A Canadian professor is deeply disturbed by Friedrich A. Hayek's mustache.Fitting everything into the Hitler box!

1. A Boston Prof Links Hayek to the ‘Far Right’

   A Canadian professor is deeply disturbed by Friedrich A. Hayek's mustache.

   https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/06/a_boston_prof_links_hayek_to_the_far_right.html 

   Christopher Chantrill |

   
   

   Suppose you were a university professor and a liberal -- but I repeat myself. And suppose you were ambitious. What better way to blaze across the sky like a meteor than to write a book about how all those far-right armed insurrectionists were fans of a guy with a semi-Nazi mustache?

   I first learned about Friedrich von Hayek, born in Vienna, economist of the Austrian school and political philosopher, back in the 1970s when Bob Bartley set the world ablaze at the WSJ editorial page. In 1931, Hayek left Vienna. He joined the London School of Economics, became F.A. Hayek, and hit the big time with his critique of socialism and the administrative state in The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944.

   Did you know that Hayek inspired the far right, the hard right, the alt-right, and the right in-between? Boston University professor Quinn Slobodian proves it in Hayek’s Bastards, published in 2025. Needless to say, Dr. Slobodian has been showered with glittering prizes for his heroic work.

   But I knew nothing, nothing about this path-breaking book until I read a critique about it by Andy Lamey in Quillette.

   Who were the monsters that Hayek sired out-of-wedlock? According to Professor Slobodian, the armed insurrectionists included:

   • neo-Nazi Richard Spencer
   • anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard
   • VDARE creator Peter Brimelow
   • Eccentric economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe
   • eugenics enthusiast Richard Lynn

   As we all know, these monsters have made liberals quiver in fear for their lives for decades.

   But guess what: according to Lamey, Hayek also inspired lefties, including John Rawls -- A Theory of Justice -- and G.A. Cohen -- Why Not Socialism? Cohen even admits to “the indispensability of prices.”

   I suspect that the Canadian Slobodian first suspected there was a problem with Hayek because of his mustache. Both Hayek and his mentor Ludwig von Mises sported short mustaches, and all the world knows that a short bristly mustache is a marker of fascism. Professor Slobodian, of course, sports a fashionable beard in the style of NYC Mayor Mamdani, a DSA marker which is definitely not, experts agree, fascist.

   1. Socialism cannot work because prices (Mises)
   2. Administrative government cannot work because the Knowledge Problem (Hayek)
   3. Regulation does not work because “regulatory capture” (Stigler).
   4. Government programs cannot work because you can never reform them (Chantrill).

   Upon reflection and the advice of philosopher Nick Shirley, I now believe that the Fourth Law should read:

   Government programs cannot work because fraud.

   Yes, President Eisenhower, I hear you. Let’s go bigger.

   1. Socialism cannot work because fraud.
   2. Administrative government cannot work because fraud.
   3. Regulation cannot work because fraud.
   4. Government programs cannot work because fraud.
   5. Mail-in ballots cannot work because fraud.

   It’s true, isn’t it, Professor Slobodian. Professor? Bueller? Anyone?

   But what did Hayek really say? Over the years, I have found his writing so dense that I have never been able to crystallize his thinking into a nice pithy aphorism.

   Wait! It’s 2026! Let’s cheat with AI! So I told Grok: "summarize friedrich hayek's ideas in one pithy aphorism."

   Grok replied:

   "The price of pretending we can plan society is the loss of the spontaneous order that alone makes it work."

   Aha! That was yesterday: Today Grok says:

   "The fatal conceit is believing we can design what only spontaneous order can evolve."

   Yay Elon!

   Okay, I thought. Whatabout Google AI? The answer:

   "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

   “Men?” Evidently, Hayek was not just an inspiration to far-right racists, but also to hard right sexists.

   I wonder if Google AI can change its mind on the pithy aphorism front, too. Of course it can: Google can’t let Grok run the table. Today Google AI says:

   "The spontaneous wisdom of the many will always outsmart the calculated design of the few."

   This is what I call heavy lifting. No wonder AI data centers need so much water.

   But wait! I wonder what Grok says about Professor Slobodian’s pithy aphorisms? Grok:

   "Neoliberalism doesn't shrink the state -- it builds global fortresses to encase markets against democracy."

   And Google AI:

   "Market freedom is an iron cage built by design to outsmart democracy."

   Bless his heart. And his Guggenheim Fellowship.

   But I understand. As a belted and tenured professor, Quinn Slobodian cannot resort to AI. No sir.

   Hey professor! Joseph Schumpeter has some advice for you on the subject of “democracy:”

   [D]emocracy does not mean and cannot mean that people actually rule... Democracy means only that the people have the opportunity of accepting or refusing the men who are to rule over them... [D]emocracy is the rule of the politician.

   Assisted by liberal professors.

   Okay, enough of this frivolity. Your mission, if you accept it, is to get AI to tell you the pithy aphorisms of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Graham Platner.

   I am sure that their wisdom will astonish you.

   This sort of lefty attack on Hayek is personal to me, partly because of my Four Laws:June 8