The archive.

A monthly devoted solely to economics, launched in wartime Algiers, earns Hayek’s encouragement in this brief 1944 review. Reading the first, third, and fourth issues of La Revue Economique et Sociale, he notes a revealing contrast: a journal apparently intended for reconstruction and Allied information exchange devotes much of its space to broader questions about the state, liberalism, monopoly, and capitalism. His praise concerns the courage and resources needed to sustain such a forum, rather than agreement with its contributors’ doctrines. The review offers a compact glimpse of Hayek as a supporter of economic discussion across borders, attentive both to intellectual scope and to the practical conditions of publication.

In this brief review of Émile Cailliet’s La tradition littéraire des idéologues, Hayek finds material for an economic history the book itself does not attempt: the transmission of Condillac’s subjective approach to value through the French idéologues and their circle. His praise comes with a pointed reservation. Does treating these thinkers as precursors of Comtean positivism obscure the moderation that distinguished them from their supposed successors? Hayek credits Cailliet’s philosophical contextualization while questioning a genealogy that gives provocative naturalistic statements more weight than intellectual restraint. The review offers a compact glimpse of Hayek as a reader of intellectual history, attentive both to neglected contributions to utility theory and to the distortions of interpreting thinkers chiefly through what followed them.

A law enacted by proper constitutional procedures is not necessarily a general rule applying to unknown people and unforeseen circumstances. This distinction gives Hayek’s brief 1944 review of John H. Hallowell’s study its interest beyond the verdict on the book. Hallowell addresses liberalism’s decline in German politico-legal thought; Hayek questions whether his historical evidence and legal vocabulary can explain it. He accepts the importance of studying the transformation of the Rechtsstaat but criticizes reliance on secondary sources and ambiguities in “positivism” and “formal” law. The review offers a concentrated encounter with Hayek’s standards for intellectual history—and with the difference between lawful enactment and the character of the rules enacted.

A history of economic theory is not the same undertaking as a history of the ideals governing economic policy. This distinction sharpens Hayek’s brief 1944 review of J. F. Normano’s The Spirit of American Economics and A. R. M. Lower’s Canadian supplement. Against Normano’s search for a distinctively American spirit, Hayek points to the neglect of theoretical achievement, exemplified by the cursory treatment of F. W. Taussig. Yet he also asks more of policy history: political and economic circumstances, rather than labels assigning doctrines to nations or classes. His criticism of Lower’s exclusion of living economists reinforces the question of what such a history should explain. The review offers a compact encounter with Hayek’s standards for judging histories of economic thought.

Even Soviet orders and “Hero” titles came with substantial financial benefits. In this brief 1945 review of Abram Bergson’s The Structure of Soviet Wages, Friedrich August von Hayek singles out the tension between egalitarian policy and reliance on monetary rewards. He praises Bergson’s empirical care while acknowledging the limits of the available data and of quartile ratios as measures of inequality. His particular interest is Bergson’s comparison of Soviet industrial earnings in 1928 with American earnings in 1904, which found closely similar inequality. The review offers a compact encounter with Hayek as a reader of economic evidence: attentive to incentives, but also to the qualifications that distinguish a measured comparison from a sweeping verdict on Soviet wages.

Later revisions do not necessarily make an earlier exposition obsolete. In this brief 1932 review, Hayek welcomes the London School of Economics reprint of Böhm-Bawerk’s Grundzüge for restoring detailed discussions omitted from later presentations of his value theory. He credits Böhm-Bawerk not simply with restating Menger and Wieser, but with sharpening their arguments and resolving difficulties while preparing the foundations for his theory of capital and interest. The review offers a compact view of Hayek’s judgement of the Austrian tradition: clarity of exposition can itself advance theory, and an early text may retain analytical value even where its author subsequently changed his position.

Should Cantillon be read for his place in economics’ ancestry, or for what his reasoning can still teach? In this 1932 review of Henry Higgs’s edition and English translation of the Essai, Hayek firmly favours the latter. His praise for making the work accessible accompanies a precise textual objection: neither the printed French nor the reconstructed English is straightforwardly the original, and the edition does not adequately distinguish its English sources. The review brings Hayek’s theoretical commitments into contact with the practical demands of scholarship. Readers can discover why he regards historical priority and conjectures about influence as less compelling than direct engagement with Cantillon’s analysis—and why access to that analysis still requires editorial transparency.

A machine’s future services and the labour committed to making it describe capital from opposite directions. In this 1934 article, Hayek asks how these perspectives—discounted output and investment through time—can be joined without losing what each explains. His distinction between goods still in production and durable goods already yielding services makes timing central to valuation: neither physical quantities nor a single average production period can adequately measure capital. The interest rate is largely taken as given, allowing the analysis to focus on how it connects commitments with returns. Readers can discover why inherited equipment constrains new investment without dictating its form, and why maintaining output requires attention to when existing services expire and replacements become available.