Understanding Hayek in Ten Seconds

Contributed by: filbert Sunday, December 06 2009 @ 08:00 AM CST

As you may have noticed, I've been featuring as my Thoughts for the Day snippets from F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, one of the seminal works of political philosophy of the Twentieth Century--a true cautionary tale written by someone who lived through the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and then through the bitter global conflict which was necessary to defeat--for a very short time--the philosophy of socialism.

The "Austrian School" of economics--Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and others--were and are[*1] principled proponents of individual liberty and choice. One of the central tenets of Austrian economics--and one of the most devastating (and hence by Old Media and academia most ignored) critiques of government intervention in economic matters, is the "knowledge problem."

A lot of words have been written to explain the knowledge problem, but this from Virginia Postrel sums it up much more efficiently than any other description I've ever seen--very apropos of this Christmas season:

The problem of buying good presents for other people, even people you supposedly know well, illustrates that old familiar Hayekian concept, the knowledge problem.[*2]

If you can't even give your loved ones the right presents, how likely is it that a central authority could make the right decisions for everyone?

Emphasis mine. Via Instapundit.[*3]

Medary.com - Understanding Hayek in Ten Seconds
http://www.medary.com/article.php/200912060800191

[*1] http://mises.org/
[*2] http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
[*3] http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/