Robert Nozick and John Gray are two scholars who, to varying degrees, retreated from their classical liberal past the same year (1989) that witnessed the final collapse of classical liberalism’s archenemy, Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Their retreat is completely explained by their shift, in a troubled world, from a preoccupation with the goal of preserving liberty to that of preserving order; that is, from a commitment to the philosophy of John Locke to that of Thomas Hobbes.

Charles K. Rowley (1939–2013) was a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and a Member of Board of Advisors for The Independent Review.
EconomistsEconomyGovernment and PoliticsLaw and LibertyPhilosophy and ReligionPolitical Theory
Other Independent Review articles by Charles K. Rowley
Winter 1998/99 Five Market-Friendly Nobelists: Friedman, Stigler, Buchanan, Coase, and Becker
Winter 1997/98 On the Nature of Civil Society