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Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 78 of the 2011 Definitive Edition (Ronald Hamowy, ed.) of F.A. Hayek’s 1960 volume, The Constitution of Liberty:

While the growth of our knowledge of nature constantly discloses new realms of ignorance, the increasing complexity of civilization which this knowledge enables us to build presents new obstacles to the intellectual comprehension of the world around us.  The more men know, the smaller the share of all that knowledge becomes that any one mind can absorb.  The more civilized we become, the more relatively ignorant must each individual be of the facts on which the working of his civilization depends.  The very division of knowledge increases the necessary ignorance of the individual of most of this knowledge.

DBx: Put differently, as our civilization expands and becomes more complex, the greater is the size of that which is unseen relative to the size of that which is seen.  It follows that as our civilization expands and becomes more complex, the greater is the folly of looking to the state to intervene in ways that are socially useful.

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