In 1974, when Hayek took the stage to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics, no one expected that this towering figure in economics would make a groundbreaking move four years later—publicly challenging the academic community by inviting scholars to debate his theories in Paris, only to find no one daring to accept the challenge.

What truly stings is not the silence of no one responding, but the fact that Hayek's ideas are so sharp that—debunking him is not a matter of losing to him, but losing to reality. His seven famous quotes each cut through the darkness deep within power, institutions, and human nature like a scalpel, especially the last one, which will overturn many people's "benevolent beliefs."
1. "Money is the greatest tool invented by mankind; only money is open to the poor, while power never is."
Money is at least logically accessible to everyone; the poor can participate in competition through labor, talent, and transactions. But power is not—it always has thresholds, connections, and circles; it is a closed club.
Hayek wants to remind us: what truly corrupts civilization is not the wealth gap, but the monopoly of power that begins to replace market-based wealth distribution. When wealth is obtained through power rather than value creation, society has already begun to decay.
2. "Why are some problems never solved? Because the people who solve problems are the ones creating them."
Bureaucratic systems are often not designed to solve problems but to keep problems persistent, thereby proving their own necessity. The larger the organization, the more it likes to create processes and complexities because it needs to "look busy" and "appear important."
Hayek exposes: many chronic social ailments are not difficult to cure, but...