Hayek_Quotes

Production processes that take more time will not be adopted unless they yield a greater return than those that take less time. -- Friedrich Hayek

edited

Economists have so mixed up two sorts of propositions, the priori and the empirical, that it is frequently quite impossible to see what sort of validity they claimed for a particular statement. — Friedrich Hayek

— Friedrich Hayek, edited

The central question of social science: how the combination of fragments of knowledge existing in different minds can bring about results which, if they were to be brought about deliberately, would require a knowledge on the part of the directing mind which no person can possess.

abridged

While the problem of the Division of Labour has been one of the main subjects of investigation since the beginning of our science, the problem of the Division of Knowledge has been neglected, although it is the really central problem of economics as a social science. — F. Hayek

Hayek: “Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge.” “But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place.” “It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active cooperation.”

The adjective 'liberal' gradually assumed its political connotation during the latter part of the 18th century when it was used in such occasional phrases as when Adam Smith wrote of 'the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice'. -- Friedrich Hayek

Adam Smith's decisive contribution was the account of a self-generating order which formed itself spontaneously if individuals were restrained by appropriate rules of law. His *Wealth of Nations* more than any work marks the beginning of the development .. 1/2

.. of modern liberalism. It made people understand that those restrictions on the powers government which had originated from sheer distrust of arbitrary power had become the chief cause of Britain's economic posterity. -- Friedrich Hayek, edited 2/2

The adjective 'liberal' gradually assumed its political connotation during the later part of the eighteenth century when it was used in such occasional phrases as when Adam Smith wrote of 'the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice'. -- Friedrich Hayek

The full significance of the division of labour is often not appreciated, because most people think of it—partly because of the classical illustration given by Adam Smith—as a designed intra-mural arrangement in which different individuals contribute the successive .. 1/4

.. steps in a planned process for shaping certain products. In fact, however, co-ordination by the market of the endeavours of different enterprises in supplying the raw materials, tools and semi-finished products which the turning out of the final commodity requires, is .. 2/4

.. probably much more important than the organised collaboration of numerous specialist workers. It is in a great measure this inter-firm division of labour, or specialisation, on which the achievement of the competitive market depends, and which that market makes possible. 3/4

-- Friedrich Hayek 4/4

“Marxism has led to Fascism and National Socialism, because, in all essentials, it is Fascism and National Socialism.” — Friedrich Hayek

Much pretended altruism consists in a desire to make others serve the ends which the “altruist” regards as important. — Friedrich Hayek

Altruism, to be a virtue, certainly does not presuppose that one has to follow another person's will. — Friedrich Hayek

Adam Smith’s formula described the condition of freedom unnecessarily and unfortunately suggests a connection of the argument for individual freedom with egotism or selfishness. — Friedrich Hayek, abridged

The freedom to pursue his own aims is in fact at least as important for the complete altruist as for the most selfish. — Friedrich Hayek