Chapter 8, Who, Whom Summary and Analysis

Competition functions on the basis of price, not on the basis of fairness. The distribution of output is based on competition. Those who can afford the output, purchase it. Those who can't afford it don't purchase it. Hayek sees the options as a choice between this system based on competition, and the system in which somebody else, the planner makes the decisions for people. A poor man only has a chance of becoming rich in a market system. In a planned economy, this isn't true. When government owns the means of production, then government decides all incomes. That is something that socialists that favor transferring ownership of property to government fail to realize. They want to give away the most important guarantee of freedom.

The phase, who, whom, is attributed to Lenin, in describing a socialist society...