Best known for reviving the tradition of classical liberalism, F. A. Hayek was also a prominent scholar of the philosopher John Stuart Mill. One of his greatest undertakings was a collection of Mill’s extensive correspondence with his longstanding friend and later companion and wife, Harriet Taylor-Mill. Hayek first published the Mill-Taylor correspondence in 1951, and his edition soon became required reading for any study of the nineteenth-century foundations of liberalism. This latest addition to the Collected Works of F. A. Hayek series showcases the fascinating intersections between two of the most prominent thinkers from two successive centuries. Hayek situates Mill within the complex social and intellectual milieu of nineteenth-century Europe—as well as within twentieth-century debates on socialism and planning—and uncovers the influence of Taylor-Mill on Mill’s political economy. The volume features the Mill-Taylor correspondence and brings together for the first time Hayek’s related writings, which were widely credited with beginning a new era of Mill scholarship.

Best known for reviving the tradition of classical liberalism, F. A. Hayek was also a prominent scholar of the philosopher John Stuart Mill. One of his greatest undertakings was a collection of Mill's extensive correspondence with his longstanding friend and later companion and wife, Harriet Taylor-Mill. Hayek first published the Mill-Taylor correspondence in 1951, and his edition soon became required reading for any study of the nineteenth-century foundations of liberalism. This latest addition to the Collected Works of F. A. Hayek series showcases the fascinating intersections between two of the most prominent thinkers from two successive centuries. Hayek situates Mill within the complex social and intellectual milieu of nineteenth-century Europe-as well as within twentieth-century debates on socialism and planning-and uncovers the influence of Taylor-Mill on Mill's political economy. The volume features the Mill-Taylor correspondence and brings together for the first time Hayek's related writings, which were widely credited with beginning a new era of Mill scholarship.

The orthodox view of economic policy holds that public deliberation sets the goals or ends, and then experts select the means to implement these goals. This assumes that experts are no more than trustworthy servants of the public interest. David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart examine the historical record to consider cases in which experts were trusted with disastrous results, such as eugenics, the regulatory use of security ratings, and central economic planning. This history suggests that experts have not only the public interest but also their own interests to consider. The authors then recover and extend an alternative view of economic policy that subjects experts' proposals to further discussion, resulting in transparency and ensuring that the public obtains the best insights of experts in economics while avoiding pitfalls such as expert bias.

Attempts to explain the shift from egalitarian Classical economic thought to the difference and hierarchy of post - Classical economic thinking Continuing the themes introduced in Levy's acclaimed book How the Dismal Subject Got Its Name, The Vanity of the Philosopher picks up the issues of racism, eugenies, hierarchy, and egalitarianism in classical economics and looks at the various attacks on classical economics' doctrine of human equality. Responding to accusations over the years from the left and the right that the market economy has created either inequality or too much equality, Peart and Levy look at the role of the eugenies movement in pushing economics away from the classical economists' respect for the individual toward a more racist view at the turn of the century. Thus the book attempts to demonstrate the consequences of hierarchy in social science. It show how the ""vanity of the philosopher"" has led to recommendations that range from the more benign but still objectionable ""looking after"" paternalism, to overriding preferences, and, in the extreme, to eliminating purportedly bad preferences. The conclusion is that, at least as a first approximation, an analytical system that abstracts from difference and presumes equal competence is morally compelling.