“There mere idea that the planning authority could ever possess a complete inventory of the amounts and qualities of all the different materials and instruments of production of which the manager of a particular plant will know or be able to find out makes the whole proposal a somewhat comic fiction. Once this is recognised it becomes obvious that what prices ought to be can never be determined without relying on competitive markets.”

Austrian economist and philosopher

Friedrich August von Hayek was an Austrian economist and philosopher. He was a notable member of the Austrian school of economics, and is best known for his work in political economy, political philosophy, and intellectual history. He shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for work on money and economic fluctuations, and for showing how economic, social, and institutional forces depend on one another. He is also widely remembered for his account of how prices convey information, an idea that became an important contribution to economics.