Monday, August 22, 2011

Under any orders we know how to give

Via The Constitution of Liberty by Friederich Hayek, Page 10.
Throughout history orators and poets have extolled liberty, but no one has told us why liberty is so important. Our attitude towards such matters should depend on whether we consider civilization as fixed or as advancing . . . In an advancing society, any restriction on liberty reduces the number of things tried and so reduces the rate of progress. In such a society, freedom of action is granted to the individual, not because it gives him greater satisfaction but because if allowed to go his own way, he will on the average serve the rest of us better than under any orders we know how to give. - H.B. Phillips

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