The Party of Life: the liberalism of F. A. Hayek

The postscript to Friedrich Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty is entitled, "Why I Am Not a Conservative." For Americans aware of Hayek's influence on political developments of the past half-century or so, this title may be astonishing. Aren't conservatives the very people most influenced by and most appreciative of Hayek's work? How can he devote a whole essay to why he isn't one of them?

The whole essay is indeed confusing for Americans, and from the tone of the essay one senses that Hayek was exasperated at the confusion Americans have created over the terms "liberal" and "conservative." As I've written before, the two terms scarcely mean in American today what they have traditionally meant; the term "liberal" has probably suffered more distortion even than "conservative." For this reason most Americans reading the essay will probably experience a great deal of confusion over who exactly Hayek is talking about, excepting those who are very knowledgeable about the history of ideas. Nevertheless, this is precisely what makes the essay so relevant. It is, in some sense, Hayek's warning not to do exactly what we have done: we have so closely associated his ideas with American conservatism that we can't tell what he was actually saying.

Hayek on Freedom and Democracy

From The Road to Serfdom Chapter Five:

The fashionable concentration on democracy as the main value threatened is not without danger. It is largely responsible for the misleading and unfounded belief that, so long as the ultimate source of power is the will of the majority, the power cannot be arbitrary. The false assurance which many people derive from this belief is an important cause of the general unawareness of the dangers which we face. There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary; the contrast suggested by this statement is altogether false: it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary. Democratic control may prevent power from becoming arbitrary, but it does not do so by its mere existence. If democracy resolves on a task which necessarily involves the use of power which cannot be guided by fixed rules, it must become arbitrary power.

Hayek on Intelligibility vs. Rationality

Unlike the Youtube commenters, who focus on whether or not intellectuals really are arrogant/stupid/evil, I think it's interesting to focus on what Hayek says about rationality vs. intelligibility.

Go back to Descartes, he says. In other words, go back to the beginning of modern skepticism: if I can't understand it, I will reject it. If it's unintelligible, it must be irrational.

Hayek's epistemology is different from that. The behavior of the free market may very well be unintelligible, but that doesn't make it irrational. We can see the general principles by which a good outcome is achieved, but it's difficult to see how particular actions in the private sector can possibly contribute to a good outcome.

Hayek therefore argues that intellectuals have a problem of epistemology, not a moral problem. They can't see the good in individual actions in the private sector, and therefore they reject the idea that those actions can contribute to the public good. Unintelligibility equals irrationality.

Just a thought: perhaps this explains something about why the Left has tended to be more secular, while the Right has retained a stronger religious backing. Those who take up modern skepticism tend to reject religion, and by Hayek's argument they will also tend to be skeptical of the free market. Perhaps it is not so much that Christianity has tended to promote free market economics as it is that the secular Left has philosophically alienated both Christians and classical liberals.