Law, Legislation and Liberty.

the Great Society and individual liberty

The first edition of Hayek's (1899-1992) three-part treatise on the ideal form of government needed to preserve individual liberty, published over a period of seven years from 1973 to 1979.

Law, Legislation and Liberty begins with a critique of the prevailing form of representative government, 'which many feel they must defend because they mistakenly regard it as the only possible form of democracy'. These are governments, which by acting on the 'will of the majority', have been allowed to become 'unlimited' in potential. In turn, these democracies have eroded the very separation of powers between legislature, judiciary, and administration which they had set themselves as a safeguard in order to preserve 'individual freedom' (vol. 1, pp1-3).

Hayek saw the work as a natural successor to his earlier essay on 'liberal constitutionalism', The Constitution of Liberty (1960), which title he would have reserved as a better explication of the present treatise's aim. That is, to establish 'what constitutional arrangement, in the legal sense, might be most conducive to the preservation of individual freedom'. Hayek no longer believed, as he had in 1960, that a reform simply of the status quo could bring about this change, but that 'constitutional design' was necessary, the innovation of his own 'utopia' (vol. 1, pp3-4).

First editions, first impressions; 3 vols, 8vo (22.5 x 14.5 cm); ownership inscription in pen to front free endpaper recto of each vol., underlining and annotations in pencil throughout; publisher's black cloth, spines lettered in gilt on blue ground, typographic dustjackets, spines faded, particularly affective vol. II, vol. I price-clipped, slight spotting to top-edges and inner-flaps, a little frayed with minor wear, very good; xi, [1], 184; xiv, 195, [1]; xv, [1], 244pp.

Cody & Ostrem B-15, B-16 & B-18.