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Hayek in Five Aphorisms
There I was, scanning the Internet, when I stumbled upon a critique — no doubt written in the evening, on the recommendation of Karl Marx — of a book about Hayek’s Bastards. It was like a red rag to a bull, because I have been a fan of Hayek for 50 years. As I was writing my American Thinker article about it, I pondered in my heart my big problem with Hayek. It’s hard to boil his ideas down to a convenient maxim or aphorism.
And, as Shakespeare knew, all the world’s an aphorism. Why? Because 97.2% of humans don’t have the leisure or the knowledge of the meaning of long-winded words to read intellectual books and “criticize in the evening.” In politics they call aphorisms “slogans,” stuff to rile up the peasants.
But then I had a brainwave. Why not cheat and ask AI to reduce Hayek’s thought to an aphorism, as in “summarize friedrich hayek’s ideas in one pithy aphorism.”
Boyohboyohboy. Did I hit the jackpot. Here is what Grok replied on Saturday June 6:
"The price of pretending we can plan society is the loss of the spontaneous order that alone makes it work."
Thanks Grok. But then, on Sunday, I thought: why not try again? Good idea:
“The fatal conceit is believing we can design what only spontaneous order can evolve.”
OK. I am not done yet. Here’s is Grok’s third effort on the Hayek front:
“The market is a discovery process that no planner can outthink.”
Seriously. I am still reeling from excitement. Because, as a serious student of Hayek I know that each of Grok’s replies absolutely hits the bullseye.
Now, of course, I am a fair-minded AI cheater. So I gave Google AI a shot:
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
Good job Sergey. And Google AI’s Sunday effort:
“The spontaneous wisdom of the many will always outsmart the calculated design of the few.”
And again?
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
OK. Not quite up to the mark. That’s the same answer as Saturday.
So Grok wins the AI competition.
But I wonder what Grok thinks about me: “summarize Christopher Chantrill’s ideas in one pithy aphorism.”
“Empower the Responsibles to build the middle class; let Creatives innovate and Subordinates follow—without elite activism turning society into endless war on the ‘oppressors.’”
Gosh! Grok says it is summarizing the ideas in my Three Peoples Theory.
OK. Let’s do it for Kant:
“Dare to reason—then submit to its limits.”
Yeah Manny: gets you nowhere.
And my pal Nietzsche:
“God is dead—now dance upon his grave and become who you are.”
This distills Nietzsche’s core: the collapse of old values, the imperative to create new ones through the will to power, self-overcoming toward the Übermensch, and joyful affirmation of life (amor fati) in the face of nihilism and eternal recurrence.
And one fine day, you’ll wake up at 6:00am with Andie MacDowell in the bed next to you.
I gotta say: these AI chappies seem to know their stuff.
| Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:08:56 GMT |
A Flummoxed Political Veteran in 2026
Journalist Michael Barone, 81, has been around forever. And he seems flummoxed about the state of America in the current primary season:
This year’s primaries seem to be providing little in the way of good news for both parties’ futures. Both parties’ primary electorates seem focused on fighting the same old battles they have been fighting since Donald Trump clinched the Republican Party presidential nomination 121 months ago.
Then he recites a conventional-wisdom narrative on US politics since World War I, with the parties alternating in power as the seasons change. But what happens if the parties jump the tracks?
Barone seems to think that both parties are lost in a wilderness of Trump mirrors and blindly striking out against the perceived enemy. He thinks that the party that emerges from its frenzy to head off any “antidemocratic or anti-republican alternatives that may emerge” will own the future.
Maybe his view helps us explain the RINOs like Massie, Cassidy, Cornyn and Thune that have been sitting in the middle of the public lake trying not to rock the boat.
I still don’t understand what is driving them.
Of course, because I am so wise, I have a fairly simple understanding of the current political situation.
On the one hand we hard-right white racists finally found a leader worthy of the name, after the failed Nixon Silent Majority, the forgotten Reagan Democrats, and the marginalized Tea Party. President Trump promised to lead an American nation back to greatness. We fear that despite everything, the Trump era will end in failure.
On the other hand we have the end-of-a-dynasty Democratic Party that is seeing its century-long political and cultural hegemony challenged. Its operatives are doing everything they can imagine, legal and otherwise, to keep the old game going. But its one-size-fits-all programs are not delivering; its woke DEI stuff is in trouble; its supporters in government jobs want more money, and the Dems find that they need to cheat to stay in power. However, experts agree that the 2020 election was not stolen.
Is this so hard to figure out? Or does Michael Barone think that he’s not allowed to say what I just wrote above?
Let’s just say that in pre-revolutionary France and Russia, the rulers knew there was a problem, but didn’t have the moxie or the means to fix it. The result was not pretty.
And I understand that Michael Barone perceives a similar danger in today’s politics.
Still, one way or another we have to cross the river into the new world that is aborning. But which river? The Styx, river of hate; the Acheron, river of woe; the Cocytus, river of lamentation; the Phlegethon, river of fire; or the Lethe, river of forgetfulness? Your guess is as good as mine.
Whatever river it is, I am afraid that our liberal friends ain’t gonna like it.
| Fri, 05 Jun 2026 22:57:53 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies — Orson Scott Card
Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies — Orson Scott Card
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: The left experienced as a Great Reaction, a lurch back from the modern to the primitive
