ABSTRACT
This chapter examines more closely F. A. Hayek’s account of freedom and coercion, especially as developed in The Constitution of Liberty. It shows how that account supports the libertarian position of free markets and limited government and how it supports a basic income guarantee. The chapter deals with the question of whether a guaranteed minimum income ought, as Hayek seems to have believed, to be contingent upon a willingness to work. Hayek’s theory of freedom is in many respects similar to the neo-republican theory advanced most famously by Philip Pettit. Contemporary critics of republicanism, such as Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky, argue that the view is “profoundly antimarket.” In his discussions of the virtues of a market economy, and in particular his discussion of the role of a freely functioning price system within a market economy, Hayek repeatedly emphasizes the significance of the dispersed nature of knowledge.
