Extra general opinion, nulla opinion: a challenge to Hayek’s defense of unlimited state control over opinion

Abstract Hayek regards the liberal democratic model of public opinion as totalitarian. This aggregated majority opinion is, he claims, a disposition to change others’ behaviour . It operates directly or indirectly through the state’s coercive power. To resist totalitarianism Hayek proposes to replace public opinion by an alternative type of aggregate opinion: general opinion. I argue that his shift from public opinion to general opinion transforms the state into a problematic locus for the shaping and disseminating of opinions and thereby turns the content of general opinion into irrefutable dogma. Both consequences are, contra Hayek, more rather than less likely to encourage totalitarianism. In justifying this analysis, I challenge the assumptions, framework, and claims of Hayek’s political theory, offering fresh ways to understand Hayek’s questionable conception of the state and demonstrate that, in replacing public opinion with general opinion, Hayek departs from the liberal political tradition he purports to defend.