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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REVIEWS AND COMMENTS BY MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 67<br />
Burke who led both <strong>the</strong> bloody and murderous war against <strong>the</strong><br />
French abroad and <strong>the</strong> tyrannical, liberty-destroying suppressions<br />
at home—while it was Price and his Radical friends who<br />
defended both domestic liberty and foreign isolationism.<br />
Philosophically, Hayek, much as he denies it, is a conservative,<br />
in <strong>the</strong> sense that he believes we must blindly follow<br />
traditions even if we can’t defend <strong>the</strong>m. He differs from<br />
Kirk, et al., largely in a bad way, i.e., by adopting <strong>the</strong> opposite<br />
fallacy that <strong>the</strong> case for liberty rests on <strong>the</strong> fact that we<br />
know nothing, or very little, and must <strong>the</strong>refore keep <strong>the</strong><br />
roads open so that we can learn something. In short, Hayek<br />
explicitly rests his case on man’s ignorance, differing from<br />
Kirk who believes that at least tradition gives us some<br />
knowledge. This is <strong>the</strong> J.S. Mill, H.B. Phillips, Gerald<br />
Heard argument. 18 Of course, such a puny argument means<br />
that, as civilization advances, and we get to know more and<br />
more, <strong>the</strong> case for liberty becomes weaker and weaker. To<br />
evade this conclusion, Hayek employs two contradictory<br />
stratagems: (1) using <strong>the</strong> absurd and self-contradictory bromide<br />
that “<strong>the</strong> more we know, <strong>the</strong> more we know how little<br />
we know,” and (2) saying even if we do know more, we still<br />
know less than we don’t know, i.e., we still know less than<br />
50 percent of what <strong>the</strong>re is to be known. How he knows this<br />
is, of course, in <strong>the</strong> lap of <strong>the</strong> gods.<br />
Both <strong>the</strong> Kirkian worship of <strong>the</strong> past and <strong>the</strong> Mill-Phillips<br />
emphasis on man’s ignorance have one thing in common:<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir attack on man’s reason. But how else could Hayek combine<br />
two contradictory fallacies? In an interesting way:<br />
through his knowledge of <strong>the</strong> free market. For to Hayek, <strong>the</strong><br />
market is an example of a social institution that works better<br />
than any individual knows and is needed because of each<br />
18 Gerald Heard (1889–1971). A historian and philosopher,<br />
Heard studied at Cambridge and briefly taught at Oxford before<br />
moving in 1937 to <strong>the</strong> United States. He briefly taught at Duke University<br />
before founding Trabuco College in 1941. He was well known<br />
for his evolutionary <strong>the</strong>ory of human consciousness. See his works<br />
The Ascent of Humanity (1929), The Source of Civilization (1935),<br />
and The Five Ages of Man (1963).