Merit and the Free Market: Friedrich Hayek

Free market liberalism as propounded by Hayek does not take merit as a grounding for the market; moral adjudications are prone to divergence as no philosophical speculation can succeed in determining an auspicious ground for distribution. Consequently, Pareto Superior moves are in effect espoused which divest of moral considerations and reduce the market to a conglomerate of voluntary transactions.

Hayek’s motive for the dispensation of merit lies in the fact that re-distribution constitutes a bulwark to freedom. If the left can argue that a distribution is immoral – which we do because Pareto superior moves lack historical sensibility and hence maintain an exploitative status quo – then Hayek’s retort comprises an evaluation that the market itself is not an arbiter of merit but a barometer of goods which are valued according to the precincts of supply and demand.

It is not that those who procure the most wealth as a result of market transactions deserve this wealth in a moral sense, it happens to be what the market dictates. Therefore, one cannot utilise moral arguments as a ground for redistribution and the free market as a consequence sustains.