The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

The more the state 'plans' the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.

If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this.

It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.

We have indeed at the moment little cause for pride: as a profession we have made a mess of things.

Why should we, however, in economics, have to plead ignorance of the sort of facts on which, in the case of a physical theory, a scientist would certainly be expected to give precise information?