AER Recognizes Hayek (1945)

An AER committee consisting of Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow has selected the top 20 papers ever published in the AER. Hayek (1945) made the cut. In the comments over at the Coordination Problem, an interesting back and forth is going on concerning the brief summary provided by the committee Here's the summary:

The author addresses the fundamental question of the nature of the economic system and, in particular, its role in dealing with resource allocation when a fundamental knowledge base is distributed in small bits among a large population. The knowledge needed includes consumer valuations, production relations, and resource availabilities. In particular, general scientific principles, where expert opinion might be best, are only a small part of the knowledge base. The author argues for the importance of a price system in achieving coordination and efficiency in resource use without implying an impossible aggregation of information in a central place.

What's the dispute? Well, some are saying it just illustrates that the committee doesn't understand Hayek. Others are saying a charitable reading of the summary is warranted. You can read the comments and decide for yourself.

Here's my challenge. The original summary was 97 words long. If you find the committee's summary wanting, provide your own summary (< 100 words) in the comments.