ABSTRACT
In this chapter I combine the three main criticisms Hayek offers to both soft leftist and liberal positions as well as to the hard left. The first is his critique of social justice. The second is the ECA. The third is his criticism of the use of “society” as if the term refers to a person with duties and possibly rights as well. I begin by listing what I regard as the ordinal strength of Hayek’s arguments. The strongest argument is his critique of possibility of rational economic planning in a socialist society. It is as apodictic as any argument ever made in political philosophy. The argument against social justice is the second strongest, especially in terms of putting the burden of proof on the defender of social justice. The argument against treating society as a person as opposed to its being an entity like the Earth is extremely difficult, albeit not necessarily impossible to refute, but his critics have not succeeded in doing so.
