Hayek, Friedrich A. (1899–1992)

F. A. Hayek is quite possibly the most eminent free-market economist and social theorist of the postwar world. He was born in Vienna in 1899 and entered the University of Vienna immediately following the end of the First World War. Hayek took his doctorates in jurisprudence in 1921 and in political theory in 1923. Although his work in economics would earn him the Nobel Prize in 1974, Hayek's interests were far broader. Over the course of a long and productive life, he made significant contributions to a number of disciplines, including political and social theory, psychology, and the history of ideas.

In 1922, while Hayek was still completing his graduate studies, Ludwig von Mises published his devastating critique of a planned economy. In Die Gemeinwirtschaft (later ...