There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would possess |
To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm. |
We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice |
We must show that liberty is not merely one particular value but that it is the source and condition of most moral values. What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free. We can therefore not fully appreciate the value of freedom until we know how a society of free men as a whole differs from one in which unfreedom prevails. |
We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish |
Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work? |