Friedrich Hayek was born on May 8th 1899 in Vienna, Austria. His father was a physician and botanists, and he grew up in a distinguished but modest family. In March of 1917, he enrolled in the army to fight in World War I. He returned to Vienna in November 1918, attending the University of Vienna as a law student. Hayek was also interested in economics and psychology, and he also studied them at Vienna. He received a doctorate in 1921 for law and another in 1923 for economics from the University of Vienna. At around 1922 Hayek began attending Privatseminar hosted by Ludwig von Mises. At these seminars Mises met with several of his "students" to work and discuss economics. He left Europe in 1923 for one year to do postgraduate studies at New York University. In 1927 The Austrian Institute of Business Cycle Research was established and Hayek was made its first director until 1931, when he left to join the London School of Economics.
The roof of the British Library of Political and E...
Ludwig von Mises
English: The London School of Economics library at...Feeling strongly against socialism, Hayek was unwilling to return to Austria under the control of Nazi Germany so he stayed in Britain and became a British citizen in 1938. In 1944 Hayek was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy, just after the publication of The Road to Serfdom which shows how totalitarianism may spawn from democratic socialism. Three years later, Hayek founded the Mont Pelerin Society by inviting 36 scholars to Mont Pelerin in Switzerland to discuss liberalism after World War II. This society still exists today, holding meetings all over the world with the purpose of exchanging ideas between like-minded scholars. In 1950 Hayek joined the University of Chicago as Professor of Social and Moral Science. Hayek was not a fan of the American lifestyle and left for Europe in...