Therewas a liberal project for an integrated Europe, even one avant la lettre. Its author was the Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek. He ranks alongside Jean Monnet and many others as one of the founding fathers of the new era. Hayek's work inspired both Ludwig Erhard, who turned West Germany into the engine and model of European economic growth, and Margaret Thatcher, the moving force behind the Single European Act, which restarted the integration process in the late 1980s, as well as many others who have followed their footsteps. Hayek discovered the logic underlying the integration process. It is as relevant now as ever. Hayek postulated that the competition principle, if allowed to operate, sets in motion amutually reinforcing reciprocal process in which the market and self-government together reduce interstate conflict and promote economic growth. It is not only Hayek's devotees and admirers who hold that integration can proceed on the basis of such “negative integration.” The argument has been restated and confirmed by many specialists and practitioners, some of whose work will be discussed in these pages. The result may, however, simply reflect the diffuse and pervasive nature of Hayek's influence. Not just economists but also political scientists, sociologists, and legal and constitutional scholars are all slowly becoming at least partly Hayekian, just as by the third quarter of the past century even President Nixon, as he famously announced, was a Keynesian.