The Online Library of Liberty

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• F. A. Hayek, Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1: The Controversies of the 1920s
• 2: The Coordination Problem
• 3: The Monetary Theory
• 4: Money and Prices
• 5: The Ricardo Effect
• 6: Was the Marginal Revolution Aborted?
• 7: An Alternative Research Program

Studies in Economic Theory

Laurence S. Moss, Editor

America's Great Depression, Murray N. Rothbard (1975)

The Economic Point of View, Israel M. Kirzner (1976)

The Economics of Ludwig von Mises: Toward a Critical Reappraisal, ed. Laurence S. Moss (1976)

The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics, ed. Edwin G. Dolan (1976)

Capital, Interest, and Rent: Essays in the Theory of Distribution, by Frank A. Fetter, ed. Murray N. Rothbard (1977)

Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process: Essays on the Theory of the Market Economy by Ludwig M. Lachmann, ed. Walter E. Grinder (1977)

Economics as a Coordination Problem: The Contributions of Friedrich A. Hayek, Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr. (1977)

To Lyla,
with affection

FOREWORD
On the Way

To give a coherent account of the whole of the theoretical work of an economist who has not attempted to do so himself is sometimes a useful task. But the proof of its worthwhileness must be that the attempt at systematization leads beyond the point where the author discussed left off. On this standard Professor O'Driscoll, if the task he has undertaken was worth doing at all, has done it very well indeed.

It is a curious fact that a student of complex phenomena may long himself remain unaware of how his views of different problems hang together and perhaps never fully succeed in clearly stating the guiding ideas which led him in the treatment of particulars. I must confess that I was occasionally myself surprised when I found in Professor O'Driscoll's account side by side statements I made at the interval of many years and on quite different problems, which still implied the same general approach. That it seems in principle possible to recast a great part of economic theory in terms of the approach which I had found useful in dealing with such different problems as those of industrial fluctuations and the running of a socialist economy was the more gratifying to me as what I had done had often seemed to me more to point out barriers to further advance on the path chosen by others than to supply new ideas which opened the path to further development. Professor O'Driscoll has almost persuaded me that I ought to have continued with the work I had been doing in the 1930s and 1940s rather than let myself be drawn away to other problems which I felt to be more important. I cannot now really regret it, however, when I see that not only he but also a few others are pushing beyond the point where my own impetus had flagged; in fact their efforts are doing more to make me think again about those problems than I would otherwise have done.

F. A. Hayek

• Obergurgl, Austria

September, 1975