Dr. Robert Leeson has raised some objections on this blog to my recent
review of his edited volume, "Hayek: A Collaborative Biography, Part I:
Influences, from Mises to Bartley (Palgrave/MacMillan, 2013), which
appeared on HT.net.



First, I wish to thank Dr. Leeson for catching my mistake in incorrectly
saying in the review that he had written the chapter on, 'Hayek, Bartley
and Popper: Justificationism and the Abuse of Reason,' when, in fact, it
was written by Dr. Rafe Champion, to whom I extend my apology for this
error.



Second, Dr. Leeson points out that there were two chapters in the volume to
which I did not draw attention. Strict space limitations on the length of
the review prevented me from mentioning and commenting on every chapter in
the book; it was not meant as a slight on the authors of those
contributions.



Third, the extent to which William W. Bartley revised or even may have
rewritten part of the manuscript that was published as Hayek's last work,
"The Fatal Conceit" (1990), has been highly controversial, and discussed in
both Alan Ebenstein's "Hayek's Journey" (2003), pp. 212-215 and Bruce
Caldwell's "Hayek's Challenge" (2004), pp. 316-119.



Yet, a careful look at the section to which Dr. Leeson refers in the
chapter he wrote on Bartley (especially pp. 202) offers a bit of additional
information but is far from the "decisive" evidence that he seems to
suggest, and certainly warrants, as I suggested in my review, a far more
detailed discussion than he offers.



Fourth, a careful reading of Hayek's writings on the political economy of
central planning throughout the second half of the 1930s consistently shows
a crucial theme to which he goes back, again and again: That the very
nature of a centrally planned economy is that it requires the drawing up
and imposition of a single unified scale of values to which a socialist
society is to be dedicated to achieving, and to which all in the society
must be expected to follow and conform, if "the plan" is to succeed.
Hayek's repeated warning was that this was a central danger to individual
liberty and the diversity of goals and purposes free men invariably pursue.
This element in "The Road to Serfdom" is emphasized in Melissa Lane's
contribution to Dr. Leeson's edited volume.



Finally, one of the missing elements to the volume is sufficient attention
to several of the important episodes in Hayek's professional life. One of
the most intriguing, certainly, was when in the early 1930s he wrote a
highly critical review of a recent book on monetary theory by a prominent
British economist, and that British economist chose in his reply to Hayek's
criticisms to criticize the reviewer, instead.


Most Cordially,


Dr. Richard Ebeling

Professor of Economics

Northwood University

Midland, Michigan 48640