Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek (May 8, 1899 in Vienna – March 23, 1992 in Freiburg) was an economist and social scientist of the Austrian School, noted for his defense of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism against a rising tide of socialist and collectivist thought in the mid-20th century. He also made important contributions to the fields of jurisprudence and cognitive science. He shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with ideological rival Gunnar Myrdal.

Quotations

From The Political Order of a Free People: Limited and Unlimited Power:

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:Nobody with open eyes can any longer doubt that the danger to personal freedom comes chiefly from the left.

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From A Conversation with Friedrich A. von Hayek, AEI, Washington D.C., 1979:

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: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.

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