Political Discussions
What do you think of this political philosopher?Vol.2
Posted by Agit8r • 7/22/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: conservatism, f. a. hayek, progress
"It may well be asked whether the name really matters so much. In a country like the United States, which on the whole has free institutions and where, therefore, the defense of the existing is often a defense of freedom, it might not make so much difference if the defenders of freedom call themselves conservatives, although even here the association with the conservatives by disposition will often be embarrassing. Even when men approve of the same arrangements, it must be asked whether they approve of them because they exist or because they are desirable in themselves. The common resistance to the collectivist tide should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the belief in integral freedom is based on an essentially forward-looking attitude and not on any nostalgic longing for the past or a romantic admiration for what has been." -- F. A. Hayek
www.fahayek.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46
User Comments
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For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hayek, he wrote "The Road to Serfdom" and "The Constitution of Liberty" the latter of which brought forward his collegue "Professor Milton Friedman"'s proposal for school vouchers, among other pet ideas of the modern conservative movement.
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I can't escape the feeling of being in some land where Double Speak is the official language.
And a little illogic. This little statement inside the larger one makes some huge assumptions: "the defense of the existing is often a defense of freedom"-
He did however hold that in a wealthy nation those who have not the means to provide for themselves ought to be eligible for state assistance, that pollution was not regulatable by market forces, and therefore justified state regulation, that the laws of corporations and of patents could use improvements, and that it was reasonable for the state to require minimum wages and maximum work hours. In this regard, he was hardly a doctrinaire conservative.
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You mean reason exists on the right?
(Of course, it does. It's just not always present in today's sound bites.) -
I would say that Hayek was a center-right libertarian. He is probably also who Murray Rothbard was referring to when he called out "big-government libertarians."
despite this description, he was for "less government" than most conservatives.
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He's right. Conservatives really are too nostalgic, though I think that is beginning to change, and Palin nearly made a career, despite numerous blazing flaws, on being a forward looking conservative with a populist, individualist, PNW Lumberjack/Paul Bunyan frontier edge. This is also part of the reason Reagan often dressed up as a cowboy, not out of nostalgia for the wild west days, but as a symbol of California and the promise of the ever-hopeful West.-
I thought it was just a hold-over from "Death Valley Days"
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