Monetary Calculation and the Unintended Extended Order: The Misesian Microfoundations of the Hayekian Great Society

In the last decade, a small group of Austrians has attempted to argue that there are crucial distinctions between the Misesian and Hayekian lines of influence, and that the former is the superior. This paper argues that the group has both misread Hayek and underplayed the similarities of Mises and Hayek. More specifically, it sees Mises’s emphasis on monetary calculation and goal-driven human action as providing the microfoundations for Hayek’s emphasis on spontaneous order and the epistemic properties of the price system. The paper also disputes the claim that Hayek held a “fully-informative,” neoclassical view of prices and explores the disequilibrium foundation for Hayek’s understanding of the role of prices as knowledge surrogates. The relationship between monetary calculation and cooperation in anonymity is discussed in the final section.