Stephan Kinsella carga duro en esta entrada contra el presunto liberalismo de los padres fundadores de Estados Unidos, la Declaración de Independencia y la Constitución. Demasiado duro. Richard Ebeling responde con un comentario muy atinado, que copio entero debajo:
Mr. Kinsella is frustrated that the Founding Fathers were not libertarians, as he understands that idea.
Yes, it was a great tragedy that those Founding Fathers failed to consult the works of Murray Rothbard before they decided on their courses of action. If only they had, perhaps, had the chance to read advanced copies of Rothbard's work, say, in early galley pages!
Oh, that’s right, Rothbard only was writing about 200 years later! How stupid of me!
There are at least two ways of looking at historical events. One is to evaluate all that has happened in the past from one's normative perspective in the present, and to use that as a benchmark to praise or condemn. (Of course, there is always a tomorrow when some other evaluator will do the same to our views, ideas, and actions.)
The other approach is to trace out and understand the evolution of the ideas through historical time. This approach can assist in appreciating how the ideas of the present emerged over time from the earlier intellectual processes of discovery, debate, and improvement (and sometimes retrogression).
In this latter perspective, one can better (and perhaps more tolerantly) grasp how earlier thinkers may only have seen all the implications of their own ideas “through a glass darkly.” And how later thinkers saw some of the inconsistencies or contradictions that those earlier thinkers did not fully comprehend. And, thus, we better see the growth of knowledge at work.
If we were to follow Mr. Kinsella’s view applied to Austrian Economics, we would have tear up and throw away our copies of Bohm-Bawerk. After all, he believed that utility was measurable (clearly an original sin that leads to progressive income taxation) and he worked for the State (he was finance minister of Austria-Hungary and he put together taxing legislation – obviously, a plunderer through-and through); and, oh, no, like 90 percent of all of those who have laid the groundwork for modern classical liberalism and libertarianism Bohm-Bawerk believed in – limited government. Oh, no, that means we have to tear up Mises’ works, too!
Now, of course, we always judge the ideas of the past by our own understandings and perspectives that are held our today. How else can we do it? But our interpretations of earlier men and their ideas is tempered when we put them in that more historical, evolutionary intellectual context when we judge them from our more “lofty” contemporary point-of-view.
