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Libertarianism

Reconciling Hayek and Mill's Divergent Defenses of Liberty

As Cass Sunstein points out, Hayek and Mill had widely divergent rationales for liberty. But the two can be reconciled.

Ilya Somin | 8.23.2026 10:00 AM

F.A. Hayek (NA) John Stuart Mill. (NA)

Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek and the great political philosopher John Stuart Mill both reached generally libertarian conclusions. But, as prominent Harvard law Porf. and political theorist Cass Sunstein points out in an excellent recent post, they did so for quite different reasons:

Mill was a romantic about choosers (about you and me, and what we know, and what we are capable of), while Hayek was not a romantic about choosers at all (not close). He was a romantic, or something like that, about undesigned orders and traditions, and a skeptic about planners.

Mill put a bright spotlight on individuals, their knowledge, their potential, and their agency. Hayek put a bright spotlight on markets and traditions, and on government planners and what they cannot know.

In sum, Mill emphasized the merits of individual freedom of choice, which he famously argued would enable each person to to exercise control over his or her affairs, and result in valuable "experiments in living." By contrast, Hayek emphasized the defects of government planners, and their lack of knowledge.

As Sunstein notes, these two ideas are not inherently opposed. They can even be mutually reinforcing, in so far as they provide alternative justifications for the same conclusion. But there is a tension, in so far as Hayek also emphasized the value of "spontaneous order" and the traditions it generates, which he viewed as better guides to decision-making than the unaided reason of individuals. This contrasts with Mill's emphasis on individual autonomy and reasoning skills.

Moreover, if tradition is so........

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