Volume 5, No. 1 (Spring 2002)
Hayek points to the works of Bernard Mandeville, David Hume, and Adam Smith as the primary origins of his social theory of spontaneous order. Christinia Petsoulas critically examines that claim and concludes, not simply that Hayek is too modest in understating the originality of his own thought, but that “a convincing critique of the main tenets of cultural evolution can be provided by the very thinkers whom Hayek cites as intellectual forefathers.”