YOU CAN TAKE HAYEK OUT OF VIENNA… 61 COSMOS +TAXIS COSMOS + TAXIS INTRODUCTION Peter Boettke’s take on Hayek is basically right. Conserva- tively, let’s say 98%. Te actual number is probably higher, but it is hard enough to write a meaningful response to a book that had me saying: “Yes. Yup. Good. Right on. Indu- bitably.” And so on. So we’ll say 98%, leaving me 2% of a point to make. Buckle in. I divide my 2% contribution evenly between two dis- tinct nits I want to pick with Boettke’s account. Nit-picking is not the most interesting sort of response essay to write. But nor is it the least interesting. It is at least better than the subgenre that criticizes a book because “it’s not what I would have written” or because “it ignores this part of the topic that I like.” Unfortunately, both of these approaches to criticism characterize some corners of the world of Hayek Studies and adjacent felds. When I was a graduate student, I observed one of Boettke’s classes that arguing about how to interpret Hayek was a veritable cottage industry. He pointedly (literally, he was pointing) said I was not allowed to specialize in that feld. He was partially successful, and the warning has turned me into a better scholar. Instead of asking what con- tribution I could make to the conversation about Hayek, he nudged me toward asking what contribution Hayekian in- sights might have to larger conversations in political econ- omy and social philosophy. Tanks, Pete. Tankfully, this book follows that approach as well. Writing a book about economics is itself an economic act: it involves tradeofs and scarcity. So unless omitting an idea mischaracterizes something important or misses its target audience, it’s not a worthy criticism. Pete’s book makes no such omissions. Indeed, Boettke’s book is not what I have written, and all the better for it, because then I wouldn’t have learned anything. Tere’s plenty to learn here, even for those with a Ph.D. in Hayek Studies. So rather than claim- ing that Pete should have written a book that I would have learned nothing from—as some will do—I will pick those nits, secure in the belief that this is not the most useless re- sponse his book will receive. Who knows? Maybe I’ll hit upon 3 or even 4% of a contribution along the way. NIT THE FIRST: AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS IS NOT NEOCLASSICAL “Hayek is an evolutionary theorist.” Nope. “Hayek is a cyberneticist.” Swing and a miss. “Hayek is all about complexity and emergence.” Whif. “Hayek is a dogmatic libertarian.” Sit down before you fall down. “Hayek is a near-equilibrium theorist.” Hard eye roll. “Hayek is a closet Nietzchean!” I’m not going to dignify that with a response. Boettke’s book sets the record straight: F. A. Hayek was an Austrian economist (Boettke 2018, pp. xv-xviii, 17-18, 162-169, etc. 1 ). Or, in Boettke’s phrasing, an “epistemic in- stitutionalist” (Ibid., p. xv). Tis is not to say that evolution, cybernetics, complexity, emergence, and liberalism are not important to Hayek’s thought. Tey are. (Te last three characterizations listed above range from dead wrong to bonkers.) But the central threads running through Hayek’s thought come straight from Mises and Menger. Tis point has been obscured by treating Hayek’s social theory and political philosophy as a separate enterprise from his work in economic theory, a mistake that Boettke (like Caldwell 2004) studiously avoids. Austrian economics is the central element of Hayek’s thought. Tese other aspects are his at- tempts to translate or enrich his Austrian foundations with contemporary thought. Adding local ingredients to a burg- er does it make burgers less American, and sprinkling some Leoni, Tocqueville, Burke, Bertalanfy, or Ferguson on your Mengerian economics does not make it less Austrian. Boettke foregrounds the phrase “epistemic institution- alism,” but this is just his way of following Fritz’s lead (Boettke 2018, pp. 5-6). When the phrase “Austrian eco- You Can Take Hayek Out of Vienna… ADAM MARTIN Texas Tech University Email: adam.martin@ttu.edu Web: adamgmartin.com