Randy E. Barnett on the Compatibility of Hayek and Natural Rights
Barnett discusses the connection between natural rights theory and the work of Friedrich Hayek.
Professor Randy E. Barnett teaches constitutional law and contracts at the Georgetown University Law Center. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.
In this video from a seminar at the Summer University of the New Economics in Aix-en-Provence, France in 1999, Barnett explores the compatibility of F.A. Hayek’s theories with a classical conception of natural rights. While it is well known that Hayek tended to associate natural rights with the rational constructivism of collectivist thought, Barnett posits that the “given…if/then” logical structure of the classical conception of natural rights would have a place in Hayek’s worldview.