Below are some quotations I selected for Frederick Hayek to go on an
economist's calendar.  If any of you have any "better" selections
please let me know.


A few ground rules for the discussion:

	1. Space is limited, so please accompany any suggested quotation
with a suggestion of which quotation to cut.

	2. The new quotation can be no longer than the cut quotation.
	
	3. Please give the source for any quotation you give--I will have to
get permissions for each.

David Colander



  Frederick Hayek

One reason why economists are increasingly apt to forget about the 
constant small changes which make up the whole economic picture is 
probably their growing preoccupation with statistical aggregates, 
which show a very much greater stability than the movements of the 
detail. The comparative stability of the aggregates cannot, however, 
be accounted for-as the statisticians occasionally seem to be 
inclined to do-by the "law of large numbers" or the mutual 
compensation of random changes.  (520, The Uses of Knowledge in 
Society, AER, 1945).

We must look at the price system as such a mechanism for 
communicating information if we want to understand its real 
function-a function which, of course, it fulfils less perfectly as 
prices grow more rigid.  (525, The Uses of Knowledge in Society, AER, 1945).

I am far from denying that in our system equilibrium analysis has a 
useful function to perform. But when it comes to the point where it 
misleads some of our leading thinkers into believing that the 
situation which it describes has direct relevance to the solution of 
practical problems, it is high time that we remember that it does not 
deal with the social process at all and that it is no more than a 
useful preliminary to the study of the main problem." (530, The Uses 
of Knowledge in Society, AER, 1945).

It is no exaggeration to say that if we had had to rely on conscious 
central planning for the growth of our industrial system, it would 
never have reached the degree of differentiation, complexity, and 
flexibility it has attained. Compared with this method of solving the 
economic problem by means of decentralization plus automatic 
coordination, the more obvious method of central direction is 
incredibly clumsy, primitive, and limited in scope.  (96, The Road to Serfdom).

In the social sciences it is the elements of the complex phenomena 
which are known beyond the possibility of dispute. In the natural 
sciences they can only be at best surmised." (11, Collectivist 
Economic Planning)