'Comrade Hayek' or the revival of liberalism? Andrew Gamble's engagement with the work of Friedrich Hayek

One of the most revealing political engagements of recent years was between members of the British left, with the work of the right-wing economist and anti-socialist political theorist, Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992). This paper focuses on the work of Andrew Gamble, and more specifically on his claim that 'Hayek has much to contribute to the renewal of the socialist project'. Whilst accounts of Hayek's work by the left during much of the post-war period were rare, by the 1990s several historical shifts had led Gamble and others to re-examine their attitudes to their old enemy. Gamble claimed that there were two sides to Hayek: Hayek the ideologue, and Hayek the social scientist, whose work contained lessons of which socialists should take note. Gamble's engagement with Hayek represented a rejection of those statist forms of socialism which had been dominant during the 20th century and his argument, after undergoing this engagement with Hayek's work, bore many similarities to the new liberalism of the early 20th century. As such, Gamble's work can be seen as part of a much wider mutation of those political categories that dominated the 20th century. By the end of that century, in place of statist forms of socialism and conservatism, the debate between left and right was largely carried out within two sides of the liberal tradition.