Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty - Institute of Economic Affairs

h ay e k ’ s t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n o f l i b e r t y
diversity’ (394). Education is vital to human development, thus
understood. This is why a free society’s education policy cannot
be merely utilitarian.
15 WHY I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE
(POSTSCRIPT)
When Hayek, in the body of his text, attacks rival views, his
targets are mainly rationalist liberalism and socialism in one
form or another. To be sure, he sometimes criticises conservative
thought and practice; but given his insistence on the limits
of reason, the force of tradition and the need to recover old principles,
the reader might well conclude that the term ‘conservative’
applies aptly to Hayek. This notion is exploded by Hayek’s
Postscript, which repudiates conservatism in no uncertain terms.
The Postscript summarises some leading points made in the
body of the work, so framed as to highlight Hayek’s fundamental
dis agreement with conservatism. Yet if the Postscript were merely
a summary, it would not have become – as it has become – the
most widely read and discussed part of The Constitution of Liberty.
By framing the Postscript as a hard-nosed critique of conservatism,
Hayek guaranteed that it would be controversial and would
gain a wide audience.
Why did Hayek wish to distance himself from conservatism?
By his account, the Conservative Party of Britain and their equivalents
in European nations had long resisted free market ideas
and favoured expansive government, especially one that would
maintain established privileges. The conservative parties, rather
than resisting the collectivist tide, had accommodated it: ‘It has
been regularly the conservatives who have compromised with
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