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"If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists."

— Friedrich Hayek

If Socialists Understood Economics They Wouldnt

If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists.

— Friedrich Hayek
economics freedom socialism

About this quote

This epigram is widely attributed to Hayek and circulates in collections of his sayings, though it has not been traced to a specific published text. It encapsulates Hayek's argument, developed most fully in The Road to Serfdom (1944), that central planning requires an understanding of prices, preferences, and resource constraints that no planner can possess — an understanding that market prices automatically aggregate and communicate.

Source

Attributed, widely reported in Hayek anthologies

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