''Law, Legislation and Liberty'' is a work in three volumes by Nobel laureate economist and political philosopher
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek ...
. In it, Hayek further develops the philosophical principles he discussed earlier in ''
The Road to Serfdom
''The Road to Serfdom'' (German: ''Der Weg zur Knechtschaft'') is a book written between 1940 and 1943 by Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek. Since its publication in 1944, ''The Road to Serfdom'' has been popular among ...
'', ''
The Constitution of Liberty
''The Constitution of Liberty'' is the magnum opus of Austrian economist and 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipient Friedrich A. Hayek. First published in 1960 by the University of Chicago Press, the book is considered Hayek’s c ...
'', and other writings. ''Law, Legislation and Liberty'' is more abstract than Hayek's earlier work, and it focuses on the conflicting views of society as either a design, a made order ("taxis"), on the one hand, or an emergent system, a grown order ("cosmos"), on the other. These ideas are then connected to two different forms of law: law proper, or "nomos" coinciding more or less with the traditional concept of
natural law
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...
, which is an
emergent property of social interaction, and legislation, or "thesis", which is properly confined to the administration of non-coercive government services, but is easily confused with the occasional acts of legislature that do actually straighten out flaws in the nomos.
Contents
''Vol. 1 : Rules and Order'' (1973)
# Reason and Evolution
# Cosmos and Taxis
# Principles and Expediency
# The Changing Concept of Law
# Nomos: The Law of Liberty
# Thesis: The Law of Legislation
''Vol. 2 : The Mirage of Social Justice'' (1976)
# General Welfare and Particular Purposes
# The Quest for Justice
# 'Social' or Distributive Justice
# The Market Order or Catallaxy
# The Discipline of Abstract Rules and the Emotions of the Tribal Society
''Vol. 3 : The Political Order of a Free People'' (1979)
# Majority Opinion and Contemporary Democracy
# The Division of Democratic Powers
# The Public Sector and the Private Sector
# Government Policy and the Market
# The Miscarriage of the Democratic Ideal: A Recapitulation
# A Model Constitution
# The Containment of Power and the Dethronement of Politics
* Epilogue: The Three Sources of Human Values
See also
*
Austrian School
The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian scho ...
of economics
*
Philosophy of law
Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal val ...
*
Catallaxy
Catallaxy or catallactics is an alternative expression for the word "economy". Whereas the word economy suggests that people in a community possess a common and congruent set of values and goals, catallaxy suggests that the emergent properties o ...
External links
*
Podcast featuring Prof. Don Boudreaux Donald Boudreaux discusses Law, Legislation and Liberty on
EconTalk
''EconTalk'' is a weekly economics podcast hosted by Russ Roberts. Roberts, formerly an economics professor at George Mason University, is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. On the podcast, Roberts typically interview ...
.
Law Legislation and Liberty
Books by Friedrich Hayek
Classical liberalism
Economics books
Emergence
Libertarian books
Philosophy of law
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