I suggested before that the whole of economic history could be rewritten in terms of this gradual suppression of the primitive in­stincts by what we … - Friedrich Hayek

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I suggested before that the whole of economic history could be rewritten in terms of this gradual suppression of the primitive in­stincts by what we very mistakenly call “artificial” rules. Of course, they are not in the strict sense artificial. Nobody ever invented them. They were not the result of design. The new manners of conduct were not adopted because anybody thought they were better. They were adopted because somebody who acted on them profited from it and his group gained from it, and so these rules, without anybody under­ standing them—that is very important for the later part of my argu­ment—without anybody understanding in what way they benefited their community, gradually came to be generally accepted.

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About Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek CH (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992) was an Austrian, later British, economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek shared the (with Gunnar Myrdal) for his "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and … penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena". (Nobel Memorial Prize, 1974)

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Native Name: Friedrich August von Hayek
Alternative Names: Friedrich von Hayek Friedrich A. von Hayek Friedrich A. Von Hayek F. A. von Hayek Friedrich August Von Hayek Hayek F. A. Hayek
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Additional quotes by Friedrich Hayek

The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be a wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.

What all this amounts to, then, is that the Rule of Law requires that administrative discretion in coercive action (i.e., in interfering with the person and property of the private citizen) must always be subject to review by an independent court which is not an instrument of, or even privy to, the aims of current governmental policy; that its review must in all such instances extend to the substance of the administrative act and not merely to the question whether it was infra or ultra vires; and that, if such a court finds that the rights of private citizens have been infringed, it will assess damages just as if the right of this person had been violated by another private citizen. This, in addition to the familiar requirements of generality, equality, and certainty of the law is really the crux of the matter, the decisive point on which it depends whether the Rule of Law prevails or not.

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A reconsideration of the discussion in which I took an active part more than 40 years ago has left me with a rather depressing view of the somewhat shameful state of what has become an established part of economic science, the subject of 'economic systems'. It appears to me that in this subject political attractiveness has been preserved by the flimsiest of arguments. The kindest thing one can say is that some well-meaning people have allowed themselves to be deceived by the vague and thoughtless language commonly used by specialists in the theory of these issues.

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