The Fatal Conceit Quotes

“Our moral traditions, like many other aspects of our culture, developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product. Surprising and paradoxical as it may seem to some to say this, these moral traditions outstrip the capacities of reason.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

“By ‘reason properly used’ I mean reason that recognises its own limitations and, itself taught by reason, faces the implications of the astonishing fact, revealed by economics and biology, that order generated without design can far outstrip plans men consciously contrive.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

“The main point of my argument is, then, that the conflict between, on one hand, advocates of the spontaneous extended human order created by a competitive market, and on the other hand those who demand a deliberate arrangement of human interaction by central authority based on collective command over available resources is due to a factual error by the latter about how knowledge of these resources is and can be generated and utilised.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

“If it were for instance true that central direction of the means of production could effect a collective product of at least the same magnitude as that which we now produce, it would indeed prove a grave moral problem how this could be done justly.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

“an evolutionary theory of morality is indeed emerging, and its essential insight is that our morals are neither instinctual nor a creation of reason, but constitute a separate tradition – ‘between instinct and reason’, as the title of the first chapter indicates – a tradition of staggering importance in enabling us to adapt to problems and circumstances far exceeding our rational capacities.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

“I have been contending that socialism constitutes a threat to the present and future welfare of the human race, in the sense that neither socialism nor any other known substitute for the market order could sustain the current population of the world.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Book 1)

“The most dangerous person on earth is the arrogant intellectual who lacks the humility necessary to see that society needs no masters and cannot be planned from the top down.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (Paper)(Hardback) - 1991 Edition