The Use of Knowledge in Society
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Use of Knowledge in Society
| Author | F. A. Hayek |
|---|---|
| Published | 1945 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Hayek’s 1945 article arguing that the economic problem is not allocating known resources but using knowledge that exists nowhere in complete form — dispersed among millions as the particulars of time and place, much of it unstatable. The price system condenses it into a signal people can act on without knowing why it moved, making the market a mechanism for communicating knowledge. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), under Austrian School Economics, directly after The Constitution of Liberty and The Road to Serfdom — the shortest text on the list and the load-bearing idea behind much of the political economy that follows. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
A journal article, not a book: American Economic Review 35:4, September 1945, pp. 519–530.
Connections
- Knowledge — the essay’s subject.
- Price — the mechanism it identifies.
- Markets — reconceived as a communication system.
- Decentralization — the conclusion the argument forces.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.