Hayek: A Critique (1990) by Alain de Benoist

Hayek: The Law of the Jungle

In this essay, Alain de Benoist critically examines Friedrich A. Hayek's liberal philosophy, focusing on his conceptualization of the market as a self-regulating, spontaneous order and his rejection of collectivist and constructivist ideologies. Benoist explores Hayek's opposition to notions of social justice, utilitarianism, and state intervention, emphasizing his belief in individual freedom as the cornerstone of a "great society." The essay highlights Hayek's reliance on evolutionary principles to justify the emergence and legitimacy of market-based societies, while critiquing the methodological and normative flaws in his theories, particularly his reductionist view of human behavior and societal development. He challenges Hayek's idealization of the market as the optimal societal framework, questioning its applicability across diverse contexts and its ethical implications, such as the dismissal of social inequalities and the transformation of freedom into an instrument of economic utility. Ultimately, the essay argues that Hayek’s vision is utopian, marked by internal contradictions, and relies on a reductive economic lens that subordinates broader social and political values to market logic.

Translated by Alexander Raynor

This essay was originally published in Éléments issue #68 under the title “Hayek: le loi de la jungle” (Hayek: The Law of the Jungle). An abridged English translation first appeared in The Scorpion issue #15 in 1991. The first full English translation appeared in Telos Journal issue #110 in 1998. This translation is my own, however, you can also find this essay translated by F. Roger Devlin as a chapter in Alain de Benoist’s “Against Liberalism” (2024).

~About 15,700 words

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"Let misery be, let death be"

-Antoine Buvet

From October 20 to 22, 1989, the Club de l'Horloge held its 5th Annual University in Nice, under the theme: "Liberalism in the Service of the People." The general tone was that of a "national-liberal" conservatism. Henry de Lesquen, president of the Club, declared that "there will be no authentic liberal society as long as the conception of man rooted in Western, humanist, and Christian tradition does not prevail".¹

The thesis developed during this event largely revolved around contrasting two major liberal traditions: one stemming from the ideas of Locke, and the other derived from Hume and Burke. According to this view, there is a "bad liberalism," grounded in the empiricism of a clean slate and culminating in libertarian or anarcho-capitalist currents, and a "good liberalism," which is mindful of preserving traditions and therefore perfectly compatible with a "national" perspective.

This perspective, seemingly imbued with a degree of political opportunism, justified itself through a constant reference to a now-deceased author, Friedrich A. (von) Hayek. Although the reception of this approach was somewhat mixed², the theme of "national liberalism" (or conservative liberalism) remains a recurring one in the history of ideas.³ Examining Hayek's work is an effective way to properly assess it.⁴

Part 1

Within liberal doctrines, Hayek’s approach stands out as distinctly original. Distancing himself from "continental" liberalism (with exceptions for Tocqueville and Benjamin Constant), Hayek sought to return to the roots of Anglo-Scottish individualism and liberalism (Hume, Smith, Mandeville, Ferguson) while bypassing notions of reason, pure equilibrium, natural order, and the social contract. To achieve this, he first sketched a broad historical tableau.

According to Hayek, humanity has adopted two opposing social and moral systems over its history. The first system, the "tribal order," reflects "primitive" living conditions. It characterizes a closed society, where all members know one another and shape their behavior based on concrete, collectively shared goals they perceive in relatively uniform ways. In this face-to-face society, organized around collective objectives, human relationships—largely determined by "instinct"—are primarily founded on solidarity, reciprocity, and altruism within the group.

This "tribal order" gradually dissolved as personal bonds weakened within more impersonal social structures, giving way to modern society. Hayek alternately referred to this modern society as the "great society" or the "extended order," closely resembling Popper's concept of the "open society." Modern society (in which liberalism, capitalism, free trade, and individualism are its most prevalent ideological forms) is fundamentally a society without closure. Social relations can no longer be organized on a face-to-face model.

In this society, Hayek argued, "instinctive" behaviors, now obsolete, are replaced by abstract contractual behaviors (except, perhaps, within very small groups like the family). Order emerges spontaneously in this abstract realm, not as the result of will or design, but through the countless interrelations arising from individuals' activities. The "great society" is thus defined as a social system that spontaneously manages the absence of a shared common goal.

While Ludwig von Mises tended to view liberal institutions as the product of a conscious choice based on abstract rationality, Hayek argued that in the "great society," these institutions were slowly selected through habit. In other words, humanity did not progressively master its environment and create new institutions through logical deduction or even rational analysis but rather through rules—Hayek described humans as a "rule-following animal"—acquired through experience and consecrated over time. Reason, therefore, is not the cause but merely the product of culture. Usage cannot be decreed; it is inherent in the state of things, which is why the origins of the most enduring institutions cannot be pinpointed. Culture, then, results from the "transmission of learned rules of just conduct, which were never invented and whose function remains unknown to the individuals who act."

For Hayek, modern society constitutes a "spontaneous order" that no human will can reproduce, much less surpass, and which formed according to a model inspired by Darwinian principles. Modern civilization fundamentally stems neither from nature nor from artifice but from a cultural evolution where selection occurred autonomously. In this framework, social rules play a role akin to mutations in neo-Darwinian theory: some are retained because they prove "more effective" and confer advantages to those who adopt them (these are the "rules of just conduct"), while others are discarded. As Philippe Nemo wrote, "Rules are not invented a priori but selected a posteriori through a process of trial, error, and stabilization.”⁵ A rule will be retained or rejected depending on whether, in practice, it proves useful to the overall system of pre-existing rules.

Hayek explained: "It is the progressive selection of increasingly impersonal and abstract rules of conduct—freeing individual free will while imposing stricter domestication of instincts and impulses inherited from earlier stages of social development—that enabled the emergence of the Great Society, making possible the spontaneous coordination of activities within increasingly large human groups." He further stated: "If freedom has become a political morality, it is as a result of natural selection, whereby society gradually selected the value system best suited to the survival constraints faced by the majority at the time." Culture, then, is above all "the memory of beneficial behavioral rules selected by the group.”⁶

The emergence of modernity is thus presented as the "natural" result of the evolution of a civilization that gradually enshrined individual freedom as an abstract and general principle of collective discipline—essentially, as the liberation from traditional society and the transition "to a system of abstract disciplines where each person's actions toward others are guided not by adherence to known goals but by general and impersonal rules that were not deliberately established by man and whose purpose is to enable the construction of orders more complex than we can comprehend." This social Darwinian vision clearly aligns with the ideology of progress. It entails, as will be seen later, an optimistic and utilitarian reading of human history: the "great society" is deemed superior to the "tribal order," with its victory serving as proof of its superiority.

After establishing a diachronic, or historical, distinction between these two major societal models, Hayek then redeploys it synchronically, contrasting taxis and kosmos. The first term, taxis, refers to deliberately instituted order, encompassing any political project that associates the collective with a common goal, as well as all forms of planning, state interventionism, administered economies, and so on. In Hayek's view, this is clearly a resurgence of the "tribal order." By contrast, the term kosmos refers to the "spontaneous" order, self-generated—essentially "naturally" arising from usage and practice—that characterizes the "great society." This spontaneous order exists for no specific purpose. Its members participate by pursuing their own individual goals, with the interaction of their particular strategies leading to mutual adjustments. The kosmos thus forms independently of human intentions and projects. As Adam Ferguson famously phrased it (1723–1816), it "is the result of human action, but not of human design.”⁷

This definition of modern society as fundamentally and necessarily opaque leads Hayek to reject the classical definition of competition as a phenomenon requiring, for its proper functioning, the most complete possible information for economic and social actors. Hayek refutes the idea of market transparency, asserting that relevant information can never be entirely available to agents. On the contrary, he argues, what best justifies the market economy is precisely the fact that information is always incomplete and imperfect. Under such conditions, it is always preferable to let individuals make do with what they know. Competition, therefore, is primarily the result of laissez-faire, whereas in the classical model, laissez-faire is rather seen as resulting from the hypothesis of pure and perfect competition.

The defining feature of the "great society" is the structural excess of relevant information compared to the information that is available or accessible. The so-called "synoptic illusion" lies in believing in the possibility of perfect information. Hayek’s reasoning here is as follows: the knowledge of social processes is necessarily limited because it is in a state of continuous collective formation. No individual or group can access it in its entirety. Therefore, no one can claim to fully grasp or consider all parameters.

Yet the success of social action requires complete knowledge of the facts relevant to that action. Since such knowledge is impossible, no one can claim to act on society in a way that aligns perfectly with their interests or to undertake an action fully appropriate to their intended goal. From this epistemological observation, Hayek derives a sociological conclusion: a certain degree of ignorance is insurmountable. The incompleteness of information leads to the impossibility of predicting the real consequences of actions, which in turn casts doubt on the operational reliability of our knowledge. Since humans cannot be omniscient, the best course of action is to rely on tradition, meaning habits sanctified by experience. As Philippe Nemo writes, "True rationalism thus consists in recognizing the value of normative knowledge transmitted by tradition, despite its opacity and its irreducibility to logic.”⁸

The market is, of course, the keystone of this entire system. In a society composed solely of individuals, the exchanges carried out within the market framework represent the only conceivable mode of integration. For Smith and Mandeville, the market constitutes an abstract mode of social regulation, governed by an "invisible hand" that expresses objective laws intended to regulate inter-individual relations without any human authority. The market thus proves to be intrinsically anti-hierarchical: it is a mode of decision-making where no one deliberately decides for anyone else. Social order becomes indistinguishable from economic order, emerging as the unintended result of the actions undertaken by agents to pursue their own best interests.

Hayek adopts Adam Smith's theory of the "invisible hand," which analyzes the wholly impersonal mechanisms assumed to operate in a free market. However, he introduces significant modifications to it. In Adam Smith's framework, this theory remains macroeconomic: individual actions, though seemingly disordered, ultimately and almost miraculously contribute to collective interest, meaning the well-being of all. For this reason, Smith still allows for public intervention when individual aims fail to achieve the common good. Hayek, in contrast, refuses to accept this exception.

Classical liberalism also posits that a competitive market can optimally satisfy given ends. Hayek counters that ends are never "given," as they are unknowable, and the market cannot, therefore, be credited with the ability to reflect a hierarchy of ends or demands. Such a claim, Hayek argues, is purely tautological, since "the relative intensity of demand for goods and services, to which the market adjusts its production, is itself determined by the distribution of income, which in turn is determined by the market mechanism." Without purpose or priority, the market is not ordered toward any specific goal: it leaves ends undefined and provides only agreement on means (means-connected).

Additionally, in classical theory, the optimal allocation of scarce resources at the societal level is theoretically ensured by the adjustment of competitive markets forming a general equilibrium. Following Ludwig von Mises and anticipating the critique later developed by G.L.S. Shackle and Ludwig Lachmann, Hayek rejects this static vision inspired by Walras. Instead, he seeks to replace the idea of socially optimal production with an optimal institutional system, thereby substituting static general equilibrium with dynamic partial equilibrium.

Finally, in opposition to classical thought, Hayek asserts that it is not the freedom of agents that enables exchange, but rather the exchange that enables their freedom. Later, we will examine the implications of this claim, which occupies a central place in Hayek's system. Its consequences, however, are profound.

In the classical perspective, the market in the strict sense pertained exclusively to the economic sphere, with the state’s role being to "complement the market" by ensuring its proper functioning, and at times even substituting for it. In the neoliberal perspective, which reflects a generalized view of economics, the market becomes an explanatory model, a framework applicable to all human activities: there is a market for marriage, a market for crime, and so on. Even the political sphere is redefined as a market, where entrepreneurs (politicians) seek election by responding to the demands of voters, who, in turn, aim to satisfy their own best interests.

Hayek indirectly legitimizes this vision by presenting the market not merely as an economic mechanism enabling the miraculous adjustment of privately devised plans by individuals but as an ordered formation—an order established spontaneously, that is, prior to or independent of any individual action. Through the price system, this order facilitates optimal communication of information. Under these conditions, the market encompasses the entirety of the social domain. It is no longer merely a model of human activity but becomes that activity itself.

Far from being confined to the field of strictly economic activity (Hayek, in fact, tends to reserve the term "economy" for elementary units such as businesses and households), the market becomes a general system of societal regulation, grandly named "catallaxy" (a neologism borrowed from von Mises). It is no longer simply an economic mechanism for the optimal allocation of resources in a universe traditionally described as governed by scarcity, nor is it oriented toward any specific positive purpose (such as individual happiness, wealth, or well-being). Instead, it represents an order that is as much sociological as it is "political"—a formal, instrumental framework enabling individuals to freely pursue their private objectives.

In essence, it is a structure, a process without a subject, that spontaneously organizes the coexistence of a plurality of private ends. This structure imposes itself on everyone precisely because, by its very nature, it prohibits both individuals and groups from attempting to reform it.

The principle asserted here is clearly one of individual activity closely tied to the model of market-based exchange. Freedom is defined simply as the absence of constraint or coercion. It represents "the situation in which each individual can use what they know to achieve what they want to do," a situation guaranteed only by the market order. Thus, freedom is not a means to achieve an objective that social action could realize but an impersonal gift granted to humanity by historical evolution with the emergence of the abstract order of exchange. Outside the market, there is no freedom!

Pierre Rosanvallon aptly observes that "liberalism essentially makes the depersonalization of the world the condition for progress and freedom.”⁹ Hayek's approach clearly aligns with this vision, which seeks to replace human authority with modes of social regulation as impersonal as possible. John Locke had already asserted that those in power should only establish general and universal rules. For Hayek, social cohesion does not result from adherence to any collective goal but from the mutual adjustment of individual expectations. This cohesion is both logical and functional: a social state is coherent when its rules of conduct are non-contradictory and consistent with its evolution.

Similarly, as Popper argued that truth cannot be determined, only falsity eliminated (the criterion of falsifiability), Hayek maintained that just rules cannot be defined positively, only negatively as those that are not unjust. The least unjust rules are those that do not hinder the proper functioning of the market, conform as closely as possible to an impersonal and abstract order, and deviate as little as possible from established usage. Thus, a good society is one in which the legislator's law (thesis) adheres as closely as possible to the custom (nomos) that facilitated the emergence of the market order.

As a result, a constitution should not include substantive legal rules but only neutral and abstract rules that delineate the limits of legislative or executive action.

The objective of the law, in other words, is no longer to organize individual actions in pursuit of the common good or any specific project but to codify rules whose sole function is to protect the freedom of individual action. This means establishing what each person can rely on, what material objects or services they can use for their projects, and the scope of action available to them. However, Hayek adds, the law can only protect the formation of individual expectations if it itself conforms to the already established order of things. Conversely, only those expectations that align with this established order can be considered legitimate.

Thus, the rules will be purely formal norms with no substantive content, a necessary condition for their universal validity. As Hayek emphasizes, "It is only if these rules are applied universally, without regard to their specific effects, that they will serve to maintain the abstract order." Of course, individuals will be treated as equals under these formal rules, but since these rules correspond to a very concrete reality—liberal capitalism—their equality will be purely formal and will coexist with real social inequality.

A society organized around market exchange could, therefore, gain the adherence of all without ever offering common ends. It would establish an order of pure means, leaving each individual responsible for their own objectives. What unites people within the framework of catallaxy—defined as "the order produced by the mutual adjustment of numerous individual economies in a market"¹⁰—is not a community of ends but a community of means, expressed in the abstract order of law.

Like Hume and Montesquieu, Hayek also believes in the pacifying virtue of exchange. By avoiding the dangers of face-to-face interactions typical of the "tribal order" and sidestepping debates over collective ends, the market would neutralize rivalries, calm passions, and lead to the resolution or extinction of conflicts. All members of the "great society," united in their shared adherence to a system of means rather than a debate over ends, would see opposition diminish or resolve itself naturally.

This societal model raises an interpretative challenge from the outset. At first glance, one might be tempted to view the idea of a spontaneous order as a modern iteration of the natural order, as conceived by counter-revolutionary theorists most opposed to voluntarism. However, this would be a mistake. Hayek does not present spontaneous order as a reference to an original and permanent state, foundational to all human social order. On the contrary, he portrays it as an order developed over the course of human history, reaching its zenith in modern times. It is, one might say, an order resulting from a "natural" evolution but not a "natural order" in itself.

Furthermore, the way Hayek asserts the autonomy of the social sphere gives his reasoning an appearance of holism, as the market is framed as an encompassing totality that functions as such and establishes exchange relationships among agents—relationships that obviously cannot be identified in the isolated individual. Finally, the concept of spontaneous order seems to align with the systemic notion of self-organization, especially since Hayek himself has repeatedly sought to connect his ideas with P.A. Weiss’s systems theory, cybernetic models (Heinz von Foerster), concepts of complexity (John von Neumann), and "autopoiesis" (Francisco Varela, H. Maturana), as well as the thermodynamics of open systems (Ilya Prigogine), among others.¹¹

In fact, Hayek skillfully reformulates ideas advanced long before him by Bernard Mandeville, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, all three founders of a new modern theory of "civil society." The originality of these authors within liberal thought lies in their departure from both the naive utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and the philosophy of natural law. Their approach focuses not on the question of the origin of society (which had led John Locke to propose the hypothesis of the social contract) but rather on its regulation, that is, its mode of functioning.

In a recent thesis¹², M. Gautier aptly demonstrated that this evolution corresponds to a shift from a worldview as theodicy to one as sociodicy. The essential point is the abandonment of the fiction of the social contract and the recognition of the necessity of social bonds as an inherent component of human nature. Since society constitutes the natural framework for human existence, there is no longer any need to seek the "origin" of society in a contractual agreement among previously isolated individuals. The artifice of the contract is replaced by the mechanism of the market as the foundation of social life, which allows for an escape from the characteristic aporias of contractualist theories inherited from Hobbes and Locke.

This is precisely the basis of Smith’s theory of the "invisible hand." It leads to an acknowledgment of habits, customs, and even traditions that accompanied the emergence of the market. At its extreme, as in Ferguson, market exchange becomes the specific mode of social relations, with custom as its foundation.

M. Gautier is thus justified in speaking of "non-pure individualism" to describe this new liberal approach, which aims to establish "on a specific anthropology the co-genesis relationship between the individual and the whole"—in other words, to address the reconciliation of individual interests and the social whole, without relying on the social contract as the key. The consequences are significant. If the market model alone explains the functioning of society, it follows that economics represents the best means of achieving political ends. This leads to increased criticism of public power, as if humans are naturally social, there is no longer a need to "compel" them to live in society. "The state is no longer constitutive of the social bond; it merely guarantees its permanence." Moreover, public power must always be "neutralized" to ensure that it never "invades" civil society. Consequently, politics is radically delegitimized in its role of pursuing specific ends.

By rejecting the theory of the social contract and asserting the idea of a spontaneous order that transcends the categories of nature and artifice, Hayek directly aligns himself with this intellectual tradition. This explains the holistic appearance of his system, in which the market, equated with the "social whole," becomes, at the supra-individual level, the ultimate mode of regulation.

This appearance, however, should not be misleading. True holism can only be discussed when the whole possesses its own logic and purpose—characteristics that are distinct in nature from those of its constituent parts. This idea is precisely what Hayek rejects, as he sees it as a hallmark of the "tribal order."

In the "great society," although the individual is never considered in complete isolation—since it is acknowledged that humans have always lived in society and, from a moral perspective, are fully human only in relation to others—social relations must nonetheless be understood solely from the perspective of the multiplicity of individuals. Just as the market is conceived solely as a procedure for aggregating individual preferences, society is organized and understood exclusively based on the existence and actions of individuals. It is the interplay of individual interests alone that constitutes society.

The social, therefore, is derived from the individual, not the other way around. The individual is the essential actor and the primary value, constituting an explanatory absolute that cannot be surpassed. As a result, the understanding of the whole derives from that of its parts, and there can be no collective entity—whether it be a people, culture, or nation—that possesses an identity distinct from the sum of the individual identities it encompasses. Finally, it is assumed that individuals’ behaviors are guided solely by the ends they set for themselves. Members of society are akin to social atoms, "free to use their own knowledge for their own goals," and it is, of course, the pursuit of their best interest that is expected to guide their choices.

Certainly, Hayek is not naive enough to believe that all individuals act rationally, but he argues that such behavior is more advantageous. Therefore, in a society where acting rationally is comparatively more rewarding, rational behaviors will gradually spread through selection or imitation. Thus, in social life, the individual is indeed expected to behave like an economic agent in the market. This remains within the paradigm of methodological individualism and the concept of Homo economicus.

Ultimately, Hayek presents the individual less as an autonomous being and more as an independent being. As Jean-Pierre Dupuy points out, "autonomy is compatible with submission to a supra-individual sphere, valid for all, to a normative law that limits individual selves according to the rules of a self-founded normativity," whereas "independent selves are incapable of establishing an order as a deliberate and conscious project.”¹³

Beyond considerations regarding the formation of ordered structures from random fluctuations (systems theory, thermodynamics of dissipative structures), this distinction highlights the limits of drawing parallels between Hayek's ideas and the systemic notion of self-organization. The latter implies an anti-reductionist view in which the whole inevitably exceeds the mere sum of its parts.

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Part 2