Kornai and Hayek

JKSCHW at aol.com JKSCHW at aol.com
Wed Dec 2 21:23:36 PST 1998


In a message dated 98-11-28 06:11:23 EST, you write:

<< t could be that Brus and Laski are now Friedmanites. I was referring to their

position in the book "From Marx to the Market" which was published what? 5 years

ago?

That was the book I was thinking of. Where in it do they assert their continued commitment to socialsim?


> [You are} A Hayekian Marxist eh? Well I'm a capitalist communist.

Engels was in fact. But "capitalist" is a class position, not a political position.


>So you accept a Marxist

critique of capitalism and a Hayekian critique of planning?

Right.


>It surprises me that

someone as philosophically sophisticated as you are, would accept Hayek's

subjectivist epistemology. In my very limited knowledge of Hayek, it seemed that

Hayek's critique of planning depended on his epistemology. His critique of

planning would fall if his epistemology was refuted. Or am I way off the mark?

Hayek's critique of planning is epistemological, but it doesn't depend on any deep or controversial positions about epistemology, such as a subjectivist epistemology, whatever taht would be. H's main point is that planning requires the planners to know too much, whatever we mean by "know." Knowledge could be analyzed in externatlist reliability terms, to use the ugly jargon of analytical epistemology, a very objective account of knowledge, and Hayek could still be right.

--jks



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