Friedrich Hayek - Why I Am Not a Conservative英文学习资料.pdfVIP

Why I Am Not a Conservative By Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek In het Nederlands In The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960) At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often di fered from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition. - Lord Acton 1. At a time when most movements that are thought to be progressive advocate further encroachments on individual liberty,[1] those who cherish freedom are likely to expend their energies in opposition. In this they find themselves much of the time on the same side as those who habitually resist change. In matters of current politics today they generally have little choice but to support the conservative parties. But, though the position I have tried to define is also often described as conservative, it is very di ferent from that to which this name has been traditionally attached. There is danger in the confused condition which brings the defenders of liberty and the true conservatives together in common opposition to developments which threaten their ideals equally. It is therefore important to distinguish clearly the position taken here from that which has long been known - perhaps more appropriately - as conservatism. Conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude o opposition to drastic change. It has, since the French Revolution, for a century and a hal played an important role in European politics. Until the rise of socialism its opposite was liberalism. There is nothing corresponding to this conflict in the history of the United States, because what in Europe was called liberalism was here the common tradition on which the American polity had been built: thus the defender