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

LAW AND NATURE IN THE WORK OF MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 37
very same process of spontaneous social evolution that
includes the market, religion, law and language.” 66
On this basis, Rothbard thinks that Hayek is a conservative,
even if Hayek denies this in his concluding essay in The
Constitution of Liberty, “Why I Am Not a Conservative.”
Explaining the reasons he rejects conservatism, Hayek
writes,
the main point about liberalism is that it wants to
go elsewhere, not to stand still. . . . It has never
been a backward-looking doctrine. . . . Liberalism
is not averse to evolution and change; and where
spontaneous change has been smothered by government
control, it wants a great deal of change
of policy. . . . It would seem to the liberal, indeed,
that what is most urgently needed in most parts
of the world is a thorough sweeping away of the
obstacles to free growth . . . the admiration of the
conservatives for free growth generally applies
only to the past . . . one of the fundamental traits
of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a
timid distrust of the new as such. . . . It is,
indeed, part of the liberal attitude to assume that,
especially in the economic field, the self-regulating
forces of the market will somehow bring about
the required adjustments to new conditions,
although no one can foretell how they will do this
in a particular instance. 67
Besides, Hayek’s attitude toward American institutions
makes clear his position regarding tradition; he explains that
“to the liberal they are valuable not mainly because they are
long established or because they are American but because
they correspond to the ideals which he cherishes.” 68 Thus,
66Raimondo Cubeddu, Introduction to La libertà e la legge, by
Bruno Leoni (Macerata, Italy: Liberilibri, 1994), p. xiii.
67Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, pp. 399–400.
68 Ibid., p. 399.