The Body of Hayek's Work on Spontaneous Order Constitutes a Comprehensive Refutation of Marxian Theory

Of all socialist thinkers it is Marx who identifies social progress with the conscious control that will come with the advent of socialism. The frequent attacks by Marx and Engels against the 'anarchy of production', and the demand for an ex ante coordination of economic life where competition and spontaneous order give way to conscious human design, underlies the view that market society 'alienates' humankind from its character as a 'species being'. According to Marx, 'true' freedom requires an end to the subjugation of the worker (and the capitalist) to the 'blind power' of the market and its replacement by system where, 'production by freely associated men ... is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan'. For Marx, the conditions for such an order are imminent in the historical progression of capitalism itself, with the increasing concentration of industry in the hands of fewer enterprises under 'monopoly capitalism', paving the way for the ultimate overthrow of the market and its replacement with conscious planning.

Seen in this context, the body of Hayek's work on spontaneous order constitutes a comprehensive refutation of Marxian theory. The only circumstances in which conscious control would be possible on a society-wide basis would be those where the conditions of economic life are so few and simple that they could be surveyed by a single person or board. If humankind is to rely on conscious direction as the principal tool of social organization then it must confine itself to a primitive form of existence.

--Mark Pennington, "Hayek on Socialism," in Elgar Companion to Hayekian Economics, ed. Roger W. Garrison and Norman Barry (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2014), 261-262.