Hayek's Key Insight
7 June 2009
Editor, The New York Times Book Review
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Reviewing Michael Crawford's "Shop Craft as Soul Craft" (June 7) Francis Fukuyama writes:
"Highly educated people with high-status jobs - investment bankers, professors, lawyers - often believe that they could do anything their less-educated brethren can, if only they put their minds to it, because cognitive ability is the only ability that counts. The truth is that some would not have the physical and cognitive ability to do skilled blue-collar work, and that others could do it only if they invested 20 years of their life in learning a trade. “Shop Class as Soulcraft” makes this quite vivid by explaining in detail what is actually involved in rebuilding a Volkswagen engine.... Small signs of galling and discoloration mean excessive heat buildup, caused by a previous owner’s failure to lubricate; the slight bulging of a valve stem points to a root cause of wear that a novice mechanic would completely fail to perceive."
Indeed. This insight that a successful economy must use knowledge that is dispersed, unimaginably detailed, and often unable to be articulated fueled F.A. Hayek's skepticism of government intervention. Here's Hayek:
"Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge. But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might 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. We need to remember only how much we have to learn in any occupation after we have completed our theoretical training, how big a part of our working life we spend learning particular jobs, and how valuable an asset in all walks of life is knowledge of people, of local conditions, and of special circumstances."*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* F.A. Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," American Economic Review, Sept. 1945, Vol. 35, pp. 519-30. This quotation appears in paragraph 9:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
Editor, The New York Times Book Review
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
To the Editor:
Reviewing Michael Crawford's "Shop Craft as Soul Craft" (June 7) Francis Fukuyama writes:
"Highly educated people with high-status jobs - investment bankers, professors, lawyers - often believe that they could do anything their less-educated brethren can, if only they put their minds to it, because cognitive ability is the only ability that counts. The truth is that some would not have the physical and cognitive ability to do skilled blue-collar work, and that others could do it only if they invested 20 years of their life in learning a trade. “Shop Class as Soulcraft” makes this quite vivid by explaining in detail what is actually involved in rebuilding a Volkswagen engine.... Small signs of galling and discoloration mean excessive heat buildup, caused by a previous owner’s failure to lubricate; the slight bulging of a valve stem points to a root cause of wear that a novice mechanic would completely fail to perceive."
Indeed. This insight that a successful economy must use knowledge that is dispersed, unimaginably detailed, and often unable to be articulated fueled F.A. Hayek's skepticism of government intervention. Here's Hayek:
"Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge. But a little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge which cannot possibly be called scientific in the sense of knowledge of general rules: the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might 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. We need to remember only how much we have to learn in any occupation after we have completed our theoretical training, how big a part of our working life we spend learning particular jobs, and how valuable an asset in all walks of life is knowledge of people, of local conditions, and of special circumstances."*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* F.A. Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," American Economic Review, Sept. 1945, Vol. 35, pp. 519-30. This quotation appears in paragraph 9:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Thursday October 22, 2009 at 5:31pm