Quote Of The Day

A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty

Equality & Inequality

In The Constitution of Liberty Hayek writes:

From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either the one or the other, but not both at the same time. (p. 150)

Open Letter to Barack Obama

Check out Professor Boudreaux's Open Letter to Barack Obama. Here is the punchline:

With respect, sir, you’re complaining about the source of our prosperity.

I hate it when this happens. Don't you wish more leaders in Washington understood how the world works and why we are able to live such prosperous lives?

Human Reason Advances

Hayek in THE CONSTITUTION OF LIBERTY:

Human reason can neither predict nor deliberately shape its own future. Its advances consist in finding out where it has been wrong. (p. 94)

Why Is Water Scarce?

The following comes from a middle school textbook on civics and economics:

Even a seemingly plentiful resource such as water is considered scarce because it is not free; we pay to use it.

What is wrong with this idea?

Civilization Begins

Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty:

The Socratic maxim that the recognition of our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom has profound significance for our understanding of society. The first requisite for this is that we become aware of men's necessary ignorance of much that helps him to achieve his aims. Most of the advantages of social life, especially in its more advanced forms which we call "civilization," rest on the fact that the individual benefits from more knowledge than he is aware of. It might be said that civilization begins when the individual in the pursuit of his ends can make use of more knowledge than he has himself acquired and when he can transcend the boundaries of his ignorance by profiting from knowledge he does not himself possess.