A preface

When the subject matter of this essay was first suggested to me I found it interesting, but it was quite unclear how the question “What are the economic limits to modern politics?” could be made sufficiently precise to call forth a grammatical answer. As I set about thinking and reading, some kind of order came to be imposed on the question – indeed, so much so that the answers seemed almost inevitable. What I had not bargained for was that I would not at all like the answers. Indeed, they bear a close family resemblance to propositions found in Hayek's Road to Serfdom (1944), a book which in my youth I detested. Yet it seems that recent work on agency and information has strengthened rather than weakened the force of Hayek's arguments. I still hope that there are counterarguments which I have neglected or flaws in my own reasoning, for in this case my inclinations and findings are in conflict. The reader is invited to consider what follows with a critical eye in the knowledge that the author would not be displeased to find that he has been mistaken.

We must eat and drink to live. If follows that arguments designed to convince us that the good life can be led only in arid deserts are intrinsically uninteresting as political arguments. Much of political theory and discourse is concerned with the good society which facilitates the good life.