On pages 127-128 of volume II of Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Hayek speaks to those who would inhibit or suspend market forces in order to protect identifiable individuals — such as, today, workers at GM and Ford — from the play of these forces:
In a spontaneous order undeserved disappointments cannot be avoided. They are bound to cause grievances and a sense of having been treated unjustly, although nobody has acted unjustly. Those affected will usually, in perfectly good faith and as a matter of justice, put forward claims for remedial measures. But if coercion is to be restricted to the enforcement of uniform rules of just conduct, it is essential that government should not possess the power to accede to such demands. The reduction of the relative position of some about which they complain is the consequence of their having submitted to the same chances to which not only some others now owe the rise in their position, but to which they themselves owed their past position. It is only because countless others constantly submit to disappointments of their reasonable expectations that everyone has as high an income as he has; and it is therefore only fair that he accept the unfavorable turn of events when they go against him [emphasis added].
The above is Hayek’s unique way of saying what I struggled to say in this post.
Thanks to Vernon Smith for reminding me of this Hayek quotation.
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After reading the original post that is linked above, I feel I have to vent my disdain for a common catch word in common use today. This word is "sustainability", and it drives me nuts!
"This isn't sustainable", "We must achive a level of sustainability", or my favorite, "sustainable growth"- what the hell is that!?! If we drive toward sustainability, aren't we commiting ourselves to curbing any further progress once we arrive? Are the proponets of "sustainability" missing the point that technology is always pushing us forward towards better situations, where most likely their concerns will have been remedied? Seems to me, that to artificially sustain a given practice at what ever level they deem to sustainable is to halt the progress of technolgical growth, & ironically it is that technological growth that will progress the practice beyond whatever ill suited situation they are concerned about.
I don't think my rant has gone too far off topic, so if anyone can set me strait…
Sustainability can be quite succinctly defined as:
'I have mine, and letting you have yours reduces the value of mine.'
Scratch the surface of a sustainability advocate and you quickly discover that they are predominantly concerned about freezing the game at a place where they have already won. They are twice as adamant about doing so if they came to their winning positions undeservidly, as they are nervous that the same caprice which brought them high might lay them low.
Good old Friedrich. If you follow his often convoluted writing to the punchline, you get a prize.
Interesting. I find him to be one of the most organized, succinct persons I've read. (Excluding all the flip, bloggish writers, of course.) It takes him in a simple essay what it would take von Mises or Marx enormous, compounded chapters to say. I would reserve "convoluted" for the postmodernists.
Oh well. To each his own.
I used to remark that the people who talk most about ecology are the same people who sign no-growth petitions just after they buy their new condominium in Vail.
This sustaining has the same DNA.
But why cite the auto workers. If you want real screams of agony try to lay off unneeded government workers.
The problem with the Austrian economists is that the verb at the end they put. Like Yoda they write.
Although I agree with the thinking I always get a little qeausy when a tenured professor is celebrating the destruction of jobs by the free market.
We could cut college costs tremendously by insourcing some fine Indian and Chinese professors, dumping most of the tenured professors, and asking the insourced professors to focus on teaching.
Rustbelt,
I think U.S. universities already attract and hire many fine Asian professors. If you are suggesting that our government make it easier for U.S. universities to employ the world's best talent, I certainly support that position. But I'm not so sure U.S. universities will save money. Quality professors living in the high-cost U.S. will expect to be paid top salaries.
"Quality professors living in the high-cost U.S. will expect to be paid top salaries."
The idea is that there must be some huge number of high quality professors just itching to move here. It's probably true to a certain degree, if only because of the large restrictions on immigration.
A few companies are working on perfecting tele-teaching. Imagine a PhD-educated tutor who is paid less than your gardener, because cost of living in Mumbai is almost nothing.
In my opinion, Boudreaux illustrates clearly the main point in this last sentence:
"To protect workers “who play by the rules” against job loss would require that government break nearly all of the rules of civil, free, and prosperous society."
Its also not translated from German.
Quadrupole & K,
Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Good to know I'm not lost!