Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute
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MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS<br />
34 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI<br />
awareness of <strong>the</strong> historical and evolutionary character of<br />
law. Fassò goes on to say that it would be ingenuous “to mistake<br />
<strong>the</strong> values held in one age, and valid for that age, for<br />
eternal and immutable values.” 62<br />
Thus, <strong>the</strong> attempt to establish what is absolutely good for<br />
man by appealing to “human nature,” which would really<br />
seem to be a cultural idea, demonstrates <strong>the</strong> great distance<br />
between <strong>Rothbard</strong> and Hayek’s evolutionary argument. In<br />
this sense, <strong>Rothbard</strong>’s criticism of Hayek is paradigmatic of<br />
<strong>the</strong> split we find today within <strong>the</strong> Austrian School of economics<br />
between <strong>the</strong> libertarians who refer back to Locke’s<br />
version of <strong>the</strong> idea of right reason that enables an understanding<br />
of natural law, and <strong>the</strong> heirs of <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>ory, typical<br />
of <strong>the</strong> Austrian School, of a limited, fallible, and evolutionist<br />
kind of knowledge. This contrast, already evident in <strong>the</strong><br />
writings under consideration here, is made explicit and <strong>the</strong>orized<br />
more fully by <strong>Rothbard</strong> in his 1992 The Present<br />
State of <strong>the</strong> Austrian School of Economics, from which <strong>the</strong><br />
profound differences between <strong>the</strong> various paradigms within<br />
<strong>the</strong> Austrian School emerge. In this paper, <strong>Rothbard</strong> takes<br />
his distance from “Hayek’s entire work,” in that it is<br />
“devoted to a denigration of human reason.” 63<br />
Absolute values for whom? Absolute on <strong>the</strong> basis of<br />
which arguments? Absolute because <strong>the</strong>y are experienced<br />
as such or because <strong>the</strong>y are based on absolute<br />
reasons? . . . And is it not true that nothing is more<br />
cultural than <strong>the</strong> idea of nature and, <strong>the</strong>refore, also of<br />
human nature? And <strong>the</strong>n, is it not precisely <strong>the</strong><br />
awareness of <strong>the</strong> fallibility of human knowledge and<br />
of an inevitable pluralism of different values that provides<br />
<strong>the</strong> safest garrison for liberty and <strong>the</strong> constitutional<br />
state?<br />
See Antiseri, “Ius quia iustum. Sed quid iustum? Considerazioni<br />
in margine a ‘La dottrina del diritto naturale’,” in Alessandro<br />
Passerin d’Entrèves pensatore europeo, p. 111.<br />
62Fassò, La legge della ragione, p. 217<br />
63<strong>Murray</strong> N. <strong>Rothbard</strong>, in The Logic of Action I, p. 141. This<br />
work was first presented on <strong>the</strong> occasion of <strong>the</strong> Tenth Anniversary