Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty - Institute of Economic Affairs

h ay e k ’ s t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n o f l i b e r t y
m a j o r i t y r u l e a n d l i m i t e d g o v e r n m e n t
the discretionary power of the administrators. Thus the individual
‘has little reason to fear any general laws which the majority
may pass, but he has much reason to fear the rulers it may put
over him to implement its direction’ (116). Under this solution,
constraining government by general rules or laws is sufficient to
protect freedom, regardless of the opinions or beliefs that are held
by the community and voiced by the majority.
Hayek does, however, offer an alternative solution, which is to
instil beliefs or opinions that are favourable to liberty. One may
profoundly respect the convention that the majority view should
prevail in collective action, ‘but this does not in the least mean
that one should not make every effort to alter it’ (109). Hayek
follows this with a very long discussion (considered earlier) of how
opinion comes to be formed in democratic communities and especially
how the ideas of theorists or political philosophers influence
public opinion in the long run. Making democracy safe for liberty
is primarily an educational task: ‘democracy has yet to learn that,
in order to be just, it must be guided in its action by general principles’
(314). Hayek undertakes to supply these principles through
his teaching on the Rule of Law and limited government. The
Constitution of Liberty is an educational enterprise, designed to
shape belief and opinion in a democratic age.
Hayek is much more favourable to democracy in The Constitution
of Liberty than in Law, Legislation and Liberty. In the former, he
attributes democracy’s excesses mostly to a lack of understanding,
the solution to which is education or enlightenment. Later Hayek
came to believe that democracy had devolved into unlimited or
arbitrary government and had become something of a game in
which government tries to maintain a majority coalition by ‘satisfying
the demands of a multitude of special interests’ (1979: 99; cf.
98–104). This leads him to develop institutional means of limiting
majority rule, which he incorporates into a model constitution
(ibid.: 105–27).
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