This Day in History: Economist Friedrich Hayek was born on this day (May 8) in 1899. He is best known for writing The Road to Serfdom which went on to sell 2 million copies, an outstanding achievement for an economics book.
Milton Friedman once said of Hayek: "There is no figure who had more of an influence, no person had more of an influence on the intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain than Friedrich Hayek. His books were translated and published by the underground and black market editions, read widely, and undoubtedly influenced the climate of opinion that ultimately brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union."
President Ronald Reagan listed Hayek as among the two or three people who most influenced his philosophy, and Margaret Thatcher often carried one of his books into Parliament with her.
Some great Hayek quotes:
“Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.”
“If socialists understood economics they wouldn't be socialists.”
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine the can design.”
“The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”
“'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.”
“Although we had been warned by some of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism.”
“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as De Tocqueville describes it, a new form of servitude.”
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