Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
10 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI
he cannot but be of the opinion . . . that all
desires ought to be treated as equal within the
limit of the possible, and this opinion is what is
meant by permissive egalitarianism. 7
In both What is Political Philosophy? and Thoughts on
Machiavelli, Strauss criticizes modern thinkers and defends
classical political philosophy. For the ancients, virtue rather
than liberty is the true end of political life, and political philosophy
is driven by the search for the best political order.
And so, for Strauss, Machiavelli becomes the evil genius of
modernity, challenging the ancient Christian teachings and
freeing political reality from morality.
Concerning the Straussian conception, Rothbard questions
the thesis that identified the modern theory of natural
rights as a break with the past. He places more emphasis on
continuity with the past rather than on a sharp division.
According to the continuity thesis, individual natural rights
derive from natural law. Rothbard underlines the Scholastic,
Thomist, and Christian roots of the Lockean doctrine of
natural rights. In the individualism of modern natural rights
theory, Rothbard finds not a corruption but an enrichment
of the natural law tradition, and the beginning of a new way
to understand human means and political ends. Thus, while
Rothbard appreciates the Straussian idea of natural law as
a battle against the prevailing relativism of values, he is
unable to accept Strauss’s invitation to his readers to
reclaim “the classic natural right doctrine in its original
form” that, “if fully developed, is identical with the doctrine
of the best regime.” 8
Rothbard cites Alessandro Passerin d’Entrèves in support
of the theory that there was a link between Thomism and
the Grotian development in the doctrine of natural law and
writes that according to Passerin d’Entrèves the:
7Leo Strauss, Liberalism, Ancient and Modern (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1989; New York: Basic Books, 1968), pp. 220–22.
8Strauss, Natural Right and History, p. 144.