Market Order and Justice in Hayek's Political Theory: The Exclusion and Requirement of Substantive Politics

Abstract

The article approaches Hayek's ideas on the market and procedural justice through his epistemology and methodology, providing an immanent critique of these ideas. It argues that the concept of the market as a catallaxy and the idea of justice as a system of general rules of conduct reflect a moral dimension that excludes but also requires substantive politics. The latter is a kind of politics that pursues goals which are formed through a normative/evaluative conception of social good. The moral dimension of Hayek's theory excludes substantive politics because such politics can never be explained in terms of the praxeological presuppositions of social spontaneity and cultural evolution. At the same time, that dimension requires substantive politics because only through it can social spontaneity and cultural evolution be preserved as a social good in terms of liberalism.