Hayek misquotes Stuart Chase

Ppolitical‧democracy‧can‧remain‧if‧it‧confines‧itself‧to‧all‧but‧economic‧matters;‧democracy‧in‧consumption‧will‧make‧enormous‧strides‧as‧standards‧of‧living‧are‧levelled‧upward;‧industrial‧individualism—anarchy‧is‧a‧better‧term—in‧the‧sense‧of‧each‧business‧man‧for‧himself,‧each‧corporation‧for‧itself,‧must‧be‧disallowed.

Explanation

P

p

olitical‧democracy‧can‧remain‧if‧it‧confines‧itself‧to‧all‧but‧economic‧matter

s;‧democracy‧in‧consumption‧will‧make‧enormous‧strides‧as‧standards‧of‧living‧are‧levelled‧upward;‧industrial‧individualism—anarchy‧is‧a‧better‧term—in‧the‧sense‧of‧each‧business‧man‧for‧himself,‧each‧corporation‧for‧itself,‧must‧be‧disallowed.

Notes

Hayek does not give a source for his quote of Chase, so I picked one myself. The full passage by Hayek reads: “One of the most prominent American planners, Mr. Stuart Chase, assures us, for instance, that in a planned society ‘political democracy can remain if it confines itself to all but economic matter’.” Hayek switched “Political” to “political” so he could embed the quote mid-sentence. But the change from uppercase ‘P’ to lowercase ‘p’ needs to be indicated by writing ‘[p]olitical’. The change from “matters” (plural) to “matter” (singular) is a grammatical error that readers could falsely attribute to Chase. It also definitely makes the ending of the quote invalid, even under style guides which allow the omission of an ellipsis at the end of a quoting sentence. Once fixed, the quote should read: ‘[p]olitical democracy can remain if it confines itself to all but economic matters; […]’, though the semicolon could arguably be removed.