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Whenever it is necessary that one of several conflicting opinions should prevail and when one would have to be made to prevail by force if need be, it is less wasteful to determine which has the stronger support by counting numbers than by fighting.

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
Would
Opinion
Counting
Support
Opinions
Fighting
Several
Less
Determine
Force
Whenever
Need
Stronger
Wasteful
Needs
Necessary
Conflicting
Made
Numbers
Prevail

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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.
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There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess.
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If we can reduce the risk of friction likely to lead to war, this is probably all we can reasonably hope to achieve.
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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.
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Capitalism created the possibility of employment.
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The great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law.
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It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only those individuals know.
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Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.
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No human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society.
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The more the state plans the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
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Never will man penetrate deeper into error than when he is continuing on a road which has led him to great success
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Without the rich - without those who accumulated capital - those poor who could exist at all would be very much poorer indeed, scratching a livelihood from marginal lands on which every drought would kill most of the children they would be trying to raise.
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Liberty'''.that condition of man in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society
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The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state, and on whose desecration it depends whether and how I am allowed to live or to work.
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Socialism can only be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove.
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A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.
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At a time when most movements that are thought to be progressive advocate further encroachments on individual liberty, those who cherish freedom are likely to expend their energies in opposition. In this they find themselves much of the time on the same side as those who habitually resist change.
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