Harrington, James (1611–1677) English polit-
ical philosopher
Representative of CLASSICAL REPUBLICANISM, Harrington
adopts ARISTOTLE’s view that citizens must be economi-
cally independent to be virtuous rulers. In his book,
The Commonwealth of Oceana,Harrington argued that
political AUTHORITY always follows from economic
power through PROPERTY ownership. So, MONARCHY
exists where the royal family monopolizes all property
(as in feudal landed tenure); aristocracy is land owner-
ship by a few wealth persons; and a commonwealth
(or REPUBLIC) occurs when property is widely dis-
persed. That a republic cannot exist without a large
middle class is a theme of Harringtonian political the-
ory. He also links sovereignty with the right to bear
arms (or own guns). A monarchy keeps weapons away
from the general population and uses a standing paid
army; a republic, or commonwealth, allows citizens to
possess arms and relies on a citizen militia. So, for
Harrington, as a state becomes corrupt, it takes prop-
erty from the average citizens (through higher taxes),
concentrates power in the central administration
(through patronage), and disarms the citizenry (rely-
ing on mercenaries). All of these corruptions to repub-
licanism make people dependent on the government
and destroy public VIRTUE. These ideas influenced later
British and American classical Republicans, notably
Thomas JEFFERSON.
Further Readings
Russell-Smith, H. F. Harrington and His Oceana. Cambridge,
Eng.: The University Press, 1914.
Tawney, R. H. Harrington’s Interpretation of His Age.1942.
Hayek, Friedrich August von (1899–1992)
Economist and liberal political philosopher
Hayek’s economic theory, for which he was awarded
the Nobel Prize in 1972, is concerned chiefly with
arguing against various forms of state control and
intervention. His early target was the TOTALITARIAN
states of the 1930s and later SOCIALISTand WELFARE
STATEs. His criticisms rest on the following claims:
First, economics is the science of coordinating ends
rather than distributing resources; second, value is
subjective, which is to say that value is a function of
individual preferences; third, given the multiplicity of
ends and the subjectivity of value, no individual or
state can or should plan for an entire economy. In
short, Hayek rejected economic models that were
based on the ideas of perfect competition between per-
fectly rational economic agents who are in possession
of a complete knowledge of their own and others’
ends. It followed from this that any attempt by a state
to organize an economy rested on a profound error
about the nature of value and its own ignorance of the
actual economic ends and purposes of its citizens.
According to Hayek, this ignorance extended to the
agents themselves, who are incapable of any exact
expression of their own ends, and so these ends are
not, even in principle, capable of being known and
thus used and organized by a centralized BUREAUCRACY.
Hayek’s arguments were important at a time when
theories of central planning in socialist, communist,
and welfare states were generally accepted as both eco-
nomically feasible and politically desirable. In place of
an economics of planning, Hayek constructed an eco-
nomics founded on the idea of a spontaneous order.
Such an order emerges in an economy through the
activities and choices of discrete individuals, not as
a consequence of intention and control. Hayek’s LIBE-
RALISM comes through at this point. He argues that
centralized economic planning threatened both the
material welfare of citizens and their liberties and FREE-
DOMS. What is crucial, according to Hayek, in protect-
ing the welfare of citizens and their freedoms is
EQUALITYbefore the LAW. The chief role of the govern-
ment is to ensure equality before the law and not
attempt to impose other economic measures to achieve
political ends such as a particular favored economic
distribution. Hayek stops short of a LIBERTARIANposi-
tion assigning functions to government beyond the
minimalist conceptions advanced by theorists such as
Robert Nozick. He argued for example that the state
has a role in providing support to those on the margins
of the market economy. It is not always clear, however,
by what principle Hayek determines when the state
has a legitimate role in adjusting the spontaneous
order of the market economy.
Hayek was born in Vienna, Austria, to a family of
academics. He studied at the University of Vienna,
graduating in law and political science. After teaching
in Austria, Hayek took up a position at the London
School of Economics in 1931, entering into debate
with Keynes and other welfarist economists. In 1950,
he moved to the University of Chicago and, in 1967, to
the University of Salzburg.Hayek, Friedrich August von 133