Friedrich August von Hayek citáty

„Společnost je víc než jednotlivec, pouze je-li svobodná.“

—  Friedrich August von Hayek

„Neexistuje důvod, proč by sociolog měl z přírodních věd znát více než ti, jejichž činnost se snaží vysvětlit, a proto neexistuje ani důvod, proč by vývoj poznání měl čekat na to, až přírodní vědy dosáhnou určitého stupně svého vývoje.“

—  Friedrich August von Hayek

Zdroj: [2008, Auguste Comte - 150 let po smrti, Cep, 1, 59, 978-80-86547-87-9]

„Neexistuje důvod, proč by sociolog měl z přírodních věd znát více než ti, jejichž činnost se snaží vysvětlit, a proto neexistuje ani důvod, proč by vývoj poznání měl čekat na to, až přírodní vědy dosáhnou určitého stupně svého vývoje.“

—  Friedrich August von Hayek

Zdroj: [2008, Auguste Comte - 150 let po smrti, Cep, 1, 59, 978-80-86547-87-9]

„The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.“

—  Friedrich Hayek, kniha The Fatal Conceit

Zdroj: 1980s and later, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), Ch. 5: The Fatal Conceit.
Kontext: Whereas, in fact, specialised students, even after generations of effort, find it exceedingly difficult to explain such matters, and cannot agree on what are the causes or what will be the effects of particular events. The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.

„Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Interview in El Mercurio (1981)
1980s and later
Kontext: Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America — is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement.

„I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Conversation at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. (9 February 1978); published in A Conversation with Friedrich A. Von Hayek: Science and Socialism (1979)
1960s–1970s
Kontext: I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions. This is a belief deliberately maintained by the other side because if they admitted that the issue is not a scientific question, they would have to admit that their science is antiquated and that, in academic circles, it occupies the position of astrology and not one that has any justification for serious consideration in scientific discussion. It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.

„Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.“

—  Friedrich Hayek, kniha The Fatal Conceit

Zdroj: 1980s and later, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), Ch. 5: The Fatal Conceit.
Kontext: Whereas, in fact, specialised students, even after generations of effort, find it exceedingly difficult to explain such matters, and cannot agree on what are the causes or what will be the effects of particular events. The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.

„Any kind of discrimination — be it on grounds of religion, political opinion, race, or whatever it is — seems to be incompatible with the idea of freedom under the law. Experience has shown that separate never is equal and cannot be equal.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

"Conversation with Systematic Liberalism," Forum (September 1961). <!-- p. 6. ; also in Friedrich Hayek : A Biography (2003) by Alan O. Ebenstein-->
1960s–1970s
Kontext: nowiki>[Apartheid law in South Africa] appears to be a clear and even extreme instance of that discrimination between different individuals which seems to me to be incompatible with the reign of liberty. The essence of what I said [in The Constitution of Liberty] was really the fact that the laws under which government can use coercion are equal for all responsible adult members of that society. Any kind of discrimination — be it on grounds of religion, political opinion, race, or whatever it is — seems to be incompatible with the idea of freedom under the law. Experience has shown that separate never is equal and cannot be equal.

„The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Zdroj: 1940s–1950s, The Road to Serfdom (1944), Chapter 6: Planning and the Rule of Law

„What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Zdroj: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 6.

„Since only actions aimed at perceived benefit to others were, to Aristotle's mind, morally approved, actions solely for personal gain must be bad. That commercial considerations may not have affected the daily activities of most people does not mean however that over any prolonged period their very lives did not depend on the functioning of a trade that enabled them to buy essentials. That production for gain which Aristotle denounced as unnatural had -- long before his time -- already become the foundation of an extended order far transcending the known needs of other persons.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Zdroj: 1980s and later, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), p. 46

„If craftsmen and blacksmiths were feared for transforming material substance, if traders were feared for transforming such intangible qualities as value, how much more will the banker be feared for the transformations he effects with the most abstract and immaterial of all economic institutions? Thus we reach the climax of the progressive replacement of the perceivable and concrete by abstract concepts shaping rules guiding activity: money and its institutions seem to be beyond the boundary of laudable and understandable physical efforts of creation, in a realm where the comprehension of the concrete ceases and incomprehensible abstractions rule.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Zdroj: 1980s and later, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), p.102

„If the world as a whole returned to the gold standard there would be such fluctuations in the value of gold that it would very soon prove impractical.
Today an international gold standard could only mean that a few countries would maintain a real gold standard. The other countries would hang on to the system through a gold exchange standard — where the currency isn't really redeemable in gold but the government attempts to keep a fixed rate between its currency and gold.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

1980s and later, Interview in Silver & Gold Report (1980)

„I feared that such a prize, as I believe is true of the activities of some of the great scientific foundations, would tend to accentuate the swings of scientific fashion. This apprehension the selection committee has brilliantly refuted by awarding the prize to one whose views are as unfashionable as mine are.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

1960s–1970s, Nobel Banquet Speech (1974)

„Our morality itself is the result of a process of cultural selection. Those things survive which enable the species to multiply.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance", "Our Moral Heritage"

„Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change. It has, since the French Revolution, for a century and a half played an important role in European politics. Until the rise of socialism its opposite was liberalism… There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of the United States, because what in Europe was called ‘liberalism’ was here the common tradition on which the American polity had been built: thus the defender of the American tradition was a liberal in the European sense.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

"Why I am Not a Conservative" https://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/excerpt/2011/hayek_constitution.html
1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960)

„Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

Zdroj: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 83.

„I think the basic misconception is to speak of the so-called “best” allocation of resources. What is the best? In common economics it is defined as what would be if we knew everything. Economists operate with the fictitious assumption that all the relevant data is known, but this is totally unrealistic. Nobody knows all the data. What we have is widely dispersed knowledge, which cannot be concentrated in one mind. To call the situation—which would use all the knowledge available—“optimal” is nonsense because it is by definition a non-achievable solution. Our problem is not the full utilization of all knowledge but the best use we can achieve with any known institutional structure. In that sense, some oligopolistic (and even monopolistic situations), represent the best possible utilization of knowledge that we can achieve. Even the action of a monopolist can be extremely beneficial.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

1960s–1970s

„There is no salvation for Britain unless the special privileges granted to the trade unions in 1906 are revoked. The average level of real wages of British workers would undoubtedly be higher, and their chances of finding employment better, if the wages of different occupations were again determined by the market and all limitations on the work an individual is allowed to do were removed.“

—  Friedrich Hayek

"Trade Unions — The Biggest Obstacle", Economic Affairs (October 1980)
1980s and later