Peter J Boettke wrote: > > The sort of interpretation of the Road to Serfdom and of Hayek that has been offered is extremely strange. The ridiculous claims that have been made about Hayek (from Reder's claims to more recent claims about authoritarianism) seem to be tolerated by historians of thought in a way that NO OTHER historical character in economics would be subjected to on such "thin" grounds of evidence. We have far more damaging evidence on Keynes, for example, than we do of Hayek yet we do not resort to those sort of guilt by association claims. Yet when defenders of Hayek perk up, they are often dismissed as ideological crazies. > > Perhaps the notion of the hermeneutics of suspicion should be turned back on all these "readings". But if we did that, what would happen to mutual understanding and "truth tracking"? > > Pete Boettke, as often happens, introduces something very useful to the discussion. The question of different sociology/rhetoric/cognitive styles of particular interpretative communities, and "anti-communities", is often treated as a matter of "who is right" or "I seek truth, they are ideologues". In fact, the issues are much more complex, going to in some cases different socialization processes, different intellectual projects, and different histories. Interesting questions, hardly ever addressed in historical reconstructions of issues like Keynes versus Hayek, planning versus markets, monetarism versus Keynesianism, would concern differences more complex than right versus wrong theories. "I believe X because it is true" is hardly explanatory of anything. E. Roy Weintraub