Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 10:35:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Hayek and von Mises


On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:
>      It was the beginning of this sentence that upset Hayek 
> who in his later years stressed a more "unconscious" 
> self-organizing aspect of the economy.  
	Actually, as the years have passed, it seems as if Misesians are
more intent than ever, on splitting Hayek into "Hayek I" and "Hayek II" 
-- where "Hayek I" refers to the guy who was one with Mises on such things
as business cycle theory (for which he got the Nobel Prize), and where
"Hayek II" is the guy who went off with Popper and Polanyi on a tacit
knowledge tangent, stressing the unintended consequences of social action.
But in many ways, Hayek II is just as rooted in the Austrian school
tradition as Hayek I -- one finds spontaneous order explanations deep in
Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian school, and one finds examples of
it in Mises as well.  Granted, Hayek is far more the Nonrationalistic
liberal than Mises, but I certainly would not put them in different
"camps" in the broad sweep of history.

> I agree with Chris 
> Sciabarra that the position of the Misesians at the LMI is 
> appalling and ridiculous and would probably shock old 
> Ludwig himself if he were to hear them.  Following Murray 
> Rothbard, their "libertarianism" is of the sort that 
> emphasizes the "rights" of property owners to discriminate 
> against minorities, foreigners, etc. on their own property. 
> This easily leads to the "libertarianism" of the Aryan 
> Nations, the Posse Comitatus, and similar entities.
> Barkley Rosser
	Rothbard was one of the most provocative of libertarian/Austrian
thinkers ever... and he went through a number of incarnations.  His switch
to the "paleolibertarian-paleoconservative" camp later in life came
because he believed that the essential issue which separated conservatives
>from libertarians, the Cold War, had ended, and that the Right had a
chance to reclaim its Old Right lineage of noninterventionism and free
markets.  He had always fought against conservatives, and was even a
"comrade" of Bertell Ollman's, of Maoists and Marxists, in the 60s "Peace
and Freedom Party" which was profoundly opposed to the war in Vietnam.
Rothbard wrote for STUDIES ON THE LEFT, LEFT AND RIGHT, and coedited a
collection of essays,  A NEW HISTORY OF LEVIATHAN, which included many
contributions from New Left theorists.  He always believed that the US was
engaged in imperialism, and that the Cold War, as all wars tend to do, led
to greater centralization and militarization in American society.  
	Now, the Old Right of Robert Taft, John T. Flynn, Albert Jay Nock,
and others, opposed the welfare AND the warfare state, so it is
understandable why Rothbard would have put his differences with
conservatives on the side in the aftermath of the Cold War, in the hope
that the Old Right might resurface. But Buchanan? I don't see him as an
Old Right-ster, and I'm surprised that Rothbard was so enamored by ol'
Pat.  
					- Chris
=================================================Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ph.D
Visiting Scholar, NYU Department of Politics
INTERNET:  sciabrrc-AT-is2.nyu.edu
http://pages.nyu.edu/~sciabrrc
=================================================


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