Author: Jeff Hulett
Length: ~22,000 words (~60 printed pages)
Formats Available: Full manuscript, blog-length adaptation available upon request
Proposal Summary
In a world defined by data, algorithms, and top-down governance, The New Fatal Conceit revisits and modernizes Friedrich A. Hayek’s timeless warning: central planning fails not because of bad intentions—but because of limited knowledge.
Originally published in 1988, Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit stood as a sharp rebuke of socialism and rational constructivism. Today, its message is even more urgent.
The New Fatal Conceit reframes Hayek’s ideas for a 21st-century audience. It retains the original’s foundational logic but updates its language, structure, and references—showing how Hayek's ideas apply to the rise of algorithmic governance, artificial intelligence, ESG mandates, and reactionary attempts to shrink government without systemic reform. This work is ideal for liberty-minded readers navigating today's tension between decentralized wisdom and technocratic ambition.
Why This Book? Why Now?
As the modern world grows increasingly reliant on data science, AI-driven decision-making, and centralized policies—from COVID-era interventions to inflation mismanagement—Hayek’s critique of the “pretense of knowledge” has come roaring back to relevance.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Trump administration’s 2025 launch of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While DOGE’s aggressive push to downsize government was well-intentioned, its top-down methods mirrored the same centralized overreach Hayek warned against. The New Fatal Conceit directly addresses this dilemma, asking: what would Hayek advise about shrinking government in a way that is sustainable, principled, and decentralized?
This edition offers:
A reframed and clarified version of Hayek’s original argument
Dozens of contemporary examples, from central bank overreach to the misuse of AI in social policy
A behavioral economic lens, helping readers link tradition, markets, and decentralization to modern decision science
It speaks to a moment when even liberty-minded thinkers risk falling for the illusion that “better data” can produce perfect policy. The New Fatal Conceit argues instead for humility, local knowledge, and time-tested rules of cooperation.
Narrative Approach
Author Jeff Hulett—a behavioral economist, data scientist, and founder of Personal Finance Reimagined—brings a unique voice to this work. Trained in both market analytics and decision theory, Jeff integrates real-world case studies, neuroscience, and public policy with Hayek’s philosophical framework.
Writing in the spirit of Hayek’s editor W.W. Bartley III, Hulett’s goal is not to rewrite Hayek, but to modernize and operationalize his thinking for a new generation of leaders, students, and citizens.
Who Should Read This Book?
Students and scholars of economics, public policy, and political philosophy
Entrepreneurs and professionals seeking better decision-making frameworks
Policy reformers and technologists wrestling with the limits of centralized design
General readers who sense that markets and tradition have value—but want modern arguments to explain why
The Structure
Table of Contents
A message from the editor: Modernizing Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit
Why Hayek’s Warnings Remain Relevant
The Challenge of Making Hayek Accessible for Modern Readers
How This Rephrasing Updates Language and Integrates Contemporary Examples
Preface: Explaining Hayek’s Perspective
The Evolution of Hayek’s Thought
The Purpose of The Book
Acknowledging Key Influences and Contributions
Introduction: Was Socialism a Mistake?
The Appeal and Illusion of Socialist Thought
Why Central Planning Fails to Deliver Prosperity
How Spontaneous Order Outperforms Bureaucratic Control
Part 1: Understanding the Foundations of Civilization
Section 1: Between Instinct and Reason
The Evolution of Human Cooperation
The Role of Rules and Traditions in Advancing Civilization
Section 2: The Errors of Constructivist Rationalism
The Overconfidence of Central Planners
Why No Single Mind Can Design a Better Economic System
Part 2: The Consequences of Misguided Economic Policies
Section 3: The Misuse of Market Mechanisms
Markets as Discovery Processes, Not Machines to Be Engineered
Why Government Interventions Distort Price Signals
Section 4: The Misguided Pursuit of Economic Equality
The Difference Between Equality of Opportunity and Equality of Outcome
How Redistribution Undermines Innovation and Productivity
Section 5: The Danger of Centralized Economic Planning
Why Bureaucratic Planning Cannot Replace Market Dynamics
The Problem of Incentives in State-Controlled Economies
Part 3: Morality, Knowledge, and Tradition in Economic Order
Section 6: The Role of Morality in Economic and Social Order
Why Moral Traditions Emerge, Not Through Planning, but Through Selection
The Relationship Between Freedom and Responsibility
Section 7: The Market as a Knowledge System
How Markets Aggregate and Distribute Knowledge
The Limits of Technocratic Management in Complex Systems
Section 8: The Role of Tradition and Cultural Evolution in Economic Order
Why Social Norms Develop Over Generations, Not Through Rational Design
The Balance Between Tradition and Adaptability in Free Societies
Section 9: The Misuse of Science in Economic and Social Planning
Why Social Sciences Cannot Operate Like the Physical Sciences
The Danger of Reducing Human Behavior to Predictive Models
Appendices: The Foundations of Evolutionary Order
Appendix A: Natural vs. Artificial Orders in Economics
Appendix B: The Role of Competition in Knowledge Generation
Appendix C: Long-Term Trends in Cultural and Economic Evolution
Appendix D: Alienation, Dependency, and the Limits of Entitlement
Appendix E: Play as a Model for Rule Formation
Appendix F: Population Growth and Economic Development
Appendix G: Superstition and the Preservation of Tradition
Index of Examples( Organized by Section and Topic)
Section | Topic |
1 | 2021 Supply Chain Crisis |
Venezuelan Economic Collapse | |
2 | 2023 Energy Crisis in Europe |
2022 U.S. Inflation Response | |
Rise of ESG Mandates | |
3 | 2021–2023 Housing Market Bubble |
Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (2023) | |
California Insurance Crisis and Market Distortions | |
4 | Wealth Taxes and Capital Flight (2021–2024) |
UBI Trials and Work Disincentives (2020–2023) | |
Failure of Venezuela’s Socialist Policies | |
5 | Supply Chain Failures During COVID-19 (2020–2022) |
China’s Economic Slowdown and the Failure of State-Led Growth (2021–2024) | |
6 | Decline of Trust in Financial Institutions – Failure of FTX and SVB (2020–2023) |
Push for Equity-Based Legal Systems (2021–2024) | |
Disruption of Higher Education Norms (2020–2024) | |
7 | 2021–2023 Energy Crisis |
Supply Chain Crisis (2021–2022) | |
Rise of AI and Decentralized Innovation (2022–2024) | |
Failure of "Modern Monetary Theory" (2020–2023) | |
8 | Collapse of Centralized Urban Planning (2020–2024) |
2022–2023 ESG Investment Mandates | |
2023 Pushback Against AI Regulation | |
9 | Inflation Crisis and Misguided Monetary Policy (2021–2023) |
Failure of AI-Driven Crime Prediction (2020–2024) |
References to key thinkers: James Buchanan, Ludwig von Mises, Robert Sapolsky, and Daniel Kahneman
Market Opportunity
This work fits squarely in the space currently occupied by:
The Road to Serfdom – Friedrich Hayek
The Use of Knowledge in Society – Hayek
Why Liberalism Works – Deirdre McCloskey
The Myth of the Rational Voter – Bryan Caplan
The Revolt of the Public – Martin Gurri
However, The New Fatal Conceit differentiates itself by:
Integrating GenAI, behavioral science, and modern finance
Updating Hayek’s arguments with 21st-century relevance
Bridging theory and application—ideal for both the academic and professional reader
Marketing Plan
Jeff Hulett will leverage:
His growing university network (James Madison University, George Mason University)
His role as founder of Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-science platform and newsletter
Social media, blogs (The Curiosity Vine), and podcast appearances
Distribution through liberty-aligned institutions, think tanks, and economic education nonprofits
Previous work (Making Choices, Making Money) received praise from:
John List (Behavioral Economist, University of Chicago)
Tim Roemer (Former Congressman and U.S. Ambassador to India)
Author Bio
Jeff Hulett is a behavioral economist, data scientist, and the founder of Personal Finance Reimagined. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and leads seminars on decision science and market-based reform. Jeff has held leadership roles at Wells Fargo, KPMG, IBM, and Citibank, and curates economic and philosophical content through The Curiosity Vine.
A Sample Chapter is included below for review.
Section 5: The Danger of Centralized Economic Planning
One of the most persistent errors Hayek sought to correct in The Fatal Conceit is the belief that centralized economic planning can outperform decentralized market coordination. While advocates of socialism argue that a well-organized government can rationally direct an economy toward fairness and efficiency, Hayek exposes the fundamental flaw in this reasoning: no central authority can ever collect, process, or act on economic information with the speed, accuracy, and adaptability of a free-market system.
This chapter explores Hayek’s insights into the limits of top-down economic control and uses recent examples from the past five years to illustrate why his argument remains as relevant as ever.At the heart of Hayek’s critique lies a rejection of what he calls “constructivist rationalism”—the belief that human institutions must be deliberately designed to be valid or efficient. Hayek argues that the rules and systems enabling prosperity evolved through cultural selection, not conscious intention. To assume a central planner can replace this emergent order with a superior, designed alternative is what he calls the “fatal conceit.”
Why Central Planning Fails: The Knowledge Problem
At the core of Hayek’s critique of economic planning is what he calls the knowledge problem—the idea that economic knowledge is distributed among individuals, rather than being centrally available to policymakers.
In any market system, prices serve as signals, aggregating information about supply and demand that no single planner could ever collect in real time. Hayek argues that when governments attempt to control prices, direct production, or allocate resources without relying on the spontaneous order of the market, they inevitably create distortions, inefficiencies, and shortages.
Recent Example 1: Supply Chain Failures During COVID-19 (2020-2022)
One of the most vivid modern examples of the knowledge problem in action was the global supply chain crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments around the world implemented top-down economic interventions—locking down industries, imposing price controls on essential goods, and directing the distribution of medical supplies.
In the United States, government-imposed lockdowns and supply chain restrictions led to critical shortages of everything from semiconductors to baby formula.
Attempts to “solve” shortages through direct government intervention—such as invoking the Defense Production Act to control the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators—proved far less effective than allowing market mechanisms to allocate resources dynamically. Meanwhile, industries left to adjust on their own—such as grocery retailers—quickly adapted to changing consumer behavior, demonstrating the superiority of decentralized decision-making.
Hayek would argue that these failures were predictable. By assuming that governments could efficiently manage supply chains through mandates and regulations, policymakers overlooked the critical role of price signals, competition, and innovation in adjusting to market disruptions.
(Referencing Section 2: Just as inflationary stimulus distorted market signals, top-down supply chain interventions further disrupted economic coordination. This episode exemplifies Hayek’s broader point: markets work not because anyone understands the whole system, but because decentralized agents respond to local knowledge through the price mechanism. The information that enables adaptation is distributed, tacit, and often not articulable—what Hayek (drawing on Michael Polanyi) would call “knowledge of how,” not merely “knowledge that.” Attempts to bypass this knowledge with centralized mandates ignore the real mechanism of economic resilience.)
The Persistent Failure of Five-Year Economic Plans
Socialist governments often assume that, given enough expertise and authority, they can rationally plan economic development through long-term directives rather than market mechanisms. However, history—and recent experience—suggests otherwise.
Recent Example 2: China’s Economic Slowdown and the Failure of State-Led Growth (2021-2024)
For decades, China’s government has pursued a hybrid model of state-driven capitalism, relying on Five-Year Plans to steer industrial policy. However, in the past few years, this approach has started to show serious cracks:
In 2021, China’s real estate sector—heavily controlled by government planning—collapsed under the weight of debt, leading to a financial crisis among major developers like Evergrande.
As part of its state-led growth model, China cracked down on private enterprise in tech, education, and finance—leading to capital flight and stagnation in once-thriving industries.
By 2023, China’s official GDP growth targets had become increasingly detached from economic reality, forcing the government to engage in artificial stimulus measures that failed to restore investor confidence.
Hayek would argue that China’s struggles are a modern case study in why centralized economic planning is ultimately unsustainable. Governments can direct economic activity for a time, but they cannot replace the adaptive, decentralized decision-making process of a competitive market.
(Referencing Section 4: Just as wealth redistribution policies discourage investment, excessive state control in China has weakened economic dynamism.)
The Perils of Government-Set Prices: Rent Controls and Energy Policy
A classic example of the unintended consequences of central planning is price controls—particularly in housing and energy markets.
Hayek warns that price controls distort the supply-demand equilibrium, leading to shortages, inefficiencies, and economic misallocation.
Recent Example 3: The U.K. Energy Crisis (2022-2023)
In an effort to shield consumers from high energy prices, the U.K. government-imposed price caps on electricity and gas rates in 2022. While politically popular, these policies had predictable Hayekian consequences:
Energy suppliers, unable to charge market prices, stopped investing in production, leading to a supply crunch.
As global energy prices soared due to geopolitical events, government-imposed price caps became unsustainable, forcing emergency subsidies that strained public finances.
By 2023, the U.K. was forced to abandon its price caps, leading to a sudden spike in energy bills—ironically harming the very consumers the policy was meant to protect.
Hayek’s argument applies perfectly here: by distorting market signals, central planning in the energy sector created long-term instability instead of long-term affordability.
(Referencing Section 3: Just as rent controls create housing shortages, energy price caps created energy shortages. Much like rent controls, which Hayek described as politically tempting but economically destructive, energy price caps misalign incentives and mute critical signals. As Hayek emphasized, the moral tragedy is not just inefficiency, but that such policies reduce the capacity of the system to evolve and adapt. By suppressing price discovery, they block the communication that markets depend on to coordinate billions of decisions.)
Reference to Appendices A, E, F, and G
Appendix A: Rethinking ‘Natural’ and ‘Artificial’ – Hayek’s argument against centralized planning is fundamentally about distinguishing between systems that evolve naturally and those that are artificially imposed. This appendix reinforces the idea that economies develop through emergent order, and when governments attempt to redesign them from the top down—such as through Five-Year Plans or rent controls—they inevitably encounter unintended consequences.
Appendix E: Play as a Model for Rule Formation – This appendix highlights how structured but decentralized systems, like markets, operate effectively because they follow adaptive rules rather than rigid mandates. Just as economic competition rewards innovation and efficiency, the failures of supply chain interventions and China’s state-led growth model demonstrate what happens when market rules are overridden by centralized economic planning.
Appendix F: Population Growth and Economic Development – Economic growth depends on a flexible, decentralized system of production and trade. This appendix explains how markets enable specialization and expansion, reinforcing Hayek’s argument that central planning stifles growth by misallocating resources. China’s slowdown and the U.K. energy crisis illustrate how economic control mechanisms, rather than fostering sustainable growth, ultimately hinder it. Hayek warned against what he termed “makeability”—the assumption that economies can be engineered like machines. China’s model illustrates the danger of anthropomorphizing an economy—as if it were a single organism responsive to commands—rather than an extended order shaped by trial, error, and spontaneous adaptation. The failure of state-led industries underscores how systems built on dispersed knowledge cannot be centrally directed without grave distortions.
Appendix G: Superstition and the Preservation of Tradition – Many central planning policies are rooted in ideological assumptions rather than economic reality. This appendix discusses how traditional economic systems evolved to balance efficiency and resilience, whereas modern interventions—such as price controls in housing and energy markets—often disregard these historical lessons, leading to predictable failures. Hayek’s challenge to central planning goes beyond policy error—it is a critique of epistemic arrogance. He reminds us that evolved institutions like private property, prices, and contract law exist not because they were justified in a laboratory, but because they outcompeted alternatives across generations. Trying to justify or replace them with designed systems—no matter how well-intentioned—is to ignore that survival, not approval, is the ultimate validator of rules.
Section summary: The Limits of Human Design in Economics
Hayek’s fundamental warning is that central planners—no matter how well-intentioned—cannot outperform a market system driven by decentralized knowledge, price signals, and competition. The past five years have provided multiple examples of how government intervention often creates more harm than good:
The COVID-19 supply chain crisis revealed the limits of government-directed economic adjustments.
China’s economic slowdown demonstrated why state-led growth cannot replace free markets.
The U.K. energy crisis highlighted the dangers of price controls in distorting supply and demand.
All three cases reflect a deeper truth: economic knowledge is emergent, not given. Central planners cannot gather or process the dispersed, localized, often tacit knowledge that markets spontaneously harness through prices, property, and competition.
Each of these cases reinforces Hayek’s insight that economies cannot be rationally “designed” from the top down. The belief that planners can outperform markets is one of the great illusions of modern policy—a fatal conceit that continues to lead to disastrous outcomes wherever it is applied.
The alternative is clear: respecting the spontaneous, bottom-up economic order that has driven prosperity for centuries. Attempts to replace it with central planning are not just ineffective—they are actively destructive.
As Hayek writes in “The Pretence of Knowledge,” the real danger is not malice, but intellectual overreach—the belief that order must be imposed rather than discovered. In this light, the modern failures of central planning are not accidental—they are the inevitable outcome of a worldview that overestimates what can be known and designed.