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FROM NOVELIST TO PHILOSOPHER, 1944–1957
Director had assembled a critical mass of free market thinkers at the
university. Hayek’s arrival marked a high point in this campaign, even
though he was rejected by the Economics Department and instead
landed at the Committee for Social Thought, with a salary paid by the
Volker Fund. Regardless of how he got there, once at Chicago Hayek
quickly expanded on the earlier efforts of Knight and Director and
helped transform the university into a powerhouse of market economics.
11 His most successful venture was the Mont Pelerin Society, an international
society of economists he launched in 1947. Hayek drew on the
same pool of conservative businessmen that Read and Mullendore fi rst
targeted with Pamphleteers, shaping an organization that bridged the
worlds of commerce and academia.
Rand cast a gimlet eye on Hayek. In a letter to Rose Wilder Lane, a
libertarian book reviewer, she called him “pure poison” and “an example
of our most pernicious enemy.” The problem was that Hayek was
considered conservative, yet acknowledged there could be an important
role for government-sponsored health care, unemployment insurance,
and a minimum wage. “Here is where the whole case is given away,”
Rand noted in her copy of The Road to Serfdom. Addressing Lane, she
compared him to Communist “middle of the roaders” who were most
effective as propagandists because they were not seen as Communists. 12
Rand’s reaction to Hayek illuminates an important difference between
her libertarianism and the classical liberal tradition that Hayek represented.
Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably,
classical liberals generally have a more capacious concept of the minimal
state than do libertarians. Socialistic central planning and state ownership
of economic enterprises overstep the line of permissible action, but
up to that point classical liberals can be comfortable with a range of
state action. Hayek himself remained a controversial fi gure on the right
precisely because even his admirers thought he went too far in accepting
an active government. In this respect Rand’s critique of Hayek was not
unique, but it fi xed her on the far right of the libertarian spectrum. 13
The rest of Rand’s attack on Hayek was distinctive. “The man is an
ass, with no conception of a free society at all,” she scribbled in the margin
of his best-seller. She assaulted Hayek on multiple fronts. She reacted
angrily whenever he discussed how competition or societies might be
guided or planned, or when he spoke favorably of any government
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