My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

Tribute to F. A. von Hayek byLudwig von Mises
Written to be Presented ata Banquet
in Hayek's Honor
Chicago, May 24, 1962
I AM sorry that a combination of causes-geography, my busy schedule
and no less my age-make it impossible for me to attend this gathering. If
I were able to be present, I would have said a few words on Professor
Hayek and his achievements. As conditions are, I have to put these remarks
in writing and am grateful to our friends who will present them for
me.
To appreciate duly Doctor Hayek's achievements, one must take into
account political, economic and ideological conditions as they prevailed
in Europe and especially in Vienna at the time the first World War came
to an end.
F or centuries the peoples of Europe had longed for liberty and tried to
get rid of tyrannical rulers and to establish representative government.
AU reasonable men asked for the substitution of the rule of law for the
arbitrary rule of hereditary princes and oligarchies. This general acceptance
of the freedom principle was so firmly rooted that even the Marxian
parties were forced to make to it verbal concessions. They called their
parties social-democratic parties. This reference to democracy was, of
course,mere eye-wash as the Marxian pundits were fully aware of the fact
that socialism does not mean freedom of the individual but his complete
subjection to the orders of the planning authority. But the millions who
voted the socialist ticket were convinced that the "withering away" of the
state meant unrestricted freedom for everybody and did not know how to
interpret the mystic term "dictatorship of the proletariat."
But now there was again a dictator at work, a man who-in the wake of
Cromwell and of. Napoleon-dispelled the parliament freely elected by
adult suffrage and mercilessly liquidated all those who dared to oppose
him. This new dictator claimed supreme unlimited power not only in his
own country but in all countries. And thousands and thousands of the
self-styled intellectuals of all nations were enthusiastically supporting
his claim.
Only people who had lived in Central Europe. in those critical years
between the fall of the Russian Tsardom and the final catastrophe of the
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