planned economy in a book published in 2015 is particularly sad—by that time pretty much all of these economies have collapsed long ago. The longer author explains how the centrally planned economy is bad, the more obvious it becomes that his idea of it is very far from what it was in actuality back in the USSR, for instance. The examples with 1 billion puzzle pieces, that are impossible to put together by one central planner, yet without they get together by themselves because they are self-aware, mobile, and beep whenever it connects productively(!) with another piece, and these beeping noises make the nearby pieces happy ... I can't continue with this pathetic analogy. Really. I am not a fan of the centrally planned economies, but this does not mean I should accept any anti-soviet bullshit, no matter how ridiculous it is.


There is nothing essential in this book and hardly any Hayek. Probably the worst book I've read this year so far.

[Edgar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading a book on the Koch brothers, The Sons of Wichita, when I came across the names of Mises and Hayek. These economists, along with others, have a profound impact on how Koch industries has turned themselves into one of the top 5 (depending on the year) private companies in the world with an estimated revenue of $115 Billion in 2013. Obviously, everyone isn't a successful billionaire, so I wanted to understand the philosophy of the Koch brothers, and part of that was to read about FA Hayek, a joint Nobel Prize winner in Economics in 1974.

This book is a great introduction into the philosophical/economical ideas of FA Hayek that fall under the sub-genre of economics known as 'Austrian Economics.' Other have done a better job of summarizing this book, so read those comments. In today's world full of global trade, industry, and business, I believe this book is an important read to understand the impact of today's policies on tomorrow's endeavors.

[Stan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Essential Hayek is a great little book. Boudreaux pulls a quote, about a paragraph, expressing key thoughts developed by Hayek from a range of his works. Then, he develops out a short chapter explaining Hayek's thought on the subject. This is a great introduction to Hayek!

Chapter 6 looks at Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." It is short and accessible for most readers. And, this needs to be read by everyone!

Hayek's work was deeply influential in the former Soviet Union. He was one of the major influences that undermined communist economics - his writing was literally world changing. For this reason, everyone needs to be familiar with his ideas.

[Alireza Saramad · Rating 2 out of 5]

کتاب چرتی است. نه بخاطر مخالف بودن نسبی ام با هایک، بلکه ازین نظر که نویسنده گند زده به حیثیت هایک. این هم شد کتاب؟
فرض کنید سرزمین اکالیپتوس پادشاهی دارد و او هایک، نویسنده مسئول وزارت فرهنگ و تبلیغات بازاری دست، و این کتاب نیز با مثابه ی دینی دوم دبیرستان این پادشاهی. بجز فصل ۶ و ۷ که اقتصاد گفته بود و خوب بود و قانع کننده بود، هرچند به اینهم شک دارم، که نکنه گول خورده باشم، بقیه کتاب به غایت ساده بود و آدم را خر فرض کرده بود در حدی که خود هایک هم اگر بود ناراحت میشد. بیشتر توضیح ندهم، کتاب دینی دبیرستان پادشاهی بازار بود

[Waldeir Marques · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente leitura introdutória às principais ideias de F. A. Hayek, sendo de extrema utilidade tanto para aqueles no início dos estudos da obra do Austríaco, quanto para o leitor em geral. Ao utilizar de uma linguagem simples/acessível combinada com exemplos factíveis, Boudreaux cria um agradável compilado da linha hayekiana de pensamento.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essa é uma introdução muito simples ao pensamento de Hayek. Porém, simples demais. O autor sempre tenta exemplificar conceitos e ideias hayekianas levando-as a uma excessiva simplificação. Não se apresenta, de fato, o "essencial do pensamento de Hayek". Tomam-se algumas de suas ideias e mostram-se em exemplos concretos. Ainda assim, serve de primeira leitura a Hayek.

[Bob Olsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is sort of a “Cliff Notes” best-of collection of Hayek, the most important free market, libertarian economist of the 20th century. It’s a good introduction/overview of his writings, but not a comprehensive or in-depth one. it’s good for those unfamiliar with Hayek, but I prefer the original, classic writings.

[m00nlight · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief introduction of the core point of view of Hayek. Very short and compact. Although some examples in this book are not the perfect ones in my opinion(not that convincing). But generally, it is a good introduction to the thoughts of F. A. Hayek. Recommend to the people who want to get the principle of Hayek's view but don't have the time to read all his books.

[Shaun Larocque · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic entry level introduction into the writings of F.A. Hayek. The author does an admirable job of providing just enough thought provoking material to encourage readers to seek out publications included in the recommended reading list.