Unrepentant “Old” Whig

En post-scriptum de la Constitution de la Liberte, Friedrich Hayek situa le coeur de ses convictions ou il percut quetait leur place dans lhistoire des idees. Il etait, il insistait, simplement un vieux Whig impenitent, en insistant sur le vieux. Le Whiggisme, il venait de le soutenir, etait le nom du seul et unique courant de pensee qui sopposa serieusement a tout pouvoir arbitraire. En mettant en avant le fait que le vrai liberalisme navait pas de nom reconnaissable afin de le distinguer du faux liberalisme, Hayek suggera celui de vieux Whig bien quil sembla plus proche de sa validite historique que de son utilite dans le monde reel. Cet essai tente dillustrer ce quHayek voulait dire en sappelant lui meme vieux Whig ou Whig Burkeen, comme il se decrivit plus tard. Il souleve des questions quant a la validite de la conception quHayek avait de lui, et quant a la vraie nature des vieux Whig historiques. Cet article explore le modele historique cree par Hayek, centre sur levenement cle de la Revolution Francaise, pour expliquer ce quil appela une contre-renaissance en faveur du collectivisme.In is postscript to The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich Hayek placed his core beliefs into what he perceived as their proper place in the history of ideas. He was, he insisted, simply an unrepentant Old Whig with the stress on the old. Whiggism, he went on to assert, was the name of the only set of ideals that had consistently opposed all arbitrary power. Highlighting the fact that true liberalism had no recognisable name with which to distinguish itself from false liberalism, Hayek tossed Old Whig into the ring as his suggestion though he seemed more confident of its historical validity than its real-world usefulness. This essay attempts to illustrate just what Hayek meant by calling himself an Old Whig, or Burkean Whig, as he later described himself. It raises some questions about the validity of Hayeks self-conception, and the true nature of the historical Old Whigs. It also explores the historical model that Hayek created, centred on the key event of the French Revolution, to explain what he called a counterrenaissance in favour of collectivism.