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

LAW AND NATURE IN THE WORK OF MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 31
seems justified, concerning Hayek’s having overlooked the
French liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century—such as
Frédéric Bastiat, Gustave de Molinari, and Charles
Dunoyer. 53 (Molinari, of course, was Belgian but was closely
associated with the French liberals.) Ralph Raico recently
made a similar criticism of the Hayekian categories of true
and false individualism, among other things highlighting the
fact that there is a great liberal tradition in France, represented
by Benjamin Constant, Alexis de Tocqueville, and
Jean-Baptiste Say, besides the abovementioned Bastiat,
Molinari, and Dunoyer. 54
Thus, faith in the rational capacities of man to discover
and correctly interpret the laws of nature and absolute ethical
values is not really compatible with the evolutionist and
fallibilist position. The foundations of liberty are completely
different for Hayek and Rothbard. Hayek bases the reasons
for liberty on our ignorance. The necessary starting point for
his theory of a liberal society is fallibility, partiality, and the
53Rothbard, “Memo to the Volker Fund on F.A. Hayek’s Constitution
of Liberty”; see p. 61 in this volume.
54Ralph Raico, “La tradizione liberale francese dell’Ottocento,”
Federalismo e libertà 5–6 (settembre-dicembre 2001), pp. 171–207.
According to Raico, the Hayekian distinction actually introduces a fair
amount of confusion. Raico notes that, among other things, Molinari
proposed a conception of the evolution of society that was very close
to Hayek’s (p. 191). Raico thinks that it is Bastiat’s and Molinari’s
tradition that had a decisive influence on the Italian liberals after the
mid-nineteenth century and, through them, on the Public Choice
School of thought. It is, however, worth recalling what Hayek writes
about Tocqueville in “Individualism: True and False”:
In the nineteenth century I find it represented most perfectly
in the work of two of its greatest historians and political
philosophers, Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord Acton. These two
men seem to me to have more successfully developed what was
best in the political philosophy of the Scottish philosophers,
Burke, and the English Whigs than any other writers I know.
See F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press), p. 4.