Political Works

"The disdain of profit is due to ignorance, and to an attitude that we may if we wish admire in the ascetic who has chosen to be content with a small share of the riches of this world, but which, when actualised in the form of restrictions on profits of others, is selfish to the extent that it imposes asceticism, and indeed deprivations of all sorts, on others."

"Language enables us not only to label objects given to our senses as distinct entities, but also to classify an infinite variety of combinations of distinguishing marks according to what we expect from them and what we may do with them. Such labelling, classification, and distinction is of course often vague. More importantly, all usage of language is laden with interpretations or theories about our surroundings. As Goethe recognised, all that we imagine to be factual is already theory: what we 'know' of our surroundings is our interpretation of them."

"Even now, outside the scientific examination of law, language and the market, studies of human affairs continue to be dominated by a vocabulary chiefly derived from animistic thinking."

"Much the worst use of 'social', one that wholly destroys the meaning of any word it qualifies, is in the almost universally used phrase 'social justice'."

"Envy and ignorance lead people to regard possessing more than one needs for current consumption as a matter for censure rather than merit."

"So far as we know, the extended order is probably the most complex structure in the universe - a structure in which biological organisms that are already highly complex have acquired the capacity to learn, to assimilate, parts of suprapersonal traditions enabling them to adapt themselves from moment to moment into an ever-changing structure possessing an order of a still higher level of complexity."

"Yet if the market economy did indeed prevail over other types of order because it enabled those groups that adopted its basic rules the better to multiply, then the calculation in market values is a calculation in terms of lives: individuals guided by this calculation did what most helped to increase their numbers, although this could hardly have been their intention."

"The undoubted historical connection between religion and the values that have shaped and furthered our civilisation, such as the family and several property, does not of course mean that there is any intrinsic connection between religion as such and such values. Among the founders of religions over the last two thousand years, many opposed property and the family. But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family."

"An altogether amazing feat....It fully supports the recent characterization of Hayek by the Economist that he is our time’s preeminent social philosopher."

"Bartley's approach to editing was perhaps best described in a Jan. 16, 1988, letter to Leif Wenar, another of Hayek's research assistants, who was to edit the latter two parts of "The Fatal Conceit." In this correspondence, also at the Hoover Institution, Bartley encouraged Wenar to edit Hayek's work on a massive scale: to compose introductions, conclusions, connective material, and summaries on Hayek's behalf, to link the second and third parts to the first part Bartley was working on, and to compose its conclusion. Hayek's essential message in "The Fatal Conceit" could be lost in the circumstances surrounding the work. This message was that people do not like capitalism because it relies on an unseen extended order over time to produce goods and services, and people instinctively like to see immediate, visible good. Similarly, the glamorous idea of what he termed "constructivist rationalism" (that individuals can design any sort of society they wish) is false. Rather, by following rules that enforce contracts, promote and preserve private property, and encourage exchange, mankind can produce the most and be freest and happiest."

"I don’t think it’s one of Hayek’s better works. It’s awfully forced. It’s put into this form of, “I’m going to show you once and for all, by God, and after you hear this you’ll have no answer to me whatsoever.” It’s not up to Hayek at his best."

"While traditional economic theory is clearly wrong in treating individuals as immutable "tastes" no less than technology were the primitives of the model we have no scientific basis on which to judge one set of moral values, one set of personality types, as superior to others. Thus, while Hayek may have been right in stressing the moral dimension of markets — the kind of consequences in shaping human nature that I have just described — he fails to provide us with a systematic approach for addressing these issues (e.g., see his 1989 book)."

"The conservative critique of radical projects is not mainly that the emancipatory goals of radicals are morally indefensible – although some conservatives criticize the underlying values of such projects as well – but that the uncontrollable, and usually negative, unintended consequences of these efforts at massive social change inevitably swamp the intended consequences. Radicals and revolutionaries suffer from what Frederick Hayek termed the “fatal conceit” – the belief that through rational calculation and political will, society can be designed in ways that will significantly improve the human condition."

"It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational than because they are sentient beings: and this quality, being common both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated by the former."

"As a result of his rootedness in the Western tradition, the Marxist intellectual obstinately believes in the inner man, whose change he expects and predicts, although this is in contradiction to his Marxist faith. Again, we may quote Rousseau, whom the intellectuals follow perhaps as often as they follow Marx: "For a society in its initial stages to be able to adopt the right political precepts and to follow the fundamental rules of the common good, the effect ought to become the cause: instead of the communal spirit being the achievement of the new institutions, it would be more desirable that it might inform them; [in other words, it would be better] if men were what they ought to be before the laws are instituted, rather than become what they ought to be through these laws.""

"I doubt whether any recent advocate of participatory democracy has made a case one-tenth as powerful as Rousseau made his. Let Rousseau stand, then, as the best advocate of participatory democracy we have. When you emerge from the spell cast over you by The Social Contract, what do you find? An argument so flawed as to be of precious little help today."

"Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they."

"If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?"

"tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship."

"The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas."

"Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by such a régime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too little in their eyes."

"There remains therefore the religion of man or Christianity -- not the Christianity of to-day, but that of the Gospel, which is entirely different. By means of this holy, sublime, and real religion all men, being children of one God, recognise one another as brothers, and the society that unites them is not dissolved even at death."

"All that destroys social unity is worthless; all institutions that set man in contradiction to himself are worthless."

"At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed."

"At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs; this is the case when the citizens, having fallen into servitude, have lost both liberty and will."

"The more concert reigns in the assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the general will. On the other hand, long debates, dissensions and tumult proclaim the ascendancy of particular interests and the decline of the State."

"But when the social bond begins to be relaxed and the State to grow weak, when particular interests begin to make themselves felt and the smaller societies to exercise an influence over the larger, the common interest changes and finds opponents: opinion is no longer unanimous; the general will ceases to be the will of all; contradictory views and debates arise; and the best advice is not taken without question."

"Peace, unity and equality are the enemies of political subtleties. Men who are upright and simple are difficult to deceive because of their simplicity; lures and ingenious pretexts fail to impose upon them, and they are not even subtle enough to be dupes. When, among the happiest people in the world, bands of peasants are seen regulating affairs of State under an oak, and always acting wisely, can we help scorning the ingenious methods of other nations, which make themselves illustrious and wretched with so much art and mystery?"

"Everything that is not in the course of nature has its disadvantages, civil society most of all. There are some unhappy circumstances in which we can only keep our liberty at others' expense, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only when the slave is most a slave. Such was the case with Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you are slaves yourselves; you pay for their liberty with your own. It is in vain that you boast of this preference; I find in it more cowardice than humanity."

"Sovereignty, for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be represented; it lies essentially in the general will, and will does not admit of representation: it is either the same, or other; there is no intermediate possibility. The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts. Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void - is, in fact, not a law."

"As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost."

"The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it."

"Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse."

"The bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less narrow than we imagine: it is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that confine them. Base souls have no belief in great men; vile slaves smile in mockery at the name of liberty."

"The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction."

"The very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affair, however little influence my voice may have in them."

"The advantage of tyrannical government therefore lies in acting at great distances. With the help of the rallying-points it establishes, its strength, like that of the lever,26 grows with distance. The strength of the people, on the other hand, acts only when concentrated: when spread abroad, it evaporates and is lost, like powder scattered on the ground, which catches fire only grain by grain. The least populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny: fierce animals reign only in deserts."

"the further from their source the public contributions are removed, the more burdensome they become. The charge should be measured not by the amount of the impositions, but by the path they have to travel in order to get back to those from whom they came. When the circulation is prompt and well-established, it does not matter whether much or little is paid; the people is always rich and, financially speaking, all is well. On the contrary, however little the people gives, if that little does not return to it, it is soon exhausted by giving continually: the State is then never rich, and the people is always a people of beggars."

"These difficulties have not escaped our writers, who, all the same, are not troubled by them. The remedy, they say, is to obey without a murmur: God sends bad kings in His wrath, and they must be borne as the scourges of Heaven. Such talk is doubtless edifying; but it would be more in place in a pulpit than in a political book. What are we to think of a doctor who promises miracles, and whose whole art is to exhort the sufferer to patience? We know for ourselves that we must put up with a bad government when it is there; the question is how to find a good one."

"When one king dies, another is needed; elections leave dangerous intervals and are full of storms; and unless the citizens are disinterested and upright to a degree which very seldom goes with this kind of government, intrigue and corruption abound. He to whom the State has sold itself can hardly help selling it in his turn and repaying himself, at the expense of the weak, the money the powerful have wrung from him. Under such an administration, venality sooner or later spreads through every part, and peace so enjoyed under a king is worse than the disorders of an interregnum. What has been done to prevent these evils? Crowns have been made hereditary in certain families, and an order of succession has been set up, to prevent disputes from arising on the death of kings. That is to say, the disadvantages of regency have been put in place of those of election, apparent tranquillity has been preferred to wise administration, and men have chosen rather to risk having children, monstrosities, or imbeciles as rulers to having disputes over the choice of good kings."

"The best kings desire to be in a position to be wicked, if they please, without forfeiting their mastery: political sermonisers may tell them to their hearts' content that, the people's strength being their own, their first interest is that the people should be prosperous, numerous and formidable; they are well aware that this is untrue. Their first personal interest is that the people should be weak, wretched, and unable to resist them."

"In a word, it is the best and most natural arrangement that the wisest should govern the many, when it is assured that they will govern for its profit, and not for their own."

"But, in proportion as artificial inequality produced by institutions became predominant over natural inequality, riches or power were put before age, and aristocracy became elective."

"The first societies governed themselves aristocratically. The heads of families took counsel together on public affairs. The young bowed without question to the authority of experience. Hence such names as priests, elders, senate, and gerontes. The savages of North America govern themselves in this way even now, and their government is admirable."

"for luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness; it sells the country to softness and vanity, and takes away from the State all its citizens, to make them slaves one to another, and one and all to public opinion."

"In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed."

"It is not good for him who makes the laws to execute them, or for the body of the people to turn its attention away from a general standpoint and devote it to particular objects. Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests in public affairs, and the abuse of the laws by the government is a less evil than the corruption of the legislator."

"If, in the different States, the number of supreme magistrates should be in inverse ratio to the number of citizens, it follows that, generally, democratic government suits small States, aristocratic government those of middle size, and monarchy great ones."

"In a perfect act of legislation, the individual or particular will should be at zero; the corporate will belonging to the government should occupy a very subordinate position; and, consequently, the general or sovereign will should always predominate and should be the sole guide of all the rest. According to the natural order, on the other hand, these different wills become more active in proportion as they are concentrated. Thus, the general will is always the weakest, the corporate will second, and the individual will strongest of all: so that, in the government, each member is first of all himself, then a magistrate, and then a citizen — in an order exactly the reverse of what the social system requires."

"In the person of the magistrate we can distinguish three essentially different wills: first, the private will of the individual, tending only to his personal advantage; secondly, the common will of the magistrates, which is relative solely to the advantage of the prince, and may be called corporate will, being general in relation to the government, and particular in relation to the State, of which the government forms part; and, in the third place, the will of the people or the sovereign will, which is general both in relation to the State regarded as the whole, and to the government regarded as a part of the whole."