A modern offshoot of that proverb that illustrates what it does to quality, production, and ethics......

Good enough for government work.

Do we not viscerally understand the negatives attached to that???

Basing ethics on emotion rather than reason ensures they are going to be "flexible" rather than firm.

Actually Hayek is a fan of David Hume, so like Hume he thinks ethics is not based in reason, but emotion.

exactly-collectivist foundations!

Ok Platonic instead of Kantian -antithetical to Objectivism and founding principles of the US. And at the social level he is collectivist. He does not advocate the govt to be socialist, but advocates that we only gain knowledge through society. Which is nonsence. No different than Conservatism. This flies in the face of acknowledging great human achievement.

The proverb is-
'The good is the enemy of the best'.
It means that doing just enough to get by, devalues the efforts of those who do the very best they can.

Safety net-
Emotionally I like this but I observe that wherever it is tried it
i. just grows more ambitious, and
ii. it encourages a life style for those who are content to do nothing.
The result is a growing public sector and growing unemployment.
It may be possible to devise a safety net that does not have those problems, my current thinking is that it is not possible.

I have a more benign view of Hayek, yes some of his views may be approaching mysticism, but about reality, I see his view as saying that human perception of reality is necessarily limited rather than saying that there is no ultimate reality.

Looking down the comparison chart, it appears that Rand is describing the best of mankind (like us here in the Gulch, for instance!).

Hayek seems to be based more on the "average person" who is less prone to rational thought, and more to emotion; also less prone to individualism, and more to social interaction, as in "we're all in this together".

I can see where Hayek's concept of the world may be helpful when dealing with those outside the Gulch (we may not agree with them, but maybe we can at least understand them). I'm basing my observations strictly on the article linked, however. I have not spent any time studying Hayek's work.

this isn't politic aligning, this is philosophy we are talking about here. He is skeptical of reality!

The perfect is often the enemy of the good. If our goal is to move the U.S. government in a direction that is more compatible with ours, I think that arguing for Hayek's willingness to provide a social safety net but hatred of collective control of the economy might be an achievable goal.

This frankly involves paying off the moochers in order for them to leave us alone to make things. It's a pragmatic idea.

The ability to produce things without having the government control and manage us might be worth paying them 'protection' money as taxes.

I'm also wondering about what an 'economy of abundance' society would look like when sufficient goods and services for everyone to have a 'middle class life' can be created by the labor of 5% or less of the population assisted by automation.

Hayek's most famous work involved a war time economy, not the normal state for the US or Europe. Too much focus on what is good for the group at the expense of individuals.

hehe, you just know that is coming.

Okay find my misspelling.