The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

by Friedrich A. Hayek

Most knowledge – and I confess it took me some time to recognise this – is obtained not from immediate experience or observation, but in the continuous process of sifting a learnt tradition, which requires individual recognition and following of moral traditions that are not justifiable in terms of the canons of traditional theories of rationality. The tradition is the product of a process of selection from among irrational, or, rather, ‘unjustified’ beliefs which, without anyone’s knowing or intending it, assisted the proliferation of those who followed them (with no necessary relationship to the reasons – as for example religious reasons – for which they were followed). The process of selection that shaped customs and morality could take account of more factual circumstances than individuals could perceive, and in consequence tradition is in some respects superior to, or ‘wiser’ than, human reason (see chapter one above). This decisive insight is one that only a very critical rationalist could recognise.