HAYEK’S NOBEL AT 50. In 1974, F.A. Hayek (1899-1992) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Largely unexpected, the event triggered the resurrection of a methodology in economics long considered deceased: the so-called Austrian school of economics (which included, before Hayek, Carl Menger, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Friedrich Wieser, Ludwig von Mises). The Nobel Prize was also seen by many as heralding a shift in public policies in the Western world, towards so-called “neoliberalism”.
The lecture will briefly discuss the circumstances of the award (shared with Gunnar’s Myrdal) and its alleged consequences. By and large, the lecture will also present a discussion of Hayek’s Nobel Lecture, “The Pretence of Knoweldge”, with the aim to explore through it the aims and traits of Hayek’s research paradigm.


CULTURE AND THE MACHINE. DEIRDRE MCCLOSKEY ON THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. In recent years, Deirdre N. McCloskey has been widely acknowledged as the greatest advocate of an explanation of the Industrial Revolution centered on a shift in culture and ethical behavior. For McCloskey, it was the emergences of “bourgeois virtues” and a broader re-evaluation of work, vis-à-vis the aristocratic bias against it, which made possible the Industrial Revolution, first in the Netherlands and later in England.
The lecture will aim at situating McCloskey among the “cultural” explanation for the origins of the Industrial Revolution in particular and modern economic growth at large. The lecture will explore the methodological assumption behind the “cultural” these on the making of Industrial Revolution, contrasting McCloskey’s with Weber’s and Gellner’s.