Francisco: “This is why logical arguments can only be corroborated by using logic, or refuted by cogent counterarguments.”

While that may be true of abstractions, like morals, it doesn’t apply to history. When Hoppe writes that “Whereas kings viewed themselves as the private owner of the territory under their control, presidents consider themselves as temporary caretakers,” He makes that the premise that intends to build a syllogism on. Now he may commit no fallacies in logic and arrive at a logical conclusion, but if his premise is false, he’s still wrong, no matter how elegant his logic. How do you test premises? With current reality or history. Nothing within the logical process itself enables one to test a premise with logic. You have to reach outside of logic to reality for the test. Hoppe fails the most in his ridiculous premises.

{I think Francisco’s comments probably render mine redundant, but whatever…}

Roger,

H: “Further, as tax-funded monopolists of ultimate decision-making, states are inherently aggressive institutions.”

R:”Are we supposed to take Hoppe’s word for this, that because states tax their people and hold a monopoly on taxation that they are inherently aggressive?”

P: It is not necessary to take Hoppe’s word for this. It is a plain fact. The essence of the state is to claim a monopoly on the right to tax. Taxation is an aggressive act. It is the expropriation of funds from non-aggressors under the threat of the initiation of violence.

R: “Where is the logical connection between taxation and agression against neighbors? I can think of dozens of reasons why one nation attacks another, but I can’t see how a monopoly on taxation within a country would do it.”

P: An entity, the state, which claims the right to tax is necessarily aggressive because taxation is aggressive. The state most capable, resource-wise, to be aggressive in foreign policy, will be the most aggressive, given its inherently aggressive nature in general to begin with.

R: “Then he writes:

“Other things being equal, the lower the tax and regulation burden imposed on the domestic economy, the larger the population will tend to grow and the larger the amount of domestically produced wealth on which the state can draw in its conflicts with neighboring competitors.”

“Nothing wrong there. All he says is that liberty creates wealth and wealth makes states powerful. From this he concludes the following:

“This explains, for instance, why … the United States, internally one of the most liberal states, has conducted the most aggressive foreign policy, while the former Soviet Union, for instance, with its entirely illiberal (repressive) domestic policies has engaged in a comparatively peaceful and cautious foreign policy.”

“This is an example of a logical leap the size of the Grand Canyon. He doesn’t show why wealth increases aggressiveness; he just assumes it.”

P: His argument is that a wealthier tax base provides the already inherently aggressive state with the means and power to conduct a relatively more aggressive foreign policy than comparatively more poverty stricken states. Because it is more liberal at home, Washington has more and better means to be aggressive abroad. This is why Washington can send hundreds of billions of dollars worth of war machinery and capital to Iraq and all over the planet for destructive military purposes; because its economy accommodates such action.

R: “He assumes that the US has been more aggressive than the Soviet Union but offers no proof, whereas history shows that the Soviets were far more aggressive than the US throughout the cold war. The US simply responded to their aggressiveness.”

P: No, he shows how and why the US government has been able to afford to be more aggressive in its foreign policy than the Soviet Union has. The Soviets could barely calculate economically at all, let alone compete with the US in world domination. They had their hands full just in seeing to it that the part of the population it wasn’t intentionally murdering wasn’t starving and was able to buy itself shoes. Obviously Moscow did not have the means to dominate the world as the US military did then because of its relatively impoverished taxpayers and economy and its lack of capital to direct in this way. This is simple economics.

R: “Here is an example of a false assumption: “Whereas kings viewed themselves as the private owner of the territory under their control, presidents consider themselves as temporary caretakers.” Hoppe builds a world on this statement, but it’s simply not true.”

P: I don’t get what you disagree with. Which part do you dispute: that kings viewed themselves as private owners of a territory, or that presidents view themselves as temporary caretakers? I see no basis to dispute either claim. A King expects to pass his kingdom down to his family and only his family. A president expects to and must leave his temporary post in the White House and move on to write his memoirs. Please elaborate on how you disagree.

R: “But here’s an interesting case where logic can’t prove or disprove assumptions; you have to look at the historical facts. History proves that kings rarely viewed themselves as private owners of a territory, but more as god-like creatures above all morality and decency.”

Regardless of whether they claimed to be gods or not, they were in fact human and therefore acted in a self interested fashion like the rest of us. They certainly believed that they owned their kingdoms, at least to the extent that they intended to and did hand them down to their children in the form of an inheritance. From this fact, it follows that they held both an interest in the present income that their kingdom could provide them as well as its longer term capital value, just as Hoppe reasons.

Democracies not fighting each other… What about Israel and Lebanon? Hong Kong might be a good example of a democratic stat that still respects liberty.

Fransico:”You CAN test the premise by using logic – How does a king become a king?…”

Your logic is fine, but that’s not what Hoppe wrote. He wrote this:

“Whereas kings viewed themselves as the private owner of the territory under their control, presidents consider themselves as temporary caretakers.”

Hoppe makes a statement about history that he claims if factual–”…kings viewed themselves as the privte owner…” How can you test whether they viewed themselves as private owners? Only by looking at history.

Now it’s true that Hoppe probably drew that conclusion from the premises that kings inherit or conquer territory, so his conclusion that they must view their territory as their private property is logical. But if we look at history, we find that conclusion to be false, so I must assume that either his premise is false or he made a leap in logic that wasn’t justified, otherwise his conclusion and history would match. Logical conclusion are like predictions; if my predictions fail, something must be wrong with my model.

Paul:”Taxation is an aggressive act.”

There’s your problem. Taxation is an illegit act only if governments are illegit. You guys are chasing your tail; assuming your conclusions. Yes, I would agree, if you accept that any government is illegit, then taxation is theft and states are inherently agrressive. But if you don’t assume that all government is illegit, then taxation is not aggressive and states aren’t inherently aggressive. As I have written, Hoppe’s problems don’t like with his logic, but with him premises, exept where he makes logical leaps.

Paul: “No, he shows how and why the US government has been able to afford to be more aggressive in its foreign policy than the Soviet Union has.”

Based on the assumption that states are inherently aggressive, a false assumption, he concludes (predicts) that richer states will be more aggressive. Then he makes a statement of fact that the US was more aggressive than the USSSR. But if I check history, I find that the USSR was far more aggressive. Since his prediction fails, I have to look at his premises to see where he went wrong and I find the problem in his assumption that states are inherently aggressive. And even if you accept his assumption that taxation is aggression against the state’s citizens, he commits a logical leap of faith in extending that to aggressiveness against other nations. There no necessary connection.

Paul:”The Soviets could barely calculate economically at all, let alone compete with the US in world domination.”

That’s all clear now, but it wasn’t clear for over 70 years. The Soviets were far more aggressive than the US during most of their existence because they devoted 50% of their GDP to militory spending. The best analysts of the Cold War thought the USSR was attempting and had the ability to dominate the world. Only you an Hoppe, and some die-hard communists would believe that the USSR was less aggressive than the US. It shows a tremendous ignorance of history.

Paul:”They certainly believed that they owned their kingdoms, at least to the extent that they intended to and did hand them down to their children in the form of an inheritance.”

This is probably just an exaggeration than anything. Kings viewed some aspects of their reign as their private property, but they also saw private property rights owned by their subjects as having prior claim over the king’s rights. Even if I accept this ridiculous proposition that kings viewed their territory as their private properties, then I must explain why kings acted against their own self interest by wasting so much of their wealth and citizenry on extended wars, by defaulting on loans which caused interest rates to rise into the double digits, by murdering so many of their citizens, by selling monopolies for short term income, by controlling prices and ruining industries, by allowing corrupt judges to pervert justice, by selling offices to corrupt officials who stole from the king and the people, and the list goes on. How could King George allow parliament to pass laws that harmed the interest of the colonies and forced them to rebel?

In summary, Hoppe takes as his assumption that all governments are illegal and immoral, therefore taxation is an illegal aggressive act. From this false premise, he predicts that kings will view their kingdoms as private property and manage is wisely whereas democracies won’t. He then predicts that poorer governments will be less agrressive than richer ones. His predictions are historically inaccurate, which proves that his logic fails, and it fails at the point of his premises, his logical leaps and his exaggerations.

Francisco:”Taking that which is not yours, by force, is theft. Taking that which is not yours, by force, is an act of aggression.”

I didn’t want to get into it too deeply, but the whole idea that taxation is theft is based on Hoppe’s fabricated system of morals based exclusively on property. In that system, only voluntary contributions to support the government are considered legit; involuntary payments are theft. But those conclusions hold only if governments don’t have the right to force people to pay taxes.

I don’t want to launch a debate about Hoppe’s ideas on morality, other than to say I don’t agree with it because he artificially limits the debate to property rights and excludes other rights that natural law theorists have always considered important and superior to property rights.

Only if you stay within Hoppe’s very narrow, and artificial system of morality can you consider it theft for governments to force people to pay taxes. I’m not going to debate that. We’ve done it too many times on this site before. I side with the likes of Douglass North and others that the free rider problem is too great for Hoppe’s system to work, and is in itself immoral.

That’s why I argue that taxation is not theft and forced taxation is not aggression; it’s simply enforcing the laws necessary for legitimate governments to survive and carry out their legitimate functions. If a majority of people form a government, common sense requires that they fund it; if others want the benefits of that government without paying for them, that is theft and the other citizens have an obligation to make them pay or have them move.

Even if states were inherently aggressive against their own citizens, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they would be aggressive against other states. But since they’re not aggressive against their own citizens, Hoppe’s whole argument falls apart.

This provides one more factual argument against Hoppe: monarchies were far more aggressive against their citizens that democracies. How many democracies have murdered hundreds of thousands of their own citizens for no reason other than their religion, as many monarchies have?

Words like “unlawful” or “legitimate” are meaningless since you have to tell in which sense are you using them.

My own legal philosophic studies started in legal positivism and ended in legal positivism. This fixation with the natural law is Anglo-American tradition (with some Viking/Teutonic concepts) and in other parts of world not necesserily recognized.

All of you should read Vilfredo Pareto’s Manual of Political Economy and its discussion with the elites of society. Words like liberty or democracy are just hiding more than revealing since elite’s of society continue their struggles. In some cases the elite’s are more aggressive and in some cases more cautious and conservative. Elites can thus be categorized into different types. There is no class war other than a change of ruling elite’s.

There are always those who rule and those who are ruled. Talk about the legitimacy of some functions of government is thus deeply flawed.

“There are always those who rule and those who are ruled. Talk about the legitimacy of some functions of government is thus deeply flawed.”

If everyone who has posted in this blog were the only people in a given society would we need a ruler? Being ruled implies being ruled in relation to some specific things. Do you need a ruler to tell you when to go to the toilet? If law and order are the things that only “rulers” can provide then fair enough but neither history nor a cogent logical argument has to shown it to my satisfaction. The arguments for a stateless society are compelling to me. Natural rights arguments to arrive at such a conclusion however are not, neither are Hoppes discourse ethics.

In relation to your first bit, I at least would use “unlawful” and “legitimate” in relation to whether it is a voluntary and hence a moral institution or social order.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Oscar Wilde

” . . . the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”

The last half of the last paragraph in John Maynard Keynes’s book General Theory of Employment Interest and Money.

That ideas rule the world is one of the very few correct ideas that John Maynard Keynes probably ever had.

Human history is in essence a history of ideas (H.G. Wells)

The democratic principle means that the majority of the people have the right use physical violence and theft, just because they are the majority.
If we grasp a state of things where majorities exist everywhere and in all human situations and places (i.e. in the classroom, shop, street, airport, forest etc) and that all those majorities would also have the right, and actually used this right, to use physical violence and theft against minorities, the human race would quickly perish.

Utilitarianism means that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Intellectually the principle lets the door stand wide open for the use of physical violence and theft against people which happens to belong to the lesser number. If we grasp a state of things where the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people exists in using physical violence and theft everywhere and in all human situations and places (i.e. in the classroom, shop, street, airport, forest etc) against all those people that happened to belong to the lesser numbers, the human race would quickly perish.

The principle “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft” is on the other hand a principle which man can live by, without at the same time destroying the human race. The principle “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft” is instead a diametrical opposite principle in comparison to the democratic principle and the principle of utilitarianism, because it does not allow aggressions and it preserves human life and prosperity.

I do believe, therefore, that this principle and idea is the correct one for the human race to follow.

Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden

Bjorn:”The principle “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft” is on the other hand a principle which man can live by, without at the same time destroying the human race.”

I agree. But what do you do when someone commits theft or violence against another that’s unwarrented? Someone must use violence against the offender in order for justice to prevail. So your principle can’t be absolute.

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”

It can mean that. There’s nothing inherent in democracies to prevent it. But monarchies, dictatorships and anarchies can mean the same thing. No system can guarantee a perfect government because people are imperfect.

But it’s interesting that the first outbrake of liberty in the history of the world (excluding Israel in the period of judges) came from a republic, the Dutch Republic. The Dutch gave the world its first taste of economic and religious freedom. That tiny country’s influence forced the monarchies of Europe to change. When the US won it freedom from the English monarch, the rest of the world hailed it as the freest nation on the planet and a beacon of liberty and justice. No one claimed anything even remotely similar for the monarchies of the world.

Bjorn:”In letting the criminal to bear the cost of his violations does not contradict the statement that the principle is absolute because in such a case when the criminal bears the cost of his violations, no aggression has been done against him.”

I guess it depends upon your perspective. From the criminal’s perspective, someone certainly has used aggression against him in the process of carrying out justice.

But the real question is who will carry out the justice and force the unwilling criminal to bear the cost of his actions? In anarchy, the task falls to the offended party or his family, or a private agency he has hired. In a democracy, the citizen hires the government to carry out justice. Now one can argue all day about which system will be more efficient, but outside of Hoppe’s fabricated ethic, democracy is just as ethical as any other system, and in general has produced much better results than any other system, that is, if you use the term democracy with its commonly understand definition, and not the bizarre definitions that some anarchists have proposed.

Perhaps Dr. Hoppe is being selective, but, at least he is thinking, even if we disagree with his conclusions.

The Old American Republic, (and maybe the Dutch Republic?, and others?) were ones in which the idea was that the Federal Constitution would bind the rulers, even the ones who were elected. There would be a rule of law, and the government and people could not overturn that. Of course, the populace would have to believe this, so, I suppose it would be deomcratic in the sense of that.

The monarchy in much of England’s was always a restricted one. King James, for example, could not raise taxes without parliaments consent. And if he tried to overstep his traditional bound, well, heads could role (in the case of his unfortunate son, this was literally true!). The King had lands from which he could exact revenue, but, Parliament could vote him additional funds. Often, the commoners were quite happy when parliament was not in session, since, parliament being in session usually indicated new taxes. The King was often bankrupt. This, ofcourse, wasn’t a perfect system, and perhaps, the prevailing economic system of mercantilism was one of the worst features of the age. But, mercantilism has prevailed in systems as varied as monarchies to pure democracies.

Most of these political systems were tailored to the societies in which they existed, with centuries of laws, customs, and traditions. A republic which was founded, lets say on concepts of legal positivism, in which concepts of natural and moral laws that were absolute, might do much worse than a monarchy in which the smallest violation of the emperor/king of a custom, tradition, natural and moral law would raise the greatest protests. It all kinds of depends on the subject.

It would be interesting to see Dr. Hoppe engage in a debate with another libertarian who adopts the opposite position. Perhaps that would enable us to clear up a good amount of misunderstandings.

An earlier point was made that the Emperor Constantine created a coupt of ‘biblical’ Christianity. This seems to be only a concept held by certain groups, such as fundamentalist protestants (baptists, pentecostals, so-called non-denominationlists, etc ) and many ‘leftists’ scholars. It betrays a great misunderstanding of the events in the 4th century. One need only read the writings Lactantius, Athanasius, Eusbeius, Socratius, to realize that the Emperor did believe what the Church taught, and when he called several councils, his main concern was to have peace, but, if one reads the correspondence between Athanaisus (defender of the Trinity) and Constantine, one realizes that he held a good understanding of Christian theology. But, aside from that point, the Emperor never made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, it wasn’t until the reign of Theodosius at the beginning of the 5th century that Chrisitianity was given that statues. IF one reads Augustine’s “City of God”, part of it was written in refutation to the many pagans who attacked Christianity, and who still operated many temples. Since the Western Empire collapsed in the 5th century, it was only in the Eastern Empire that hte concept of Symphonia between Church and State developed.

The Reformed tradition seemed to view the King as mainly just a sort of a chief magistrate. The Lutherans appear to have had a somewhat different view, more unquestioning, unfortunately. The Roman Catholic tradition was always able to be, at its best, a great opposition to government power, even if it wasn’t for what many would consider to be the right reasons, well, at least it was opposition. The Orthodox Church’s position was more complex, seeing that here were always bishops willing to accept the emperor’s distortions, but always leaders, (Photius, for example) who opposed him, and they were almost always canonized decades later. The Orthodox and Roman Catholic (and perhaps the Reformed and Lutherans?) existed in systems as varied as centralized monarchies (Byzantine Empire, and Spanish kingdom), or in decentralized, city states or feudal republics (like the Italian and German free cities for Roman CAtholics, and the Novgorod feudal republic, and other city states in medieval Rus’ for the Orthodox), or in decentralized monarchical systems, like in England, or Serbia. The Reformed were usually in the Dutch Republic, and Scotland I think. THe Lutherans in Scandinavia, and Northern Germany.

As far as the religious aspect to Church and State support issues goes, I bow to the observations of the learned Dr. Rothbard. IN this regard, he mentions how the more liturgical, ordered Christian confessions in American history, tended to favor less government interference (tended, i might add), like the Episcopalians, Lutherans, and good confessional Reformed groups. While the Methodists, Baptists, etc, tened to one the government to enforce a great deal of their particular moral theology upon others. Of course, this observation was historical, and not applicable today.

Democracy, it would seem, works much better, on a very small level. Assuming this democracy is controlled and constrained.

my tirade is not ordered, or well thought out, forgive me for anything I have said that may be taken in an untoward manner. this was typed very quickly.

thanks,

Forgive me, RogerM, I misunderstood you.

Though, I would slightly disagree to the extent that the state was identified as the Church. Only the Roman Catholic Church, has ever really had the problem of confusion between state and Church, in the sense of them becoming a state (like the Vatican ‘kingdoms’ that existend in central Italy). The Symphonia attempted in the Byzantine Empire was different.

Yes, it would seem that people often get the form of government they want. However, of course, there are exception in which small groups (like the Bolsheviks) can effectively counter and suppress much majority opposition by masterful propaganda and ‘statecraft’. I’m am somewhat certain, for example, that he 6 million Ukrainian’s Stalin killed were not necessarily big supporters of his!

”
Democracy, it would seem, works much better, on a very small level. Assuming this democracy is controlled and constrained. ”

This is just inviting more questions. Who or what constrains it? Why can’t a monarchy be similarly constrained?

“Yes states have rights–those granted by the people to it.”

Sorry, Roger, either you do not know what is a “right” or you have a distorted idea of the concept. A “State” does not exist – it is only an abstraction. Only human beings, those that step on dirt and breathe air, can have rights.

“The state has the right to take taxes by force in the same way that a lender may collect a debt from an unwilling debtor by force if the debtor violates the contract.”

Again, a State is only a construct, it is not real, thus it cannot have rights. Regarding the comparison, it is unsound, considering that a debt collector is simply following on a claim to HIS or HER property. Taxes are NOT the State’s property nor is it debt. There is no agreement between the state to loan property or money to a person so as to collect it later.

Francisco: “Again, a State is only a construct, it is not real, thus it cannot have rights.”

It sure has a lot of power for something that is not real!

“When saying “the common use of the term”, do you mean your use or someone else’s? Because by such logic, we can give any term any meaning, just by saying it is “the common use”. I prefer precision.”

The purpose of language is to communicate, but communication can take place only when we use words in ways that are commonly understood. Usually, that is the dictionary definition, but occasionally it’s just what most people think the definition is. If in a discussion you have to change the meaning of a word from its commonly accepted one, you’re argument is obviously weak, and you’re being dishonest.

Yes, it’s true that some dictators come to power through a vote of the people, but when those dictators stop holding elections and murder opponents, they cease being democracies.

“Communist China is a democracy, since the majority of people do believe in Communism.”

Believing in something is not the same as voting for it. You’re promoting a false definition of democracies. Besides, from what I know of China, most Chinese don’t believe and never have believed in Communism. Membership in the Communist Party is very small. China is a dictatorship (a monarchy) by the Communist Party.

“It would be interesting to listen to your take on the idea that, if Communit China was considered “legit” by its population, it had the same “right” to impose taxes.”

You’re confusing the legitimacy of government as an institution with the legitimacy of specific governments. Any form of government can be legit, whether a military dictatorship, a monarchy, a democracy, anarchy or a republic. This has been the opinion of natural rights theorists for ages. What makes them eligit are their actions, such as murder, theft and general disrespect for human rights.

Hoppeian anarchists, on the other hand, believe that no form or government under any circumstances is legitimate. That’s why Hoppe can claim that all taxation is theft and all war is murder.

This might be a good time to bring up another point where I think Hoppeian anarchists are dishonest. There’s a big difference between democracies and republics. I think, as did the US founding fathers, that democracies are a dangerous as dictatorships. Democracy is nothing but tyranny of the majority. Republics restrain the majority with the rule of law and a constitution that protects fundamental human rights. Elected officials in a republic are not supposed to parrot the desire of their constituents, but act as an elite group, sort of like a nobility, to run the country according to the constitution and ignore the wishes of the voters if those wishes conflict with human rights and the constitution. The loss of liberty we have suffered in the US has come about because of the drift towards democracy.

Hoppeian anarchists treat republics as if they were democracies, just as you are trying to equate communism and Nazism with democracy, which is dishonest.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Murray Rothbard and ethics.

As I see it, Hoppe and Rothbard have the same views regarding which libertarian ethical principles a libertarian society should support.

The difference between them in this regard is the procedure in which they arrive at those principles.

Rothbard supported abstract reasoning within the realm of Natural Law. Hoppe on the other hand, might support Natural Law but does, at least, not do that openly and cleverly avoids, consequently, any debate regarding the validity of the concept of Natural Law.

Hoppe came into the insight that an extremely important part of the “Rothbardian ethics” was missing. The missing part was the abstract reasoning needed to prove the true validity of the concept “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft”. Hoppe filled that missing gap.

I also want to say that I think Hoppe is a golden asset for the libertarian movement and that he is, probably, the intellectual “godfather” of this movement that is still living.

That does not mean that any criticism against his ideas might not be correct. I could not tell.

Perfection does not exist in nature.

Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden

Adi:”I have said earlier that the natural law is alien concept outside of Anglo-American tradition.”

The natural law school began with Thomas Aquinas in 13th century Europe and was the chief guiding force for European law/ethics for centuries. It may have reached its climax under the Anglo-Saxons Locke and Hume, but they didn’t invent it.

The concept of natural law is fairly simple. Philosophers believed that only God has the authority to tell mankind how to act, because no man has moral authority over another. Morals are impossible without God. The shortcut to a moral code is through the Bible, but for non-believers, the natural law theorists believed you could arrive at most of God’s moral law through reason by examining mankind’s nature and determining what principles enable man to survive and flourish.

I think natural law rests on a firmer foundation than any other system I’ve discovered. Hoppe’s system, though elegantly reasoned, suffers from several deficiencies. First, he bases the right to private property on what’s implied when two people argue, that is, the implications about self-ownership which assume a principle of private property. I don’t think he makes a strong case that self-ownership is implied in the process of argumentation, but even if you allow it, it seems to be a weak foundation for the single most important institution in all of Western civilization–private property. Natural law offers much more solid grounds for property.

Next, Hoppe builds his entire ethic upon the right to property, but this is just one aspect of human nature. Choosing just property on which to build a moral foundation is an arbitrary choice. Natural law starts with the right to life and includes private property as a subset right. Because Hoppe makes property an absolute, it naturally follows that all taxes are theft and all war is murder. Therefore, all forms of government are immoral. Natural law builds upon the right to life and the sociable nature of man to allow for limited government, with emphasis on limited. Natural law places more emphasis on the limits to government power because, in its day, tyranny was the main problem. But mob rule and criminal behavior were also dangers.

Natural law didn’t belief that a perfect system of government could perfect mankind, either. I’m not certain that Hoppe thinks that a stateless society would perfect mankind, but he sure seems to imply it with articles like the one above. Natural law takes human nature as a given with some good people and some bad, but always with enough bad people to create chaos through lawlessness. Only religion/philosophy can change individuals. Natural law theorists would never have accepted a state-less society because they believed the criminal element would soon dominate it.

Finally, I think it’s deceptive to even call Hoppe’s system an ethical system because it leaves God out. Hoppe can’t say that a thief or murderer is immoral in his system, only that he is unreasonable, illogical or doesn’t follow the rules. Any man-made code of conduct is little more than a home-owner’s covenant. If someone breaks the covenant, the other home owners can demand that he leave the community, but they have no authority to punish the offender beyond ostricism. Hoppe’s system should be called a code of conduct in the same way that business organizations have codes of conduct.

Björn, it’s altogether different thing to say that those societies which follow liberal order are most probable to survive than to say that some principle is self-evidently true. I will agree with you that liberal order is by it’s consequences best solution. There are so many individuals though that disagree with us about these issues. Think about how many Swedes and Finns support Nordic Welfare state..

Tack så mycket för din kommenter!

RogerM, I said that many people might be sceptical about the possibility for man’s reason to reach those universal truths about which you wrote. Situation is still more difficult when someone is invoking divine powers to found a ultimate legal system. I dont have such a clear opinion about previous issue, but we all seem to have somekind of liberal system as our ultimate form of society and we just happen to reach the same goal through different roads.

Adi

” it’s altogether different thing to say that those societies which follow liberal order are most probable to survive than to say that some principle is self-evidently true. I will agree with you that liberal order is by it’s consequences best solution. There are so many individuals though that disagree with us about these issues. Think about how many Swedes and Finns support Nordic Welfare state”.

Yes, I agree that it is an entirely different thing to argue that some principles are either self-evident true or/and as Hoppe puts it “the normative foundation which cognition and truth rest is the recognition of private property rights” than to support a liberal order because it is by its consequences the best solution.

I am, naturally, very aware of the fact that most people are not libertarians. But that does not change anything regarding the true validity of libertarian principles. They are true regardless of how many people believe so. It is like supporting Austrian economics. I am very aware of the fact that most people have not even heard of a school called the Austrian School of Economics. But that does not influence me at all in believing that there will be, for example, an end of the business cycles if we adopt 100 % gold reserve banking. It is the “internal logic” of such a system that has convinced me. The same goes with libertarian principles.

Nice, that you know some Swedish!

Tack själv, för dina fina kommentarer!

I really, now feel how strange my language must be for a foreign tongue! God!

Björn Lundahl

Bjorn,
Nice selection from Bastiat! Thanks!

RogerM & M E Hoffer

my pleasure!

Björn