Top Friederich Hayek Quotes (Nobel Prize Winning Economist)

The man's own pen ^ | Various | Friederich Hayek

[Uncle Miltie]

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine the can design.”

“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 doing better.”

“The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

“While an equality of rights under a limited government is possible and an essential condition of individual freedom, a claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.”

“If socialists understood economics they wouldn't be socialists.”

“... I prefer true but imperfect knowledge, even if it leaves much undetermined and unpredictable, to a pretense of exact knowledge that is likely to be false.”

“We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.... Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.”

“Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.”

“I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.”

“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 doing better.”

[Liberty Valance]

bttt

[Uncle Miltie]

So I have taken up the project of an Economic Conservatives Ping List.

I see you two understand. Which of you will pick what sort of project, eh?

National Security Conservative
Fiscal Conservative
Social Conservative
Constitutional Conservative
Federalist
etc.

We need you!

You obviously know the project we must embark upon. Please CREATE.

[Jacquerie]

I cringe when Leftists use the term, “justice.” They typically add an adjective before it. When they do, whatever results isn't justice.

The Left is incredibly adept at appropriating freedom enhancing concepts and turning their meaning around to justify their nefarious purposes.

‘Justice’ is one such term.

Since from at least the days of the 13th century St. Thomas Aquinas, justice has meant accordance with Natural Law.

To the extent that Leftists give rip about our Declaration of Independence at all, they tell us that consent alone makes political power just. Not true, so long as we recognize that the governed, as envisioned in the Declaration, are subject to the Natural Law.

Absent compliance with Natural Law, that which is just is a matter of majority rule. This would remove the moral justification of our revolution and places man above God.