The successful use of competition as the principle of social organization precludes certain types of coercive interference with economic life, but it admits of others which sometimes may very considerably assist its work and even requires certain kinds of government action. But there is good reason why the negative requirements, the points where coercion must not be used, have been particularly stressed.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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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 Hayek
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That democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something so utterly different that few of those who wish it would be prepared to accept the consequences, many will not believe until the connection has been laid bare in all its aspects.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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Before we can try to remold society intelligently, we must understand its functioning; we must realise that, even when we believe that we understand it, we may be mistaken.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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The gradual transformation of a rigidly organized hierarchic system into one where men could at least attempt to shape their own life, where man gained the opportunity of knowing and choosing between different forms of life, is closely associated with the growth of commerce.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?
~ Friedrich Hayek
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Liberalism is not averse to evolution and change; and where spontaneous change has been smothered by government control, it wants a great deal of change of policy.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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If in the long run we are the makers of our own fate, in the short run we are the captives of the ideas we have created. Only if we recognize the danger in time can we hope to avert it.
~ Friedrich Hayek
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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 Hayek
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