Steppenwolf wrote:kuvasz wrote:So, the teleology of the Left is a stream of Modern European culture that places itself in its experience of history, that is, we see history and experience as entirely future-directed.
Whereas the Right is stuck in a Hobbesian world.
The struggle is either to support things that bring out the best in Humanity, or restrict it since we are beasts and always will be.
H.A Hayek, in his essay "Why I am not a Conservative" states clearly his idea of the difference between the liberal mind versus the conservative one is that the Liberal is not afraid of the future even if he knows it is uncontrollable, and the conservative is afraid of it for precisely the same reason.
http://www.geocities.com/ecocorner/intelarea/fah1.html
If homo erectus had that latter trait we would not be here at all.
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yes, indeed he was a libertarian as opposed to a liberal.
and to the discussion at hand.
Hayek:
"Since the value of freedom rests on the opportunities it provides for unforeseen and unpredictable actions, we will rarely know what we lose through a particular restriction of freedom."
From his book The Constitution of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, 1960), from pages 221 through 231:
Quote:To Adam Smith and his immediate successors the enforcement of the ordinary rules of common law would certainly not have appeared as government interference; nor would they ordinarily have applied this term to an alteration of these rules or the passing of a new rule by the legislature so long as it was intended to apply equally to all people for an indefinite period of time. Though they perhaps never explicitly said so, interference meant to them the exercise of the coercive power of government which was not regular enforcement of the general law and which was designed to achieve some specific purpose.....
The important criterion was not the aim pursued, however, but the method employed. There is perhaps no aim, which they would not have regarded as legitimate if it was clear that the people wanted it; but they excluded as generally inadmissible in a free society the method of specific orders and prohibitions. Only indirectly, by depriving government of some means by which alone it might be able to attain certain ends, may this principle deprive government of the power to pursue those ends.......
The habitual appeal to the principle of non-interference in the fight against all ill-considered or harmful measures has had the effect of blurring the fundamental distinction between the kinds of measures, which are, and those, which are not compatible with a free system......
A functioning market economy presupposes certain activities by which it's functioning will be assisted; and it can tolerate many more, provided that they are of the kind, which are compatible with a functioning market...... A government that is comparatively inactive but does the wrong things may do much more to cripple the forces of a market economy than one that is more concerned with economic affairs but confines itself to actions which assist the spontaneous forces of the economy.
In so far as the government merely undertakes to supply services which otherwise would not be supplied at all (usually because it is not possible to confine the benefits to those prepared to pay for them), the only question which arises is whether the benefits are Worth the cost. A great many of the activities which governments have universally undertaken in this field and which fall within the limits described are those which facilitate the acquisition of reliable knowledge about facts of general significance. So do most sanitary and health services, often the construction and maintenance of roads, and many of the amenities provided by municipalities for the inhabitants of cities.
The range and variety of government action that is, at least in principle, reconcilable with a free system is thus considerable. The old formulae of laissez faire or non-intervention do not provide us with an adequate criterion for distinguishing between what is and what is not admissible in a free system. There is ample scope for experimentation and improvement within that permanent legal framework which makes it possible for a free society to operate most efficiently. We can probably at no point be certain that we have already found the best arrangements or institutions that will make the market economy work as beneficially as it could. It is true that after the essential conditions of a free system have been established, all further institutional improvements are bound to be slow and gradual. But the continuous growth of wealth and technological knowledge which such a system makes possible will constantly suggest new ways in which government might render services to its citizens and bring such possibilities within the range of the practicable.
the thrust is not to run away and hide from the future as conservatives tend to and many entrenched Liberals are doing in various places of their philosophies such as school vouchers, tradable pollution tax credits, or even
voluntary changes in programs for Social Security savings.
