Hayek wrote, The marvel [of prices] is that in a case like that of a scarcity of one raw material, without an order being issued, without more than perhaps a handful of people knowing the cause, tens of thousands of people whose identity could not be ascertained by months of investigation, are made to use the material or its products more sparingly; i.e., they move in the right direction. . . . I am convinced that if [the price system] were the result of deliberate human design, and if the people guided by the price changes understood that their decisions have significance far beyond their
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