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10 The Road Less Traveled: Reconsidering the Political Writings of Friedrich von Hayek Juliet M'illiams In the latter part o f the twentieth centur7; hglo-American liberal political thought was dominated by debates about ~vhere to dra~v the line between public power and private rights. Spurred by the effort to implement the S e ~ v Deal in the cnited States and the subsequent growth and development o f the welfare state apparatus, liberal theorists became entangled in fierce disagreements over just h o ~ v much government is too much. O f course, ever since John Loclze, thinlzers in the liberal tradition have been centrally concerned wit11 delimiting the appropriate scope and reach o f governmental power. But in recent decades in the cnited States, this long-standing philosophical inquiry has assumed a degree o f political urgenc7; as the regulatory and redistributive capacity o f the federal government has expanded in historically unprecedented ~rays, propelled by forces ranging from the social to the technological. As the modern welfare state has expanded, t ~ v o main camps o f opinion have emerged among liberal theorists o n the question o f its legitimacy O n the one side are those thinlzers ~ v h o assert that government can and should play a central role in maintaining the underlying social and economic conditions necessary for individuals to enjoy their liberties. These theorists, lzno~vn variously as redistributionists or ~velfarist liberals, characteristically contend that respect for individual liberty entails positive obligations o n the part o f government to enable persons to enjoy their liberties. O n the other side o f the debate are self-described classical liberals, often referred to as libertarians, ~ v h o insist that a proper respect for liberty can be maintained only with the most minimal intervention by the state. For thinlzers assuming the latter pose, it is agreed that a liberal government should adopt a laissez-faire posture to~rardthe regulation o f both the economy and other aspects o f social and personal life, limiting interventions to a f e ~ v circumscribed tasks, typically those having to d o wit11 law and order and national security In the ~valze o f several decades o f intramural debate, the political philosopher John Ra~vls is now generally regarded as the exemplar o f the ~velfarist liberalism. Ra~vlstoday is ~videly hailed as the most significant liberal 214 Juliet LVilliams thinlzer o f the twentieth century having achieved the rare distinction o f becoming a canonical figure in his oJvn time. While liberalism historically has been associated with an attitude o f~rariness to~rard state paver, in Ra~vls's rendering o f the liberal ideal, the emphasis shifts from constraining coercion to justifjing it. Dispensing ~vith the attitude o f tortured ambivalence long characteristic o f liberal reflections o n the "necessary evil" o f government , Ra~vlsfamously contends that minimalist liberalism must yield to a version o f the ideal ~vhich creates a significant role for government in regulating the processes through ~vhich resources are distributed. In this ~va!; Ra~vls accentuates the critical distinction between opposing big government and supporting limited government, a distinction that historically has been elided in liberal discourses o n government. Among liberal theorists in the c.S. academ7;~velfarist liberalism noJv represents the consensus position, and those o n the libertarian side o f the spectrum struggle not simply for legitimacy but for mere recognition, even during eras, such as the 1990s,~ v h e n libertarian ideologies enjoyed a s~vell o f popularity in mainstream political discourse.' In this regard, the career o f Friedrich von Hayek is illustrative, for though it is Ra~vls~ v h o has won the hearts and minds o f the vast majority o f U.S.academics, it is Hayek who ultimately achieved greater popular recognition in the United States, Great Britain, and in many o f the former eastern bloc countries as ~ v e l l . B o r n in Austria in 1899,Hayek's intellectual trajectory~vas established ~vhile he Jras still a student at the University o fI'ienna. It was there that he first encountered the theories associated ~vith the Austrian School o f Economics, a brand o f economic thought with origins in the ~vritings o f Carl hlenger and strongly associated ~vith antisocialist, anticollectivist, and proliberal capitalist economics and politics.'Xfter completing a brief stint as a civil servant, Hayelz...

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