Hayek argued constitutional ignorance makes economic planning impossible

Evidence

The error that Hayek spent his life diagnosing and denouncing was what he called “the synoptic delusion,” the belief that humans could gain an overview of the economy adequate to plan it effectively. The means to solve the resultant calculation or coordination problem was the combination of laws and prices. Private property rights here were key. Through what he calls the institutions of meum and teum, mine and yours, combined with the free movement of prices, packets of knowledge would find their way to the most productive users. What he calls the “constitutional ignorance” of humans meant that we could only surrender the task to the market. Given an adequate legal framework, we could let the market effectively think for us. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 173

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Hayek’s key concepts — synoptic delusion and constitutional ignorance — that anchor his anti-planning argument.
• XREF: connects to: Hayek opposed planning because humans face constitutional ignorance; Hayek grounded free-market economics in a theory of human ignorance — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 278; Hayek’s epistemology made price-generated knowledge local and impossible to centralize — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 68 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Hayek opposed planning because humans face constitutional ignorance #corroborates (0.95)
• Hayek grounded free-market economics in a theory of human ignorance #expands (0.85) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 278
• Hayek’s epistemology made price-generated knowledge local and impossible to centralize #expands (0.82) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 68
• Hayek grounded freedom in the inevitability of ignorance #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 221
• Hayek argued contextual individual knowledge cannot be statistically aggregated #expands (0.78) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 211
• Hayek’s critique targets epistemic arrogance, not state action per se #expands (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 255
• Hayek modeled economic order on rules operating without being known #expands (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 172