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… is from page 31 of William Easterly’s superb 2013 book, The Tyranny of Experts [2]:
Hayek was blunt that a “national goal” just covered up the fact that some goals for some groups were attained at the expense of other goals for other groups.
DBx: Experts at most can explain how best to achieve an agreed-upon goal. Experts cannot, however, choose which goals should be pursued. Nor can experts – this fact follows from the previous one – tell us whether or not additional ‘units’ of desirable goal A are worth the corresponding necessary sacrifice of some ‘units’ of desirable goals B, C, …, N.
Not surprisingly, of course, many ‘experts’ – especially those with political power or influence – ignore this inescapable reality. They speak and act as if there is widespread-enough agreement on ‘social’ goals. Thus is the way cleared for ‘experts’ to treat the masses as pieces on a chessboard.