F.A.Hayek's conception of Social Justice

One of the contribution in F.A. Hayek’s academic research is that he bases on the notion of classic liberalism to fight the trends of socialism and its conception of social justice prevalent in the 18~20BC. According to socialists, the broadly defined conception of social justice means everyone should get what they deserve, and social resources should be precisely redistributed by a central government rather than capitalists in order to eliminate the inequality of income, properties and social classes. However, Hayek deems this concept as a mirage and that it would interfere with individual freedom by elucidating the necessary limit of human knowledge and the principle of operation about free society. This thesis intends to argue that although Hayek devotes to criticize the conception of distributive social justice, we shouldn’t neglect the connection between his social theory and theory of justice and that may unveil the hidden ideas of the broadly defined social justice in Hayek’s political philosophy. Then I would bring out that the selected rules of just conduct compatible with the rule of law could demonstrate Hayek’s conception of social justice.