Friedrich Hayek citations

“C'est une caractéristique essentielle d'une société libre que la situation d'un individu n'ait pas de rapport nécessaire avec l'opinion de ses concitoyens sur le mérite qu'il s'est acquis.”

La Route de la servitude (The Road to Serfdom), 1943

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“Bien des gens qui se considèrent très au-dessus des aberrations du nazisme et qui en haïssent très sincèrement toutes les manifestations, travaillent en même temps pour des idéaux dont la réalisation mènerait tout droit à cette tyrannie abhorrée.”

“Je dirai que, comme institutions pour le long terme, je suis complètement contre les dictatures. Mais une dictature peut être un système nécessaire pour une période transitoire. Parfois il est nécessaire pour un pays d'avoir, pour un temps, une forme ou une autre de pouvoir dictatorial. […] Personnellement je préfère un dictateur libéral plutôt qu'un gouvernement démocratique manquant de libéralisme. Mon impression personnelle est que […] au Chili par exemple, nous assisterons à la transition d'un gouvernement dictatorial vers un gouvernement libéral.”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

“Il n'y a rien dans les principes du libéralisme qui permette d'en faire un dogme immuable; il n'y a pas de règles stables, fixées une fois pour toutes. Il y a un principe fondamental : à savoir que dans la conduite de nos affaires nous devons faire le plus grand usage possible des forces sociales spontanées, et recourir le moins possible à la coercition.”

Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. […] Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression […] is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government.
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Autre

“[Le libéralisme économique] considère la concurrence comme supérieure non seulement parce qu'elle est dans la plupart des circonstances la méthode la plus efficace qu'on connaisse, mais plus encore parce qu'elle est la seule méthode qui permette d'ajuster nos activités les unes aux autres sans intervention arbitraire ou coercitive de l'autorité.”

La Route de la servitude (The Road to Serfdom), 1943

“La démocratie est avant tout un processus de formation de l'opinion. Son avantage principal ne réside pas dans sa méthode de sélection de ceux qui gouvernent, mais dans le fait que lorsqu'une grande partie de la population prend une part active dans la formation de l'opinion, il y a aussi une plus grande variété de personnes parmi lesquelles choisir de possibles gouvernants.”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

Friedrich Hayek Citations

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“Bien plutôt, déclarer que quelqu’un est responsable de ce qu’il fait tend à rendre ses actions différentes de ce qu’elles seraient s’il ne croyait pas l’être réellement. Nous assignons à un homme de la responsabilité, non pour dire que tel qu’il était il aurait pu agir autrement, mais afin de le rendre différent.”

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“Ambition, impatience, hâte d'agir sont souvent dignes d'admiration chez des individus, mais elles sont pernicieuses quand elles guident l'usage du pouvoir de contraindre et de corriger aux mains de gens qui, une fois investis de l'autorité, supposent que celle-ci s'accompagne d'une sagesse supérieure, et par conséquent du droit d'imposer aux autres leurs convictions.”

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“La concurrence est précieuse précisément parce qu’elle constitue une méthode de découverte, dont nous n’aurions pas besoin si ses résultats pouvaient être prédits.”

Friedrich Hayek livre Droit, législation et liberté

Droit, législation et liberté ('), 1973-1979

“Reconnaître l'individu comme juge en dernier ressort de ses propres fins, croire que dans la mesure du possible ses propres opinions doivent gouverner ses actes, telle est l'essence de l'individualisme.”

“La raison humaine ne peut ni prévoir ni modeler délibérément son propre devenir. Ses avancées consistent à déceler les endroits où elle s'est trompée.”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“La liberté individuelle est incompatible avec la suprématie d'un but unique auquel toute la société est subordonnée en permanence.”

“Si les hommes en tant que membres de la société civilisée peuvent poursuivre leurs fins individuelles avec plus de succès que s'ils étaient isolés, c'est largement parce que la civilisation leur permet constamment de tirer parti d'un savoir que personnellement ils n'ont pas; et l'emploi fait par chaque individu de son savoir particulier sert à d'autres qu'il ne connaît pas, en leur facilitant la poursuite de leurs buts respectifs.”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté (The Constitution of Liberty), 1960

“La philosophie politique n'a jamais autant de raisons de se soupçonner de faillir à son devoir que lorsqu'il constate que ses opinions personnelles sont très populaires.”

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“Le libéral considère que les bornes qu'il souhaite que la démocratie s'impose, sont précisément les limites dans lesquelles elle peut fonctionner efficacement et celles dans lesquelles elle peut vraiment diriger et contrôler les actes du gouvernement.”

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“En dernier ressort, la société de concurrence recourt à l'huissier, et l'économie dirigée, au bourreau.”

“Existe-t-il une échelle de valeurs que tout homme sensé puisse admettre, capable de justifier un nouvel ordre hiérarchique de la société et à même de satisfaire l'aspiration naturelle des hommes à la justice?”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

“Ce n'est pas la source mais la limitation du pouvoir qui l'empêche d'être arbitraire.”

La Route de la servitude (The Road to Serfdom), 1943

“La démocratie est essentiellement un moyen, un procédé utilitaire pour sauvegarder la paix intérieure et la liberté individuelle. En tant que telle, elle n'est nullement infaillible. N'oublions pas non plus qu'il a souvent existé plus de liberté culturelle et spirituelle sous un pouvoir autocratique que sous certaines démocraties, — et qu'il est au moins concevable que sous le gouvernement d'une majorité homogène et doctrinaire, la démocratie soit aussi tyrannique que la pire des dictatures.”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

“Aussi paradoxal que cela puisse paraître, il est sans doute vrai qu'une société libre qui réussit est toujours dans une large mesure une société attachée à des traditions.”

La Route de la servitude ('), 1943

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

“Qu’il fût possible aux hommes de vivre ensemble paisiblement et à leur mutuel avantage, sans avoir à se mettre d’accord sur des objectifs concrets communs, en étant tenus simplement par des règles de conduite abstraites, a été peut-être la plus grande découverte qu’ait jamais faite l’humanité.”

Friedrich Hayek livre Droit, législation et liberté

Droit, législation et liberté ('), 1973-1979

“La principale leçon que le vrai libéral doit retenir du succès des socialistes est que ce fut leur courage d'être des utopistes qui leur a valu le soutien des intellectuels et donc un pouvoir d'influence sur l'opinion publique, laquelle sait rendre tous les jours possible ce qui hier semblait hors d'atteinte. Ceux qui ne s'intéressent qu'à ce qui semble praticable dans l'état présent de l'opinion ont toujours pu constater que même cela devenait impossible à réaliser à mesure que survenaient des changements dans une opinion publique qu'ils n'avaient rien fait pour guider.”

“De même que la propriété de tous n'est en fait la propriété de personne, la responsabilité de tout le monde n'est la responsabilité de personne.”

Essais de philosophie, de science politique et d'économie, 1967

Friedrich Hayek livre La Constitution de la liberté

La Constitution de la liberté ('), 1960

Friedrich Hayek: Citations en anglais

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

“It is no exaggeration to say that the central aim of socialism is to discredit those traditional morals which keep us alive.”

Friedrich Hayek livre The Fatal Conceit

Source: 1980s and later, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), Ch. 5: The Fatal Conceit.
Contexte: Whereas, in fact, specialised students, even after generations of effort, find it exceedingly difficult to explain such matters, and cannot agree on what are the causes or what will be the effects of particular events. The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.

“The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

"The Origins and Effects of Our Morals: A Problem for Science", in The Essence of Hayek (1984)
1980s and later

“The advice I would give is: If you have the courage to do so, don't feel patriotic in monetary matters. Choose the money which helps you best.”

Source: 1940s–1950s, The Road to Serfdom (1944), Chapter 6: Planning and the Rule of Law

“We do not owe our morals to our intelligence: we owe them to the fact that some groups uncomprehendingly accepted certain rules of conduct — the rules of private property, of honesty, and of the family — that enabled the groups practising them to prosper, multiply, and gradually to displace the others.”

1980s and later, Interview in Silver & Gold Report (1980)

“I don't like criticizing Milton Friedman not only because he is an old friend but because, outside of monetary theory, we are in complete agreement. Our general views on what is desired and what is not are almost identical until we get on to money. But if I told him what I said before, that I very much doubt whether monetary policy has ever done anything good, he would disagree. He personally is convinced that a good monetary policy is a foundation for everything.”

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance", "Our Moral Heritage"

“Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.”

Exclusive Interview with F.A. Hayek by James U. Blanchard III, in Cato Policy Report (May/June 1984)
1980s and later

“I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions.”

Interview in El Mercurio (1981)
1980s and later
Contexte: Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America — is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement.

“Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.”

Conversation at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. (9 February 1978); published in A Conversation with Friedrich A. Von Hayek: Science and Socialism (1979)
1960s–1970s
Contexte: I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions. This is a belief deliberately maintained by the other side because if they admitted that the issue is not a scientific question, they would have to admit that their science is antiquated and that, in academic circles, it occupies the position of astrology and not one that has any justification for serious consideration in scientific discussion. It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.

“Any kind of discrimination — be it on grounds of religion, political opinion, race, or whatever it is — seems to be incompatible with the idea of freedom under the law. Experience has shown that separate never is equal and cannot be equal.”

Friedrich Hayek livre The Fatal Conceit

“Nobody who has lived through the rise of the violent anti-Semitism which led to Hitler can refuse Mrs. Thatcher admiration for her courageous and outspoken warning. When I grew up in Vienna the established Jewish families were a generally respected group and all decent people would frown upon the occasional anti-Jewish outbursts of a few popular politicians. It was the sudden influx of large numbers of Galician and Polish Jews [during World War I] … which in a short period changed the attitude. They were too visibly different to be readily absorbed.”

"Conversation with Systematic Liberalism," Forum (September 1961). 
1960s–1970s
Contexte: nowiki>[Apartheid law in South Africa] appears to be a clear and even extreme instance of that discrimination between different individuals which seems to me to be incompatible with the reign of liberty. The essence of what I said [in The Constitution of Liberty] was really the fact that the laws under which government can use coercion are equal for all responsible adult members of that society. Any kind of discrimination — be it on grounds of religion, political opinion, race, or whatever it is — seems to be incompatible with the idea of freedom under the law. Experience has shown that separate never is equal and cannot be equal.

“Questions about the influence of socialism are increasingly more difficult to answer as the word socialism has so many meanings. The idea that the inequalities of incomes can be greatly reduced has come to be recognized as largely impractical. Practically all endeavours at just distribution express more or less arbitrary conceptions of what is just and the central idea of Marxian socialism of a rationalisation of the means of production has been largely abandoned as technically impracticable. I believe that in general the idea of justice is more closely met by a freely competitive market than by any deliberate allocation of income to some imagined ideal of the kind.”

Letter to The Times after Thatcher claimed that British people were afraid of being "swamped" by people of a different culture. (11 February 1978), p. 15
1960s–1970s

“A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.”

December 13, 1991, quoted in Friedrich Hayek: A Biography (2001) by Alan O. Ebenstein
1980s and later

“Perhaps I'm unrealistic. As long as people do not fully realize the danger of inflation, they may well pressure for more inflation as a short-term remedy for evils. Though we may well be driven into more, until people have learned the lesson, but that means that inflation may still do more of a great deal of harm, before it will be cured.”

Source: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 79.

“Yet, though the French Revolution was so largely inspired by the ideal of the Rule of Law, it is questionable whether it really helped the advance towards that ideal. In its course too many different aspirations gained influence which it was difficult to reconcile with that ideal.”

1975 interview https://mises.org/library/hayek-meets-press-1975 on "Meet the Press." <br class="br">1960s–1970s

“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.”

Lecture II. Liberalism and Administration: The Rechtsstaat - 7. Montesquieu, Rousseau, and the French Revolution
1940s–1950s, The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)

“Our basic problem is that we have three levels, I would say, of moral beliefs. We have the first instance, our intuitive moral feelings which are adapted to the small, person-to-person society where we act for people whom we know and are served by people whom we know. Then, we have a society governed by moral traditions which, unlike what modern rationalists believe, are not intellectual discoveries of men who designed them, but as a result of a persons, which I now prefer to describe as term of 'group selection.' Those groups who had accidentally developed such as the tradition of private property and the family who did succeed, but never understood this. So we owe our present extended order of human cooperation very largely to a moral tradition which the intellectual does not approve of, because it has never been intellectually designed and it has to compete with a third level of moral beliefs, those which the morals which the intellectuals designed in the hope that they can better satisfy man's instincts than the traditional morals to do. And we live in a world where three moral traditions are in constant conflict, the innate ones, the traditional ones, and the intellectually designed ones, and ultimately, all our political conflicts of this time can be reduced as affected by a conflict between free moral tradition of a different nature, not only of different content.”

Lecture III. The Safeguards of Individual Liberty - 19. Fundamental Rights and the Protected Private Sphere
1940s–1950s, The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)

“All economic activity is carried out through time. Every individual economic process occupies a certain time, and all linkages between economic processes necessarily involve longer or shorter periods of time.”

in 1985 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11AXDT5824Y with John O'Sullivan <br class="br">1980s and later

“It seems to me more and more that the immense efforts which during the great popularity of macroeconomics over the last thirty or forty years have been devoted to it, were largely misspent, and that if we want to be useful in the future we shall have to be content to improve and spread the admittedly limited insights which microeconomics conveys.I believe it is only microeconomics which enables us to understand the crucial functions of the market process: that it enables us to make effective use of information about thousands of facts of which nobody can have full knowledge.”

"Intertemporal Price Equilibrium and Movement in the Value of Money" (1928)
1920s–1930s

“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.”

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance"
Source: http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/coping-with-ignorance/

“If the world as a whole returned to the gold standard there would be such fluctuations in the value of gold that it would very soon prove impractical.
Today an international gold standard could only mean that a few countries would maintain a real gold standard. The other countries would hang on to the system through a gold exchange standard — where the currency isn't really redeemable in gold but the government attempts to keep a fixed rate between its currency and gold.”

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

“I have certainly never contended that generally authoritarian governments are more likely to secure individual liberty than democratic ones, but rather the contrary. This does not mean, however, that in some historical circumstances personal liberty may not have been better protected under an authoritarian than democratic government. (…) More recently I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende. Nor have I heard any sensible person claim that in the principalities of Monaco or Lichtenstein, which I am told are not precisely democratic, personal liberty is smaller than anywhere else!”

1980s and later, Interview in Silver & Gold Report (1980)

“Those communities who adopted the new rules and, in doing so, infringed upon deeply embedded natural feelings became the successful ones, the ones who multiplied because they were more prosperous and were able to attract people from other groups.”

Letter to The Times (3 August 1978), p. 15
1960s–1970s

“Since the value of freedom rests on the opportunities it provides for unforeseen and unpredictable actions, we will rarely know what we lose through a particular restriction of freedom.”

1980s and later, Knowledge, Evolution and Society (1983), "Coping with Ignorance", "The Reactionary Nature of the Socialist Conception"

“If a big country like the United States did return to the gold standard, it would start a great deflation. Most likely the government couldn't stick to it for long. They'd switch the policy to some halfway measure like a gold exchange standard.”

“Principles or Expediency?” Toward Liberty: Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises on the Occasion of his 90th Birthday (29 September 1971)
1960s–1970s

“I feared that such a prize, as I believe is true of the activities of some of the great scientific foundations, would tend to accentuate the swings of scientific fashion. This apprehension the selection committee has brilliantly refuted by awarding the prize to one whose views are as unfashionable as mine are.”

1980s and later, Interview in Silver & Gold Report (1980)

“I don't know what monetarism is. If monetarism just means a good old-fashioned quantity theory, of course it has not failed. If it means the particular version of Milton Friedman, I think it has because he imagines that he can achieve — ascertain — a clear quantity relationship between a measurable quantity of money and the price level. I don't think that is possible. In fact, just about 40 years ago in the opening sentences of my book, Prices and Production, I wrote that it would be a great misfortune if people ever cease to believe in the quantity theory of money. It would be even worse ever to believe it literally. And that's exactly what Milton Friedman does.”

1960s–1970s, Nobel Banquet Speech (1974)

“All the paradigms of culturally evolved institutions, morals, exchange, and money refer to such practices whose benefits transcend the individuals who practice them in the particular instances. The result is that whole groups may be helped by them to expand into what I shall call extended orders, through the effects of practices of which the individuals are not aware. Such practices can lead to the formation of orderly structures far exceeding the perception of those whose actions produce them.”

"Interview with F. A. Hayek", in Cato Policy Report (February 1983)
1980s and later

“I've always doubted that the socialists had a leg to stand on intellectually. They have improved their argument somehow, but once you begin to understand that prices are an instrument of communication and guidance which embody more information than we directly have, the whole idea that you can bring about the same order based on the division of labor by simple direction falls to the ground. Similarly, the idea [that] you can arrange for distributions of incomes which correspond to some conception of merit or need. If you need prices, including the prices of labor, to direct people to go where they are needed, you cannot have another distribution except the one from the market principle. I think that intellectually there is just nothing left of socialism.”

"The Origins and Effects of Our Morals: A Problem for Science", in The Essence of Hayek (1984)
1980s and later

“I don’t believe we’re in for a crash now. It's much more likely that government will just conceal the continuation of inflation by price controls. But if anything is worse than an open inflation, it’s a repressed inflation. What you’re likely to get is not a violent deflation but increasing stagnation of productivity.”

Interview with Thomas W. Hazlett in May of 1977, as published in " The Road to Serfdom, Forseeing the Fall", in Reason magazine (July 1992) http://reason.com/archives/1992/07/01/the-road-from-serfdom <br class="br">1960s–1970s