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It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.

Friedrich August von Hayek

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Friedrich August von Hayek
Age: 92 †
Born: 1899
Born: May 8
Died: 1992
Died: March 23
Economist
Historian
Philosopher
Political Scientist
University Teacher
Vienna
Austria
Friedrich August von Hayek
Friedrich von Hayek
Friedrich A. von Hayek
Friedrich A. Von Hayek
F. A. von Hayek
Friedrich August Von Hayek
Hayek
F. A. Hayek
Better
Majority
Different
Progress
Way
Ways
Prescribe
Always
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Learns
Would
Understanding
Minority
Acting
Minorities
Knowledge
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More quotes by Friedrich August von Hayek

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If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.
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Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.
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Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.
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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.
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We know: of course, with regard to the market and similar social structures, a great many facts which we cannot measure and on which indeed we have only some very imprecise and general information.
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Once politics become a tug-of-war for shares in the income pie, decent government is impossible.
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The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception.
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The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.
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Independence of mind or strength of character is rarely found among those who cannot be confident that they will make their way by their own effort.... Indeed, when security is understood in too absolute a sense, the general striving for it, far from increasing the chances of freedom, becomes the greatest threat to it.
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...the case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend.
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The [classical] liberal, of course, does not deny that there are some superior people -- he is not an egalitarian -- but he denies that anyone has authority to decide who these superior people are.
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The state itself becomes more and more identified with the interests of those who run things than with the interests of the people in general.
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The idea of social justice is that the state should treat different people unequally in order to make them equal.
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To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about.
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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.
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The more the state plans the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
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To combat depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection -- a procedure which can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end.
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Hayek was making us think of the productive process as a process in time, inputs coming before outputs.
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Capitalism created the possibility of employment.
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Any man who is only an economist is unlikely to be a good one.
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