User:Tonygrimaud/Hayek

Hayek, F.A., The Use of Knowledge in Society, The American Economic Review, Volume 35, Issue 4 (Sept., 1945), 519-530. Accessed 2nd November 2010 http://www.indiapolicy.org/debate/Notes/hayek_low.pdf

In this essay, Fredrick Hayek argues that the sharing of local and personal knowledge, allows individuals to achieve diverse and complicated results through the principle of spontaneous self-organisation. He talks about the perils of centralisation and argues that when information is dispersed, decisions are best left to those with the most local knowledge. The author observes that each person "has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use can 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."