Friedrich August von Hayek · 1968
Hayek’s 1968 text is a single-author occasional essay: a compact program of political semantics. Its thesis is that inherited words—order, law, economy, democracy—make spontaneous social orders appear as if they were purposive organizations. Hayek therefore treats vocabulary as constitutional theory. The work moves through paired corrections: Kosmos/Taxis, Nomos/Thesis, articulated/unarticulated rules, opinion/will and values/goals, Nomokratie/Teleokratie, Katallaxie/Wirtschaft, and finally Demarchie/Demokratie.
Die Erkenntnis, daß nicht alle Ordnung, die sich aus dem Zusammenspiel menschlichen Handelns ergibt, auch beabsichtigt ist, steht vielmehr am Beginn der Sozialtheorie.
English translation: The insight that not every order arising from the interplay of human action is also intended stands, rather, at the very beginning of social theory.
This first claim governs the essay. Modern civilization rests on the use of dispersed knowledge that no planner can possess. A Taxis is a made arrangement serving assigned purposes; a Kosmos is a self-forming order generated by regular conduct. Organization gives control but narrows usable knowledge; spontaneous order gives up control over particular outcomes but permits cooperation among strangers.
Nur ein Kosmos kann also eine Offene Gesellschaft hervorbringen, während eine als Organisation verstandene politische Ordnung geschlossen bleiben oder Stammescharakter haben muß.
English translation: Only a cosmos, therefore, can bring forth an Open Society, whereas a political order conceived as an organization must remain closed or retain a tribal character.
The legal counterpart is Hayek’s distinction between Nomos and Thesis. Nomos names general, purpose-independent rules of just conduct; Thesis names organizational commands and administrative rules. Against legal positivism, Hayek denies that private law is merely derived from public authority. Public law is a superstructure justified only by its service to the older, wider order of rules.
Das Öffentliche Recht ist das Recht der Organisation, des Regierungsüberbaus, das ursprünglich nur eingeführt wurde, um die Durchsetzung des Privatrechts sicherzustellen.
English translation: Public law is the law of the organization, of the governmental superstructure, which was originally introduced only in order to secure the enforcement of private law.
This explains his attack on social or distributive justice. Such justice presupposes an organization with assigned tasks, ranked ends, and an authority distributing rewards. In a spontaneous order, nobody distributes the results, so justice can attach to rules of conduct, not to final allocations.
„Soziale“ oder „distributive“ Gerechtigkeit ist die Gerechtigkeit der Organisation, in der spontanen Ordnung hat sie jedoch keinen Sinn.
English translation: "Social" or "distributive" justice is the justice of the organization; within the spontaneous order, however, it has no meaning.
The excursus on articulated and unarticulated rules deepens this anti-constructivist jurisprudence: people can act by rules before they can formulate them, and judges often articulate tacit standards already present in practice. Hayek then shifts from law to political psychology. Against Rousseau, Hegel, and their successors, he insists that an open society rests not on a collective will toward shared concrete ends, but on common opinions and values about permissible conduct.
Die Mitglieder einer Offenen Gesellschaft haben und können auch nur Meinungen über Werte gemeinsam haben, jedoch keinen auf konkrete Ziele gerichteten Willen.
English translation: The members of an Open Society have—and indeed can have—only opinions about values in common, but no will directed toward concrete ends.
The same correction appears in economics. Hayek proposes Katallaxie for the market order and reserves Wirtschaft for a genuine economy such as a household, firm, or state organization. The market is not to be judged as if it pursued one hierarchy of ends; it is a discovery procedure using dispersed knowledge through prices and competition.
Diese neue Wortwahl soll hauptsächlich darauf hinweisen, daß eine Katallaxie einer bestimmten Zielhierarchie weder dienen soll noch kann und daß ihre Leistungen deshalb nicht aufgrund einer Summe bestimmter Ergebnisse beurteilt werden können.
English translation: This new terminology is intended chiefly to point out that a catallaxy neither should nor can serve any particular hierarchy of ends, and that its performance therefore cannot be judged on the basis of the sum of specific results.
The final constitutional proposal is Demarchie. If democracy means unlimited majority will, it confuses majority opinion about lawful rules with majority power over particular measures. Hayek wants popular authority limited to universal rules of just conduct, with administration kept institutionally distinct.
Wir wünschen die Meinung der Mehrheit als letzte Autorität, aber wir wollen nicht dulden, daß die nackte Gewalt der Mehrheit den einzelnen regellos Gewalt antut.
English translation: We desire the opinion of the majority as the ultimate authority, but we do not want to tolerate that the naked power of the majority does violence to the individual in a rule-less manner.
The essay’s relevance lies in making language reform serve liberal constitutionalism. It anticipates Law, Legislation and Liberty: freedom depends on distinguishing spontaneous order from organization, law from command, opinion from will, market from managed economy, and limited popular rule from majoritarian absolutism.
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