Hostname: page-component-74d7c59bfc-95gq9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-02-10T08:37:26.460Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Belonging to Spontaneous Order

Hayek, Pluralism, Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Stephanie Erev
Stephanie Erev*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
*
E-mail: serev1@jhu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Reading Friedrich Hayek's late work as a neoliberal myth of the state of nature, this article finds neoliberalism's hostilities to democracy to be animated in part by a romantic demand for belonging. Hayek's theory of spontaneous order expresses this desire for belonging as it pretends the market is capable of harmonizing differences so long as the state is prevented from interfering. Approaching Hayek's work in this way helps to explain why his conceptions of both pluralism and democracy are so thin. It also suggests that neoliberalism's assaults upon democracy are intimately linked to its relentless extractivism. Yet the romantic elements in Hayek's work might have led him toward a more radical democratic project and ecological politics had he affirmed plurality for what it enables. I conclude with the suggestion that democratic theory can benefit from learning to listen to what Hayek heard but failed to affirm: nature's active voice.

Keywords

affirmationbelongingecologyfreedomFriedrich HayekneoliberalismpluralismSDGsustainable development goals

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Democratic Theory , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , June 2019 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Berghahn Books 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Antonio, Robert J. 1987. “Reason and History in Hayek.” Critical Review 1 (2): 58–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. “What Was Authority…” In Nomos 1: Authority, ed. Carl Joachim, Friedrich, 81–112. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Augustine. 2001. “Letter to Macedonius.” In Augustine: Political Writings, ed. E. M., Atkins and R. J., Dodaro, 71–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1999. The Roots of Romanticism. Ed. Henry, Hardy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2015. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, David and Morton, Schoolman (eds). 2008. The New Pluralism: William Connolly and the Contemporary Global Condition. Durham: Duke University Press.10.1215/9780822389149CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1991a. “Democracy and Territoriality.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 20 (3): 463–484.10.1177/03058298910200030301CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1991b. IdentityDifference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Expanded edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 1995. The Ethos of Pluralization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Connolly, William E. 2013. The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Dardot, Pierre, and Christian, Laval. 2013. The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society. Trans. Gregory, Elliott. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Dean, Jodi. 2009. Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Denis, Andy. 2015. “Economic Calculation: Private Property or Several Control…” Review of Political Economy 27 (4): 606–623. doi:10.1080/09538259.2015.1083189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. Donald F., Bouchard, trans. Donald F., Bouchard and Sherry, Simon. Pp. 139–164. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979. Ed. Michel, Senellart, trans. Graham, Burchell. Cambridge, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Glaude, Eddie S. Jr. 2017. Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. Cambridge, UK: Crown Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 1967. Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226321356.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 1973. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 1976. Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 1988. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. Ed. Bartley, W. W. III. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 2007. The Road to Serfdom. Ed. Bruce, Caldwell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226320533.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 2014. The Market and Other Orders. Ed. Bruce, Caldwell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hong, Grace Kyungwon. 2015. Death Beyond Disavowal: The Impossible Politics of Difference. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honig, Bonnie. 2007. “Between Decision and Deliberation: Political Paradox in Democratic Theory.” Political Theory 101 (1): 1–17.Google Scholar
Ignatov, Anatoli. 2017. “The Earth as a Gift-Giving Ancestor: Nietzsche's Perspectivism and African Animism.” Political Theory 45 (1): 52–75. doi:10.1177/0090591716656461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacko v. State, Pebble Ltd. Partnership. 2015. 353 P.3d 337, No. S-15516 (Alaska). https://law.justia.com/cases/alaska/supreme-court/2015/s-15516.html.Google Scholar
James, William. 1996. A Pluralistic Universe. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Kuhner, Timothy K. 2011. “Citizens United as Neoliberal Jurisprudence: The Resurgence of Economic Theory.” Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law 18 (3): 395–468.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 2013. Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity. Kampala: Makerere Institute of Social Research.Google Scholar
Massumi, Brian. 2014. The Power at the End of the Economy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, David T., and Sharon L., Snyder. 2015. The Biopolitics of Disability: Neoliberalism, Ablenationalism, and Peripheral Embodiment. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Ella. 2013. Worldly Ethics: Democratic Politics and Care for the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Plumwood, Val. 2010. “Nature in the Active Voice.” In Climate Change and Philosophy: Transformational Possibilities, ed. Ruth, Irwin, 32–47. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Rottenberg, Catherine. 2014. “The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism.” Cultural Studies 28 (3): 418–437.10.1080/09502386.2013.857361CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1987. The Basic Political Writings. Trans. Donald A., Cress. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Schlosberg, David. 1999. Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism: The Challenge of Difference for Environmentalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Spence, Lester K. 2015. Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Brooklyn: punctum books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2014. “Proposed Determination of the US Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 Pursuant to Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act: Pebble Deposit Area, Southwest Alaska.” https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-07/documents/pebble_es_pd_071714_final.pdf.Google Scholar
United Tribes of Bristol Bay (UTTB). n.d. “About Us.” http://utbb.org/about-us/ (accessed 12 December.2017).Google Scholar
Whyte, Jessica. 2017. “The Invisible Hand of Friedrich Hayek: Submission and Spontaneous Order.” Political Theory. doi:10.1177/0090591717737064.Google Scholar
Wingrove, Elizabeth. 2000. Rousseau's Republican Romance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar