Hayek feared that deliberate policies to maintain full employment would lead to increasing state encroachment on the free market and political liberty. It was this fear that led, from the 1980s onwards, to the piecemeal abandonment of the policy system of the mixed economy – indeed, to the dismantling of the mixed economy itself.
正也是哈耶克1944年在其《通向奴役之路》（The Road to Serfdom）中首次研究的前沿。哈耶克担心，为维持充分就业而有意为之的政策将导致国家日益侵蚀自由市场和政治自由。正是这一担忧从20世纪80年代以来导致了逐渐放弃混合经济的政策体系——事实上，是废除了混合经济本身。