ABSTRACT
Political theories are structures of conceptual, normative and empirical commitments. The tendency to distort a sophisticated political theory by slotting it into a common view of 'classical liberalism' is especially manifest with respect to the work of F. A. Hayek, who ultimately concluded that his view was best classified as 'Old Whiggism'. This chapter describes a 'Hayekian' analysis, not an explication of Hayek. It outlines an essentially Hayekian view of the Open Society. The chapter introduces the contrast between small, closed orders of cooperation and the extended rule-based 'order of action', which Hayek calls the Great, or Open, Society. It then sketches the 'twin ideas', namely, organization and social evolution at the heart of Hayekian political theory. The chapter then summarizes the idea of the Open Society and why Hayek thinks central themes in modern political thought are hostile to it. Hayek insisted that social evolution did not rely on Darwinian natural selection.
