Hayek saw society as a spontaneous order, not a dutiful organization

Evidence

There is no such thing as a ‘society’ with a duty to care for its members, he argued, anticipating Margaret Thatcher. Hayek contended that ‘society’ is simply a ‘spontaneous order’ that emerges as individuals and families pursue their welfare on the market. In social and economic rights, he saw the influence of a conflicting social philosophy, which viewed ‘society’ as a ‘deliberately made organization’. Hayek gave law and rights a central role in his own account of a free society predicated on the division of labour. Far from dismissing human rights, he criticised the drafters for weakening the concept of ‘right’ and destroying all respect for it. A declaration of rights should do no more than the ‘time-honoured political and civil rights’ have always done, he argued: ‘delimit individual domains’ in which private initiative, entrepreneurialism, and personal responsibility can flourish. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 146

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘no such thing as society’ line directly anticipates Thatcher and connects to the reader’s austerity/neoliberalism focus. — connects to: Hayek held that mixing spontaneous order with organization is never rational — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 209; Hayek’s epistemology denied others the holism his own vision required — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 242; Hayek saw the market as an unrepresentable knowledge network, not a contained machine — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 171 (+5 more)
• DEFINE: Defines Hayek’s core concepts of ‘spontaneous order’ versus ‘deliberately made organization’ as alternative social philosophies.

Broader Connections

• Hayek framed unions as distortions of spontaneous order requiring legal disenfranchisement #expands (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 978
• Hayek located rationality in impersonal market processes, not individuals #expands (0.88) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 223
• Hayek held liberalism adaptive, maximizing spontaneity and minimizing coercion #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 565