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1899–1992 Austria
Friedrich August von Hayek CH (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992) was an Austrian, later British, economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Gunnar Myrdal) for his "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and … penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena". (Nobel Memorial Prize, 1974)
Austria Academics Authors Economists Nobel laureates Also known as: F. A. Hayek, F. A. von Hayek, F.A. Hayek, F.A. von Hayek, Frederick Hayek, Friedrich A. Hayek
Random Friedrich Hayek quote
68 quotes
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions … Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.
The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
These morals, or better this moral tradition, is the result of an evolution which occurred parallel to, and yet distinct from both biological evolution on the one hand, and the evolution of our intellect on the other hand.
There may thus well exist better "scientific" evidence for a false theory, which will be accepted because it is more "scientific", than for a valid explanation, which is rejected because there is no sufficient quantitative evidence for it.
The Socratic maxim that the recognition of our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom has profound significance for our understanding of society. The first requisite for this is that we become aware of men’s necessary ignorance of much that helps him to achieve his aims.
The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.
The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that the greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regards as the public good.
The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
May one who has devoted a large part of his life to the study of the history and the principles of liberalism point out that a party that keeps a socialist government in power clearly has lost all title to the name “Liberal”. Certainly no liberal can in future vote “Liberal”.
The case for individual freedom rests chiefly on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depend.
The Constitution of Liberty (1960)
The mechanism by which the interaction of democratic decisions and their implementation by the experts often produces results which nobody has desired is a subject which would deserve much more careful attention than it usually receives.
The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)
In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have seriously to examine whether the award of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of risk bearing which investment in scientific research involves.
However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as "the most anti-social and evil of all passions".
The human groups have been selected for the effects of their habitual practices, effects of which the individuals were not and could not be aware. Customs are mostly group properties, beneficial only if they are common properties of its individual members but referring to reciprocal action. Morals have not only been designed by man, but man also usually does not understand their reason.
To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be always controlled unless we declare our specific purpose. Or, since when we declare our specific purpose we shall also have to get it approved, we should really be controlled in everything.
The Road to Serfdom (1944)
And since any inflation, however modest at first, can help employment only so long as it accelerates, adopted as a means of reducing unemployment, it will do so for any length of time only while it accelerates. "Mild" steady inflation cannot help—it can lead only to outright inflation. That inflation at a constant rate soon ceases to have any stimulating effect, and in the end merely leaves us with a backlog of delayed adaptations, is the conclusive argument against the "mild" inflation represented as beneficial even in standard economics textbooks.
If a big country like the United States did return to the gold standard, it would start a great deflation. Most likely the government couldn't stick to it for long. They'd switch the policy to some halfway measure like a gold exchange standard.
The illiterate expression ‘given data’ constantly recurs in Lange. It appears to have an irresistable attraction to mathematical economists because it doubly assures them that they know what they do not know. It seems to bewitch them into making assertions about the real world for which they have no empirical justification whatever.
What the planning authority would have to know would not be the mere totals but the distinct, peculiar conditions prevailing in each enterprise which affect the information about values transmitted through market prices but would be completely lost in any statistical information about quantities that might reach the authority from time to time.
The treatment of the South Tirolese by the Italians, even before the advent of Fascism worse than anything known until then in modern times in any part of Western or Central Europe, has made the population more unwilling than ever to endure it further.
The only way you can finance a deficit is by inflation. You cannot raise this amount of money by genuine borrowing. You borrow from the banks, which create credit for the purpose. A large government deficit is a certain way to inflation.
I don't believe that we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, and since we can't take them violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something they can't stop.
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