8.4 /10 1 Votes8.4
Language English Publication date 1988 Originally published 1988 Page count 194 Editor W. W. Bartley, III | 4.2/5 Goodreads Subject Politics, Economics Media type Print Country United States of America OCLC 24815557 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Series The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek Similar Friedrich Hayek books, Communism books, Economics books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism is a non-fiction book written by the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek and edited by William Warren Bartley. Bruce Caldwell has questioned how far Bartley was the editor and how far the author.
Contents
The title of the book is a reference to a passage from Adam Smith, in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).
Summary
In the book, Hayek seeks to refute socialism by demonstrating that socialist theories are not only logically incorrect, but that the premises they use are incorrect as well. To Hayek, civilizations grew because societal traditions placed importance on private property, leading to expansion, trade, and eventually the modern capitalist system and an extended order. Hayek says this demonstrates a key flaw within socialist thought, which holds only purposefully designed changes can be most-efficient. Also, he says statist (e.g., "socialist") economies cannot be efficient because dispersed knowledge is required in a modern economy. Additionally, Hayek asserts that since modern civilization, and all of its customs and traditions, naturally led to the current order and are needed for its continuance, fundamental changes to the system that try to control it is doomed to fail since they are impossible or unsustainable in modern civilization. Price signals are the only means of enabling each economic decision maker to communicate tacit knowledge or dispersed knowledge to each other, in order to solve the economic calculation problem.
Controversy
There is scholarly debate on how much influence William Warren Bartley had had on the work. Officially, Bartley was the editor who was prepared the book for publication once Hayek fell ill in 1985. However, the inclusion of material from Bartley's philosophical point of view and citations that other people provided to Bartley have led to questions about how much of the book was written by Hayek and whether Hayek knew about the added material. Bruce Caldwell thinks the evidence "clearly points towards a conclusion that the book was a product more of [Bartley's] pen than of Hayek's. ... Bartley may have written the book".
Excerpt
It may be admitted that, so far as scientific knowledge is concerned, a body of suitably chosen experts may be in the best position to command all the best knowledge available... [Yet] scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge... [A] little reflection will show that there is ... the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others in that he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active cooperation.