...effort is in error, just as one would err in trying to substitute real human hands for invisible ones: The statesman, who should attempt to direct private...employ their capitals, would not only load himself 23 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, p. 456; all quotations from Smith fall on this page....

...stipulates that the economy will self-generate if it is left free from political intervention. Thus the statesman, 'who should attempt to direct private...manner they ought to employ their capitals', would very quickly undermine the 'opulence' of the country (1776/1937: 422-3). That is, the self-regulating...

...which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or law-giver can do for him." Nor would they be inclined to deny that the crying need of the age in which he lived was the removal...

...home-market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation It is the maxim of every...

...likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, in his local situation, judges much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him" '(The Fatal Conceit, p. 14). 3 The Fatal Conceit, p. 14. 4 As we saw, what Hayek means by 'rational constructivism',...

...group competent to decide the economic good for the rest of us. On one facet of the matter, he wrote: The statesman, who should attempt to direct private...in what manner they ought to employ their capitals [sic], would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which...

...intends to promote it." It is no surprise, then, that Smith goes on to denounce the presumption of "]t]he statesman, who should attempt to direct private...what manner they ought to employ their capitals," since individual self-interest is by definition both unknowable to anyone else and socially beneficial...

...home-market to the produce of domestick industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation."67 Smith had a clear political...

...market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic...

...well-calibrated than those of the political operator: "every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman...employ their capitals, would not only load himself a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority ... which would nowhere be so dangerous" (Smith,...