ABSTRACT
It is an understatement to say that, if not as economists, at least as social scientists and, more generally speaking, as political thinkers, Hayek and Myrdal did not place themselves on the same side of the fence. It is perhaps in order to ensure an ‘ideological equilibrium’ that both were granted the Sveriges Bank Prize in Economics in Commemoration of Alfred Nobel the very same year (1974). One can of course find convergent views between the two theorists on several theoretical and methodological questions, but it seems indisputable that they took opposite stands on the question of the efficiency and overall legitimacy of state interventionism in the social and economic order. It is precisely this opposition that I wish to discuss here. In what follows, and for want of sufficient space, my aim will not be to assess in full detail each of the two views. I will content myself with comparing and contrasting Hayek’s and Myrdal’s analyses – which will of course seem highly polarized – to show first of all what exactly makes these two approaches completely different, but also, and maybe more importantly, to delineate in each case, from an epistemological and methodological perspective, what may be seen as analytical strengths, on the one hand, and inhibitory weaknesses, on the other.
