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 demand for security is very often nothing but a demand for privilege.
The greatest danger to liberty lurks in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but lacking in understanding.
Individual freedom is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
The curious thing about the demand for 'social justice' is that it is a demand for something that cannot exist in a free society.
The state should be a protector, not a provider.
The case for competition rests on the fact that it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority.
The problem is not whether we should have a planned economy, but whether planning should be done by a central authority or by individuals.
The only way to preserve liberty is to limit the power of government.
The road to serfdom is paved with good intentions.
The economic order is not a product of human design, but of human action.
The ultimate end of the state is not to make men happy, but to enable them to make themselves happy.
The state should confine itself to creating conditions under which the maximum number of people can make their own plans and choices.
The great tragedy of our time is that we have come to regard the state as the primary instrument for achieving our ends.
The market is a discovery procedure.
The more we try to make the world just, the more unjust it becomes.
The rule of law, in its ideal sense, means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand.
The price system is a kind of marvel, a system of communication that allows millions of people to coordinate their actions without any central direction.
The great problem of economics is to reconcile the independence of individuals with the necessity of social cooperation.
The state is a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless.
The more the state tries to do, the less it does well.
Contemporaries of Friedrich Hayek
Other Economicss born within 50 years of Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992).