Hayek’s Knowledge Problem Wielded Like a Scalpel

Michael Giberson

As previously mentioned here at KP, I cringe when I see Hayek’s “knowledge problem” insight wielded as a rhetorical club. Yet when wielded with subtlety the knowledge problem is, like a rapier, a quite delicate and forceful weapon. Carefully deployed it is the editorialist’s scalpel. So, contrary to the sidebar chatter, I did not cringe when I read Mungowitz on Yglesias.

(Well, in the case of Mungowitz’s post this is the knowledge problem as shiv, his post the very embodiment of the phrase “crude, but effective.”)