F.A. Hayek: Biography, Economics, Road to Serfdom, Quotes, Books, Nobel Prize (2001)

Friedrich Hayek CH (German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈaʊ̯ɡʊst ˈhaɪ̯ɛk]; 8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992), born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek and frequently referred to as F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian and British economist and philosopher best known for his defence of classical liberalism. Hayek shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for his "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and ... penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena".[1]

Hayek was a major social theorist and political philosopher of the twentieth century,[2][3] and his account of how changing prices communicate information which enables individuals to co-ordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics.[4]

Hayek served in World War I and said that his experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war led him to his career. Hayek lived in Austria, Great Britain, the United States and Germany, and became a British subject in 1938. He spent most of his academic life at the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg.

In 1984, he was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for his "services to the study of economics".[5] He was the first recipient of the Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize in 1984.[6] He also received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from President George H. W. Bush.[7] In 2011, his article "The Use of Knowledge in Society" was selected as one of the top 20 articles published in The American Economic Review during its first 100 years.

Friedrich August von Hayek was born in Vienna to August von Hayek and Felicitas née von Juraschek. Friedrich's father, from whom he received his middle name, was also born in Vienna in 1871. He was a medical doctor employed by the municipal ministry of health, with passion in botany, in which he wrote a number of monographs. August von Hayek was also a part-time botany lecturer at the University of Vienna. Friedrich's mother was born in 1875 to a wealthy, conservative, land-owning family. As her mother died several years prior to Friedrich's birth, Felicitas gained a significant inheritance which provided as much as half of her and August's income during the early years of their marriage. Hayek was the oldest of three brothers, Heinrich (1990–69) and Erich (1904–86), who were one-and-a-half and five years younger than him.[9]

His father's career as a university professor influenced Friedrich's goals later in life.[10] Both of his grandfathers, who lived long enough for Friedrich to know them, were scholars. Franz von Juraschek was a leading economist in Austria-Hungary and a close friend of Eugen Böhm von Bawerk, one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics. Von Juraschek was a statistician and was later employed by the Austrian government. Friedrich's paternal gradfather, Gustav Edler von Hayek, taught natural sciences at the Imperial Realobergymnasium (secondary school) in Vienna. He wrote systematic works in biology, some of which are relatively well known.[11]

On his mother's side, Hayek was second cousin to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. His mother often played with Wittgenstein's sisters, and had known Ludwig well. As a result of their family relationship, Hayek became one of the first to read Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus when the book was published in its original German edition in 1921. Although Hayek met Wittgenstein on only a few occasions, Hayek said that Wittgenstein's philosophy and methods of analysis had a profound influence on his own life and thought.[12] In his later years, Hayek recalled a discussion of philosophy with Wittgenstein, when both were officers during World War I.[13] After Wittgenstein's death, Hayek had intended to write a biography of Wittgenstein and worked on collecting family materials; and he later assisted biographers of Wittgenstein.[14]

At his father's suggestion, Hayek, as a teenager, read the genetic and evolutionary works of Hugo de Vries and the philosophical works of Ludwig Feuerbach.[15] In school Hayek was much taken by one instructor's lectures on Aristotle's ethics.

In 1917, Hayek joined an artillery regiment in the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought on the Italian front. Much of Hayek's combat experience was spent as a spotter in an aeroplane. Hayek suffered damage to his hearing in his left ear during the war,[16] and was decorated for bravery. During this time Hayek also survived the 1918 flu pandemic.