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If socialists understood economics, they wouldn’t be socialist.

Friedrich August von Hayek

He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Growth Handwork Shapes
If democracy is a means rather than an end, its limits must be determined in the light of the purpose we want it to serve.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Democracy Light Mean
With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Government Issues People
Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Civilization Opportunity Pride
All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Ignorant Liberty Political Wisdom
If socialists understood economics, they wouldn’t be socialist.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Economics Politics Socialist
It is of the essence of the demand for equality before the law that people should be treated alike in spite of the fact that they are different.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Essence Law People
Conservatism is only as good as what it conserves.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Conservatism Conserves Good
In no other field has the world yet paid so dearly for the abandonment of nineteenth-century liberalism as in the field where the retreat began: in international relations. Yet only a small part of the lesson which experience ought to have taught us has been learned.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Lessons Taught Us World
It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody’s permission or to obey anybody’s orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Men Order Responsibility
Socialism can only be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Politics Practice Socialism
[T]hose who are willing to surrender their freedom for security have always demanded that if they give up their full freedom it should also be taken from those not prepared to do so.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Giving Surrender Taken Up
Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by democratic assemblies.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Agency Assembly Purpose
This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Done Economic Planning
We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Justice Umpires Views
$Friedrich August von Hayek Quote - There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess.$

There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess.
FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK

Boards Exercise Planning