Friedrich Hayek
Champion of classical liberalism, Road to Serfdom
Most quoted
"The marvel is that in a case like that of a scarcity of one raw material, without an order being issued, without more than perhaps a handful of people knowing the cause, tens of thousands of people whose identity could not be ascertained by months of investigation, are made to use the material or its products more sparingly."
— from The Use of Knowledge in Society, 1945
"I am convinced that if it were the result of deliberate human design, and if the people guided by the price changes understood that their decisions have significance far beyond their immediate aim, this mechanism would have been acclaimed as one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind."
— from The Use of Knowledge in Society, 1945
"The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from trying to do better."
— from The Constitution of Liberty, 1960
All quotes by Friedrich Hayek (235)
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
The more the state 'plans' the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
If we are to use the knowledge dispersed among many people, we have to rely on some mechanism which will transmit the relevant information to all concerned.
The system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
Individual freedom, however, is not just a matter of having choices, but of having the opportunity to make those choices count.
The great aim of the struggle for liberty has been to abolish the rule of men over men, to replace it with the rule of law.
The more we try to control the economy, the more we destroy the very forces that make it work.
There is no other way of bringing about a rapid adjustment to new conditions than by a change in prices.
The demand for security is one of the most potent instruments for the destruction of freedom.
The case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depends.
The ultimate source of value is human action.
The chief evil of the present system is not that it is unjust, but that it is inefficient.
The most important political problem of our time is how to prevent the growth of government from destroying the spontaneous order of society.
We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.
The desire to do good, if unrestrained by the understanding of how society works, can do immense harm.
The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought to make the student of society humble.
The state is and ought to be an instrument of the law, not of men.
The greatest danger to liberty is the growth of government.
Money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man.
Contemporaries of Friedrich Hayek
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992).