IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/ecnphi/v29y2013i01p121-138_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competition As An Ambiguous Discovery Procedure: A Reappraisal Of F. A. Hayek'S Epistemic Market Liberalism

Author

Listed:
  • Witt, Ulrich

Abstract

Epistemic arguments play a significant role in the foundations of market liberalism as exemplified, in particular, by the work of F. A. Hayek. Competition in free markets is claimed to be the most effective device both to utilize the knowledge dispersed throughout society as well as create new knowledge through innovation competition. The fast pace with which new economic opportunities are discovered and costs are reduced is considered proof of the benefits of free markets to the common good. However, with its inherently unpredictable consequences, innovation competition is actually ambiguous in this respect. This feature raises questions over the stringency of market liberal pleas that oppose quests for redistribution and environmental concerns in an absolute fashion.

Suggested Citation

  • Witt, Ulrich, 2013. "Competition As An Ambiguous Discovery Procedure: A Reappraisal Of F. A. Hayek'S Epistemic Market Liberalism," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 121-138, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:29:y:2013:i:01:p:121-138_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0266267113000102/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rinaldo Evangelista, 2018. "Technology and Economic Development: The Schumpeterian Legacy," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 50(1), pages 136-153, March.
    2. Naomi Beck, 2015. "The garden of orderly polity: F. A. Hayek and T. H. Huxley’s views on social evolution," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 83-96, April.
    3. Burak Erkut, 2016. "Perceiving Innovation: Who ‘Makes’ SAP Labs India and How?," South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases, , vol. 5(1), pages 116-125, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:29:y:2013:i:01:p:121-138_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/eap .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.