All this chat about Hayek is the perfect excuse (particularly as I am stuck in a near deserted hotel in the middle of nowhere) to tell my only story about the great man. It was some time in the late 1970s and the venue was (appropriately or inappropriately enough) the Keynes Auditorium (or Hall, or something like that) in Cambridge. Hayek was the speaker and most of the audience, stuck in the orthodoxies of that era, was either astonished, appalled or both.

At the end of his talk (which was, needless to say, quite brilliant) Hayek bravely asked for questions. Brimming with indignation and bubbling with bile, one man rose to his feet and asked “that’s all very well, Professor Hayek, but don’t you believe it is possible to have an egalitarian society.”

“Oh yes, “ replied Hayek, “you can have an egalitarian society – but only at the lowest possible level.”