The Rise and Fall of the City
In this excerpt from Democracy: The God That Failed, I explain why cities exist and how governments destroy them through interventionist politics. It is in the large cities where, as the subjective reflection of this complex system of spatio-functional allocation, citizens will develop the most highly refined forms of personal and professional conduct, etiquette, and style. It is the city that breeds civilization and civilized life. But once the state arrives on the scene, the process of de-civilization begins. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (122)
Prof Hoppe's writings are never dull, always challeging to read, and most rewarding on reflection.
Published: November 23, 2005 7:05 AM
His writings also enrage Leftists to the point where they cannot even hold a simple conversation. He presents his ideas in a logical, direct, straightforward way, but the reaction from the Left is instant insanity. They can't take it in.
Of course, rigorous logic has never been the Left's strong suit.
Published: November 23, 2005 7:49 AM
'If all humans were identical and everyone were equipped with identical natural resources, everyone would produce the same qualities and quantities of goods, and the idea of exchange and cooperation would never enter anyone's mind'
So 10 identical individuals in the well worn Crusoe environment wouldn't learn or even think about the benefits of increasing productivity by specialising in different tasks? Am I missing the point or is this plainly incorrect....
Published: November 23, 2005 7:56 AM
Libertarian writings rarely fail to enrage statists, both of the left and right varieties.
However, although I agree with much of what Hoppe writes, I disagree with his methods and some of his conclusions (e.g. no freedom of speech, even on your own private property, homosexuals and democrats to be expelled from libertarian society, etc).
I consider myself an anarcho-capitalist (in the sense of David Friedman) but I'd rather live in any democracy than in Hoppe's Orwellian collective.
Published: November 23, 2005 8:01 AM
Marco,
Exactly which methods do you disagree with and where did you find Hoppe's conclusions which you mentioned above?
Published: November 23, 2005 8:40 AM
Another fantastic article by Hans Hermann Hoppe. Anyone who sits here and says Professor Hoppe is some of kind of totalitairan is clearly missing something. In anarchocapitalism, there is no such thing as an Orwllian collective and Hoppe never implies as he says in the article, every home is its own extraterritorial like embassy. Professor Hoppe just points out general trends which may upset some people, but that's life. And as to that quote, please read the book before you start imitating Tom Palmer. That is just one example within the context of an appeal to cultural conservatives. And if you agree with anarchocapitalism and say you would rather live in a democracy, you a hypocrite and very inconsistent. Do not lanuch any personal attacks. That is sickening!
Published: November 23, 2005 9:17 AM
Jonathan,
I've been wondering about the same problem: seems natural that the division of labor would still hold in a world of identical individuals: if they specialized then through training and building skills, they would still have different levels of output making the division of labour worht their while.
It is irrelevant that in principle what the one person is doing in his specialization could have been done just as well by any of the others if they had chosen to specialize in those fields.
Published: November 23, 2005 9:40 AM
I always appreciate the writings of Dr. Hoppe, and found this article informative as well. I concur that the modern city became the foundation of civilization, and that the primary cause of urban conflict is the state. Rather than being guided by cultural values, we have become politicized. Moreover, rather than affirm equality before the law, we have become involved with special interests. As he indicates, politics becomes class (or group) politics.
I do quibble with his point that “If all humans were identical and everyone were equipped with identical natural resources, everyone would produce the same qualities and quantities of goods, and the idea of exchange and cooperation would never enter anyone's mind.� Even identical individuals would find it advantageous to take turns in hunting and farming, so that in time there would still be specialization of activities (even between nations). What begins with identity would lead to differentiation. However, that is a minor point, and comparative advantage is essentially due to differences among people.
Dr. Hoppe’s conclusion is that income and wealth distribution is a disaster, which undermines the concepts of law & justice, while promoting moral relativism. However, I would not say that the state is the source of de-civilization, but rather the beliefs that deify it. It is not conditions or material realities that are the roots of social change, but the concepts and values that modify them. I of course accept the fact that in turn, the conditions are themselves causal, and in particular influence our concepts and values.
Published: November 23, 2005 9:46 AM
Gaurav: before you start flaming, I have read all of Hoppe's book, from cover to cover. Have you? I am at work now, but I'll post the relevant passages from home later today.
Published: November 23, 2005 9:59 AM
Jonathon, you are mistaking prices with division of labor.
Let's examine the sentence you quoted ("everyone would produce the same qualities and quantities of goods").
One way to read it (the wrong way) is to say that, in this mythical state of perfect equilibrium, everyone would produce the same goods as everyone else. i.e., that there would be no division of labor.
That is not what the sentence means (although when phrased this way, it is a bit unclear). What Prof. Hoppe is saying is that everyone would produce the same goods over time that he/she has always produced. In fact, even that is overbroad. The gist of this assertion is not that each person would do the same job day after day, but that the same goods (in the same qualities and quantities) would need to be produced by the society as a whole. Under this scenario, there would be no need for prices at all.
That is what a society in perfect equilibrium is -- where there is no need or reason to alter the modes of production and consumption because every need is met perfectly by the status quo levels and types of production.
This, of course, does not exist. People's needs and preferences change, more people are born, people die.
This lack of perfect equilibrium and predictability is what creates the need for money and prices in the first place. Prices and money are created by the need to vary production and consumption to meet the demands of a constantly fluctuating society.
Published: November 23, 2005 10:12 AM
Incorrect title. It is not Democracy (or more accurately our Republic) that has failed, but the majority that has failed to resist the corrupt elites taking power.
There is no social system that can overcome a lax majority with a corrupt minority in power. The answer is not anarcho-libertarianism (a failing of Mises.org) but a revolution in personal majority viewpoint (a strength of Mises.org).
It's "give me liberty or give me death", not "do anything to me but don't let me die".
Published: November 23, 2005 10:33 AM
Jim, it's true that a lax majority is a problem, but democracy tends to cultivate that more. In a democracy, you have, say, a 1 in 10^100 chance of changing the outcome of a national election with your single vote. That's very little incentive to spend time caring about what the elites are doing. In the market, you have a 100% chance of influencing your own situation by your own choices. Maybe no one is supplying exactly what you want, but odds are you'll get closer to it than you will under a winner-take-all election.
Published: November 23, 2005 10:51 AM
Jim: it is democracy that failed because it gave "the majority" the right to decide what to do with other people's money. The corrupt minority can only come to power because you have a state which gives everyone the right to vote (including public employees, pensioners, and the like).
I am personally an anarcho-capitalist, but as I mentioned before I would settle for a sort of government in which people voted in the same proportion to which they paid income tax. Pensioners, those on benefit, those supported by other people would lose the right to vote, as would public employees (since technically they do pay income tax, but this is just a legal fiction).
The state would effectively become a corporation run by the capitalist elite, as England was after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 until the Liberal reforms in the 19th century extended the right to vote.
Voters will tend to be high investors in state treasuries for obvious reasons, and their political power will ensure that inflation stays low and a commodity standard is adopted.
Published: November 23, 2005 10:55 AM
It is clear from a reading of Hoppe's book, that he favors the expulsion of homosexuals (and other groups for which he has a personal distaste) from libertarian society. How can he claim to be a libertarian and yet imply that force may legitimately used against groups which he (or others) personally detest? It is clear that in Hoppe's ideal world, the non-agression axiom does not apply to everyone.
Published: November 23, 2005 10:55 AM
If I don't want gays or any other minority group
on my own private property,I have created an opportunity for someone else to profit by doing the opposite.This makes it unlikely that anyone will expelled from a libertarian society based only on race, sexual preference, faith, etc.
Published: November 23, 2005 11:11 AM
Luke, this is a preposterous claim, and we've been through this before. Every passage from the book you can cite refers to private covenantal arrangements of which there are many varieties in a market. His reference to expulsion refers to the right of exclusion generally: e.g. private nude beaches to kick out the clothed. This is completely consistent with libertarian theory. I see no reason to rehash this, which is covered here and here. As for your post, it won't be an excluded from the thread in the hope that it will serve as example of the type of misinformation that should not characterize the discussion.
Published: November 23, 2005 11:18 AM
I believe people are making the mistake of equating the "right" of people to discriminate in their personal dealings, with a desire to personally do so.
Mikey is very much correct, every "discrimination" is an opportunity for someone else to make a profit. As such, the more liberty there is generally, the less discrimination occurs because discrimination doesn't pay.
Just look at the Masters golf tournament. Men only at Augusta, which means they have to work much harder to overcome bad publicity and have a large enough clientell even with the discrimination to pay the bills.
Published: November 23, 2005 11:20 AM
City people generally live in cities because they want to and like the city ways. Country people generally live in the country because they want to and like the country ways. The unhappy people are the commuters who generally have complaints about the city (traffic) and the country (farm odors).
Published: November 23, 2005 11:26 AM
PR - You make my argument. It was the loss of power that yielded lower influence, and the majority is and was responsible for that (continuing) loss. The most probable avenue of success at this point is for a minority of moral businesspeople to undermine the growing power of the state using the market and pull the majority along with them.
Other huge problems with the anarcho-libertarian theory are excluded. Mises.org has gone from correct economics to the broader argument that the economics demands anarcho-libertarianism (and to the argument that such can be successfully implemented) to an even broader claim that "we know history based on the prior two assertions". This breathtaking scope is simply not justified: Is it possible or even probable that people in a libertarian society would gain power and become predatory? But of course. In fact, I'd argue it is certain because of the nature of men.
The reality is that the U.S. has been organized based on the framer's view that men in powerdo not have the knowledge or will to resist doing evil to other people. And that is what I see as a major failing of Mises.org and radical libertarianism (among the fact that morality - such as feeding your own children - is not coincident with property rights only). It fails for the same reason it criticizes government in-general. "Salvation by libertarianism" is a frankly less-than-religious belief. It has no basis in a factual perusal of man's nature.
Marco - If it was possible to dissolve states and adopt a disbursed but still non-contradictory morality, there would still be corruption. Predatory violence would rise alongside states once again. This is a problem of the nature of man and his sin.
I suggest the only viable course of action is to return to a disbursement of power through economic success. To that end, Mises.org does a great service.
Published: November 23, 2005 12:27 PM
Except for one deficiency, I think that this is a superb article.
The part at the end, about the inviolability of families, perhaps could use a few more words of explanation. It could be misconstrued as giving license to the head of a household to violate the life, liberty and property of the weaker family members, and I am sure this is not what Hoppe intended.
First of all, membership in a family must not voluntary for adults; secondly, children, whose membership in a family is not subject to their free will, must be protected from abuse by persons outside of the family - if required.
The state attempts to act as a monopoly force to help abused children, but its tools are inefficient and ineffective, and the bureaucratic agents of the state have many conflicting motivations, such as the larger budgets and greater promotions they receive for over-estimating the incidence of abuse. Before the rise of the state, it was the extended family, the neighborhood, and the ethnic or religious associations which served to protect the rights of children within a family. While this protection was never perfect and undoubtedly many children still suffered from abuse, I would tend to think that these agents were far more effective than the state agencies which have replaced them.
Furthermore, in an anarcho-capitalist society as envisioned by libertarians, people would be more fully (and satisfactorily) employed, more mutually dependent on their local communities for commercial trade and other voluntary exchanges, and ultimately less prone to the psychological conditions which lead to child abuse, such as depression, drug abuse, boredom, feelings of helplessness against "the rat race", and so on.
Published: November 23, 2005 12:50 PM
Probably should throw in that it is likely more accurate to say Hoppe I don't think supports "a system without government" but more likely a system "with many more governments" thus dispersing power and balancing it with the right to succeed. I note the original U.S. system did not entrust property rights with the state, but had militias that were to enforce state's rights. The right to succeed was accomplished (or not) by force of arms.
Practically speaking, if we can hold back the centralized state for long enough, technology and markets (and freedom) can accomplish much of Hoppe's vision.
Published: November 23, 2005 12:53 PM
All of Dr. Hoppe's conclusions rest on the idea that people know and accept the greater productivity and wealth that the division of labor and private property rights offer. However, that's the real problem, isn't it? Most people don't recognize the benefits of either. Traditionalism, socialism, and populism in general are all based on the medieval idea that wealth is limited and one person can gain only at the expense of another. (I call this poker economics because the kitty is a fixed amount. The winner takes all and the others lose.) Because the vast majority (I would guess 90%) of all people hold to poker economics, we need governments to keep them from killing each other over the distribution of wealth. Maybe we should spend more time preaching to the unconverted and less to the choir.
Published: November 23, 2005 1:06 PM
Jeffrey, I have read Hoppe's book from the first page to the last and there is no misinformation here. From page 218
"As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of continued nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society. In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property.
There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order." (my italics)
He is not only talking about the right of exclusion from private property (something with which I 100% agree) but about expelling these people from libertarian society.
Some people have suggested that Hoppe here is merely try to outline the way in which a "conservative" libertarian community might be run. However, Hoppe argues that conservatives must be libertarians and libertarians must be conservatives (p. 189).
In spite of these criticisms, I must say I recommend Hoppe's book. It was a most interesting read, and it contains much valuable information and insight.
Since I realise that this message is likely to be deleted as "unorthodox" I'll post a separate message on Hoppe's methodology :)
Published: November 23, 2005 2:08 PM
Roger, The problem rests with democracy itself. Those who believe in poker economics have influence over those who don't. Hoppe doesn't care much for those who believe in poker economics - he wants those who do not believe in it to have a separate society. Which is why he thinks tens of thousands of small autonomous regions is preferable to few large political bodies.
If one removes the power of Democracy to stage political battles of special interest - then those regions or groups of people who are free to engage in wealth creation by division of labor will be the envy of those who still harbor poker economics. The process of preemptive state building has disrupted this important learning process.
Published: November 23, 2005 2:12 PM
Jim Bradley writes: "Practically speaking, if we can hold back the centralized state for long enough, technology and markets (and freedom) can accomplish much of Hoppe's vision."
And they are, Jim, doing so without the "plan" you keep calling for (that presumably must be devised and "implemented" by some elite). Instead "technology and markets" are leaving the state in the dust, as evidenced by the very medium we are now using:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/garris3.html
Published: November 23, 2005 2:16 PM
Re Hoppe's methodology. In the introduction to DTGTF, he writes
"Mathematicians and logicians, too, claim to be concerned with necessary relations, and yet they do not claim to be infallible. Rather, what is claimed in this regard is only that in order to refute a theoretical proposition (in contrast to a hypothetical one) another, even more fundamental theoretical argument is required, just as another mathematical or logical proof or argument is required (and not "empirical evidence") in order to refute a mathematical or logical theorem."
(footnote p. xviii)
This is false. Mathematics is a quintessentially a priori discipline, but this doesn't mean experimental methods are out of the question. If a mathematical theorem is wrong, this can be shown either by finding a fault in its proof and demostraring a contradicting theorem or by finding a counterexample. The history of mathematics is full of conjectures which were occasionally regarded as theorems because someone thought he had rigorously proved them, and were shattered when someone (sometimes the same person) found a counterexample. See for instance
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/WhiteheadLink.html
If even mathematics has room for experimental procedures, why not economics?
On Hoppe's justification for private property ethic in a natural law frame, see
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/On_Hoppe.html
(David Friedman is a former physicist and perhaps the most famous proponent of anarcho-capitalism; he also happens to be the son of economist Milton Friedman).
Published: November 23, 2005 2:16 PM
MLS,
"The problem rests with democracy itself." On the other hand, democracy wouldn't be a problem if people abandoned poker economics. They couldn't justify their envy and wouldn't see a need to take from the rich and give to the poor, but would work toward greater division of labor and private property rights.
Published: November 23, 2005 2:30 PM
Hecksher writes in his book "Mercantilism" that the many wars of the 17th and 18th centuries were caused by what I call poker economics. It seems to me that if you could reduce the adherents to poker economics to a minority, then any form of government would promote prosperity.
Published: November 23, 2005 2:39 PM
David W -- Yes, but the primary objection does not lose weight - what Hoppe describes is not anarcho-libertarianism in it's more pure form, but private-property "townships" which have a shared morality enforced by smaller governments. There is (not having read the book) also a requisite need for participants to belong to the common defense (militias) and to the necessity of continued violent defense against the predatory class -- much of what we had in the U.S. prior to the Civil War which consolidated power in the federal government but at the same time eliminated slavery. Neither the North nor the South was entirely right ... contrary to the claims of Rothbard that the South was justified -- the South abrogated its right to govern by its actions against slaves.
As far as the justification of "monarchs keeping better care of the property they own", slavery could be argued on the same merits, and I submit that hundreds of monarchs abused their property, their wealth being confiscated from the average person, while democracies might have higher taxes now, democracies also have more wealth and distributed power. Disbursement of property and power is critical. The only reason we don't have "corporate monopolies" is because we have a "state monopoly" ... and a corporate monopoly will quickly morph into the other.
And the other major problem: I sincerely hope that private defense agencies do grow, then we can be more assured that detection and prevention technology outstrips concealment of nuclear and biological weaponry ... else the state will forever have the power to feed our enemies and keep us in its grasp.
Published: November 23, 2005 3:43 PM
It should be noted that states don't change in response to the success of other states. The present world situation is proof enough. Most of the poor countries in the world blame us for their poverty instead of trying to immitate us. The reason: poker economics. They believe we stole their wealth and they want it back through via worldwide socialism.
Published: November 23, 2005 4:27 PM
I thought this article was outrageously spot on!
Here is my stab at some rebuttals to some issues people brought up:
Jonathan/Chico/Allen:
“So 10 identical individuals in the well worn Crusoe environment wouldn't learn or even think about the benefits of increasing productivity by specialising in different tasks? Am I missing the point or is this plainly incorrect....�
Are your identical individuals equipped with identical natural resources? Or does the term “well worn� imply scarcity such that they are not. If they all own identical resources, then why would they specialize? They’re all good at the same things and will remain so as long as they remain identical. The reason the conclusion is hard to swallow is because the scenario is hard to imagine, not because it doesn’t make logical sense. No two people have ever been identical nor possessed identical resources, let alone ten or a whole community. And that’s why markets form.
“…if they specialized…�
“…there would still be specialization of activities…�
You mean, if they became more proficient in specific areas of production, differentiated themselves and became not identical?
Luke:
There’s little point in posting blatant inaccuracies here because the readers will bother to read Hoppe’s work to confirm what you are saying is untrue.
Roger:
“Hoppe's conclusions rest on the idea that people know and accept the greater productivity and wealth that the division of labor and private property rights offer.�
Not exactly. The correctness of the Misesian, and Hoppe’s analysis of human action is not based on individuals’ knowledge and acceptance of the principles on which this analysis is based. Humans act and it is simply human nature to act in one’s perceived best interest. No formal understanding of this is required for this to remain perfectly true. Unrestrained by the coercion and violence of the state, rational individuals act in a free market setting to proceed in a manner that respects property, enhances wealth and increases division of labour. It does, perhaps take understanding to recognize the massive risk to life liberty and prosperity that acquiescing to the implementation of a state implies. It is in fact the state that appeals to the “poker economics� mentality the people may harbour. But lacking a state, people are confined to remaining productive under the cooperation of the division of labour. Government is what tells a majority they can kill and plunder the minority if they vote the right way.
Marco:
You say: “He is not only talking about the right of exclusion from private property … but about expelling these people from libertarian society.�
You then quote Hoppe: “In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants … Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin…�
You therefore missed Jeffrey’s point above, because your quote contains it twice: “In a covenant�. In a community where the contract is that no one advocates theft, coercion or violence, you are breaking the contract to advocate such things. Contract goes with property. It’s cool.
My take on Hoppe’s “conservatives must be libertarians� is that it is semantics. I read it as this: “libertarians must be libertarians�.
Roger:
“…democracy wouldn't be a problem if people abandoned poker economics…�
The problem with democracy, as you are sort of identifying, is that for it to work it requires a fundamental change in human nature. For anarchy to work, on the other hand there is no such stipulation. Without possessing a monopoly of judicial and force, no small group of men can bamboozle the masses and control anyone as they can under democracy or any other form of tyranny.
Published: November 23, 2005 5:11 PM
Jim: my great-grandfather lived in a monarchy and didn't pay any taxes... I live in a representative democracy (in theory another monarchy, in practice a democracy) and one third of my salary gets stolen by the government :)
You say that "the South abrogated its right to govern by its actions against slaves." So who establishes which governments have right to govern and which ones don't? The politicians, followed by the "majority" who believe everything they see on TV... And who is going to pay for the crusades against those who don't? You will, either through your taxes or more likely through inflation.
Hoppe is indeed in favour of "townships" and I agree with him on this. The smaller the governments, the more they must be open to free trade, and the more opportunity there will be for competition among different governments.
Published: November 23, 2005 5:20 PM
On the other hand, democracy wouldn't be a problem if people abandoned poker economics. They couldn't justify their envy and wouldn't see a need to take from the rich and give to the poor, but would work toward greater division of labor and private property rights.
Democracy would be pointless to its supporters if they couldn't intrude on people's property rights - IT is precisely the purpose that it serves. Democracy itself creates the exact preconditions of your concern. The best way to solve the problem is to remove the root cause.
Most of the poor countries in the world blame us for their poverty instead of trying to immitate us. The reason: poker economics. They believe we stole their wealth and they want it back through via worldwide socialism.
And if they had no political cronies to bitch and moan for them or if we didn't have home-grown political cronies to pacify them with money they would see that they have no hopes of getting foreign aid and will just have to stick to producing, saving, and reinvesting and attracting foreign business. The problem again is democracy and the state in general.
Published: November 23, 2005 6:14 PM
Paul,
okay, so the idea is either
1) that once you accept that people are gonna specialize they no longer are equal in skills and hence not identical anymore (in the relevant aspects) and so it would still hold (by definition then) that identical people would not engage in the division of labour and cooperation: once they do (in the sense of specialization) they no longer are identical...
but what then is the point of this remark? what is the informational content?
and/or 2) that even on a small island with 10 people identical in skills they would differ in the sense that their property (natural resources) differs from one another? that true identicality (is that a word?) is practically (but not logically) impossible anyway?
Published: November 23, 2005 6:22 PM
great article. I agree with all his arguements, except a few final points that i want to address. Such as limited speech on one's own private property? or expulsion of democrats and homosexuals? yeah right! look, conservative values will be greatly encouraged in a libertarian society, whether in the countryside or city, but a libertarian society will also encourage the growth of cultural freedom as well.
lets take homosexuals for example...
one covenant community bans homosexuals from their property via free association and free contract (and yes, through THEIR free speech - so much for limited free speech on private property), one person who lives on this covanent realizes he's a strident homosexual, the community kicks him out, family removes him also.
Is it really likely to remove him from ALL market conditions in a city? Quite the opposite it's extremely difficult. First the profit motive gives every employer, seller, and producer an incentive to include him in the markets, especially if he's skilled.
As long as there are his personal demands for supplying work housing and food, someone will surely supply them, as is compasion of the value, granted he may have to pay more for being homosexual (but free competition limits that)
Also, who says homosexualilty will be totally discouraged? Whats going to stop homosexuals from banding together to create their own countryside communities? If you think this is unlikely, look at the black communities that propped up around the south post civil war (the ones that didnt get jobs from the governemnt anyway).
The truth is, cultural conservatism will have it's place, and will be happy to prosper without being "infected" from dissenters, but so will "other" types of cultural conservatism as well, even for homosexuals - hence cultural freedom. This is the beauty of cultural freedom, which libertarian society will not stop (and encourge growth/diversity as hoppe just showed in major cities). "conservatism" and libertarianism are unbridgeable gaps as walter block said.
Otherwise, excellent article.
Published: November 23, 2005 6:30 PM
As far as the justification of "monarchs keeping better care of the property they own", slavery could be argued on the same merits, and I submit that hundreds of monarchs abused their property, their wealth being confiscated from the average person, while democracies might have higher taxes now, democracies also have more wealth and distributed power.
Indeed monarchs abused their power, but tell me this Jim, was monarchy responsible for >150 million deaths? Precisely what magical power does a democracy have from violating you? Democracy creates the incentive among competing interst groups who will aim to violate you anonymously.
The fact that current democracies are wealthier than old monarchies is completely unrelated. It is human action after all that produces science and technology - NOT governments.
Published: November 23, 2005 6:39 PM
As to Hans Hoppe and his alleged racist/homophobic attitudes, I think there is evidence for it. Not only what Marco has pointed out, but my own experience from the Mises
summer seminar this last August. During one of Hoppe's lectures (I think the one on insurance) he complained about it being easier for a "Zulu with AIDS" to get into the USA than a British physicist/scientist. Get real.
Although I was overwhelmed and utterly inspired by his rigorous logic in defense of private property, especially through Argumentation Ethics (which I hadn't heard of before and rocked my world), I think he personally has some issues with homosexuals, blacks and other "deviants" he needs to grapple with.
Published: November 23, 2005 7:00 PM
Chico:
"but what then is the point of this remark? what is the informational content?"
That's the great thing about economics. It often rests on things that can seem to be so obvious as to not convey any meaning at all. And yet it is not so obvious to very many because they have not had to think about it.
It simply drives home this fact: that it is because people are different or have access to different resources that there is division of labour. The corollary is that if we were identical and had identical resources, we wouldn't see the need to cooperate and so we wouldn't. It's just another (stark) way to put a fact that is often not recognized.
It's like boolean algebra laws. NOT(A AND B) is the same as (NOT A) OR (NOT B). Some will say "wow, i didn't know", and others will say "of course, so what?"
I suppose there is the third camp that might say "that’s not true, dude". (just kidding).
Published: November 23, 2005 7:04 PM
as much as I admire professor Hoppe's writing and am greatly inspired by him on a whole range of issues (like Dain, especially on Argumentation Ethics) I tend to agree with people taking issue with Hoppe's opinions on homosexuality:
I fail to see how a gay couple leading responsible lives is any threat to a libertarian order (I can see it in the case of social-democratic, communist, environmentalist, hedonistic types of people)
Published: November 23, 2005 7:14 PM
Is it unlibertarian to have a dislike for black dogs and furry cats? If you proposed that in libertarian anarchy, you could create a community that agreed to not allow black dogs and furry cats in, would that be unlibertarian?
Should libertarians all agree that black dogs and furry cats are good? Is that libertarianism? Gang. Maybe we'd all prefer not to know specifically what each of us would prefer if we had our choices in a completely free society. Libertarianism is about allowing property and contract. It is also about the liberty to exclude. Hoppe's view on homosexuality or dogs and cats has no bearing on his libertarianism.
Published: November 23, 2005 7:18 PM
Paul,
but the fact that a libertarian person happens not to like blacks/gays/whites/midgets etc. does not seem to be what is in question here: professor Hoppe, as far as I understand it (and I could be very wrong), says that homosexuals would pose a threat to a libertarian society, to the norms that would dominate such a society. That I fail to see.
I'll get back to your point about the analogy with Boolean algebra in a little while...
Published: November 23, 2005 7:30 PM
Get real, folks, and stop imitating the PC Lefties. The validity of statements does not depend on beliefs or personality of the person speaking them.
Hoppe may or may not like homosexuals, but he does not do anything to encroach on their human rights or to steal from them, and does not advocate anything of that sort. He merely uses straight words to explain how some group of people seriously distressed by other group of people can co-exist with them without turning it into legalistic and political warfare. His answer is quite clear: self-imposed segregation by means of private-property use covenants.
Most likely the different religious communities will form enclaves of their own, interspersed with more tolerant secular zones. Both intolerant people and those who are disliked by them will benefit from not having to run into each other on a daily basis, and the amicable trade will eventually take care of building more trust and tolerance.
As for "freedom of speech" for communists and other collectivists, I pretty much inclined to believe what people say about themselves. If some thief comes to my business or home and claims to have intention to steal, he'll see his ass kicked out pronto. Does anyone have a problem with that?
Published: November 23, 2005 7:43 PM
Paul, I have been reading over a lot of comments just to see whether that initial contradiction would be answered by someone, that if all people were identical and had identical resources they wouldn't specialize. You explained it just right, I think.
And your last answer was exactly what I was thinking in response to that.
I think the point of the statement is to explain why we specialize, but I really like its employment for demonstration of the absurdity of egalitarian ideals. People are not all the same, so it is a futile quest to make them so... and even if it were possible to wave a magical, equality wand and make everyone equal in their amount of possessions with respect to their desires, it would immediately start shifting again once reality came to bear. As more learned folks than myself have said, because some people would spend their money, and some would save it, etc.
Published: November 23, 2005 8:03 PM
Paul,
mmmmh, I understand what you are trying to say with the the analogy with Boolean algebra, but in that case it is about logical conventions, tautologies if you like and these are necessarily without informational content (see Wittgenstein's Tractatus) whereas as you say the division of labour example is about a fact, something with informational content. In other words, common sense, or rather, an extremely basic fact is not the same as lack of informational content (tautology)
a possibly more useful analogy would be with the defintion of human action: sneezing and such do not fall under that category and hence all aspects of human action do not apply to sneezing. If you however deliberately sneeze in an elevator to upset people, then it does fall under the concept of human action: once you do something with a purpose (or can be interpreted as such) then you are acting: that is its definition. and the undeniable axiom then is that man acts (since to deny it would be to act) and the beauty is that out of this definition and the undeniable axiom of human action you can (together with some basic empirical facts such as the disutility of labour) deduce the whole of e.g. economics.
Now perhaps the concept of economics as the science of exchange would by definition not apply to identical people (sort of like the concept of human action would not apply to sneezing) since these would be defined as 'not exchanging'. At the moment they do begin to specialize and hence exchange they also necessarily stop being identical: so by definition exchange and non-identicality belong together as do identicality and non-exchange. and since complete identicality is impossible it follows that where there are people there will be exchange...
is the point then to drive home this insight?
excuse my foggy thoughts, it's 3am where I live and I need to get some sleep...
Published: November 23, 2005 8:07 PM
I have just read your essay in Mises for the third time. It is not that I am so dense (actually, I'm in Mensa!) But, I was struck by how many unique and bold initiatives you have presented here.... and in just a short essay.
I don't know you or anything about you, but I want to be informed if I can be a part of any movement you decide to develop. I want to herald the news to the citizens willing to be enlightened.
I am forwarding your essay to several of my Mensa intellectual friends. I hope they find it as provocative and bold as I do. I can't remember reading words that brought such clarity to ideas that were already floating in my consciousness since I discovered Ayn Rand as a young teen.
In conclusion: Bravo! Bravo! Please, please do keep these important ideas out there for the struggling patriots and scientists to debate and absorb.
If you have a mailing list , please include me - for I want to know everything you are discovering in the social science context.
I'm an atheist, but if there's a God, may he bless you!
With genuine Awe,
Published: November 23, 2005 10:55 PM
Hi Chico:
“is the point then to drive home this insight?�
Take me with a grain of salt because I can’t be sure I know what Hoppe was thinking, although, I admit that I think I do.
Hoppe quotes Mises about the cause of the division of labour:
“Experience teaches that this condition — higher productivity achieved under division of labor — is present because its cause — the inborn inequality of men and the inequality in the geographical distribution of the natural factors of production — is real.�
and Hoppe followed that Mises quote with its corollary:
“First, it is important to recognize that inequalities with respect to labor or land are a necessary … condition for the emergence of human cooperation. If all humans were identical and everyone were equipped with identical natural resources, everyone would produce the same qualities and quantities of goods, and the idea of exchange and cooperation would never enter anyone's mind.�
I think that he makes this point because he really does think people gloss over the implications of Mises’s statement. I admit I did. And if nobody took issue with Hoppe's comment, i probably would have continued to overlook it as well. So i should always thank people for disputing an author because it often helps me determine where i stand on the question. Thanks!
Published: November 24, 2005 12:43 AM
"If you deliberately sneeze in an elevator..."
Certainly on a par with Hoppe and reminiscent of Hospers. You folks need a dose of Churchill.
Published: November 24, 2005 2:16 AM
And another thing... not that this really matters to the message Hoppe is trying to present but is it really necessary to be so anthropomorphic?
Humans are animals... read Dawkins work on evolution to get a more humble view of our position in the animal kingdom.
Animals plan (Hoppe uses a low order cognitive creature like an ant to refute planning in the animal kingdom which is rather weak, why not use animals with higher order cognitive abilities who do plan?), some have what we would recognise as family units, they display what appears to us as love, mourning, emotional outbursts etc.
To argue that all these things are just apparent and in reality they are just automatons responding in a mechanistic way really begs the question that aren't we but just using more complicated 'software'.
The animal kingdom is diverse, and different abilities are on a continuum and in some respects as Hoppe is pointing to we are indeed at the apex, but to argue that we are of a different order removed from the rest of the animal kingdom is willful blindness.
Published: November 24, 2005 3:18 AM
By the way, a brilliantly timed article from the U.K. is posted below.
It dovetails well with Hoppe's observations about the states impact on racial inequality.
N.B. For the non Brits out there, 'The Guardian' is the U.K.'s left wing/socialist broadsheet
http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000586.php
Published: November 24, 2005 3:21 AM
Paul:
You therefore missed Jeffrey’s point above, because your quote contains it twice: “In a covenant�. In a community where the contract is that no one advocates theft, coercion or violence, you are breaking the contract to advocate such things. Contract goes with property. It’s cool.
Well, I suggest you may want to read the whole chapter of Hoppe's book, particularly the last section (VI). The "covenant" is described as the basis of a libertarian society founded on "conservative" values, e.g. protection of property and the family (and remember, Hoppe insists that libertarians must be conservatives). One person, the proprietor, owns the land and he lets it to the "tenant-owners" who live and prosper there. Hoppe argues (p. 216) it will prove impossible for the proprietor to manage the covenant's affairs alone, so he will do that with the assistance of the covenant's "natural elites".
Hoppe doesn't say clearly why homosexuals should be banned from such a libertarian covenant, but I suspect it is because in his view they tend to have a higher time preference than heterosexuals (which statistically is most likely correct) and he views high time preference as intrinsically bad. I disagree with this, but I think however that Hoppe's exclusion of democrats, communists etc from the covenant deserves some serious thought. In the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries supporters of democracy in Britain managed to destroy a perfectly working political system and replace it with an inflationist, inefficient, war-mongering bureaucracy. Would a libertarian community eventually succumb to the same fate in the face of egalitarian pressures from intellectuals? On the other hand, wouldn't exclusion from the covenant on the basis of their ideas be a) very difficult in a free market to achieve and b) tend to create an atmosphere of uncertainty/terror in which everyone who is suspected of not following the official line is liable to arrest and forced exile? I don't know the answers.
Published: November 24, 2005 7:30 AM
Hoppe is historically wrong about why cities exist. They were first formed as centres of defence, with commerce developing in the aggregations so formed, so that they were actually formed with government (albeit not outside government). Later, bigger cities were actually formed by governments, e.g. Antioch and Alexandria. The only cities that grew from commerce were much later, e.g. Birmingham (the suffix -ham shows it started as a village).
Jonathan's first objection is sound, and it has been spotted by other people before. Back in the middle ages the scholar Jacques Buridan expressed it with "Buridan's logical ass", thus: if a logical donkey is placed symmetrically between two identical bales of hay with nothing to choose between them, why doesn't it dither forever and starve to death? The answer is in what physicists call "spontaneous symmetry breaking". There is actually a symmetrical family of asymmetrical solutions, and you have something randomising to make a tie break if you actually have to collapse it to a choice. Note that all those "actually"s are actually using "actually" in its original technical sense.
Marco, the Reform Acts of the 19th century didn't simplistically increase the right to vote, though the number of voters increased. The change of basis of the franchise actually deprived some voters of the right to vote, particularly in the West Country.
Published: November 24, 2005 7:30 AM
Paul -- this article is interesting in that it fuses conservative thought with libertarian structure contrary to your assertions in our previous debates that a pure private-property society is desirable and achievable -- pure private property society is not possible as a common morality exceeding property rights is necessary, nor will anarcho-libertarianism prevent a lax majority from allowing the consolidation of power into the hands of elites, nor will it prevent the majority from turning the state to its advantage. There are several objections to Hoppe's system: (1) how to provide for the defense common to all the states (2) the structure under which states must themselves reside in settling disputes (3) are there functionally any limits in the economics or morality of the individual states? For instance, can one state decide to invade another and what would prevent such a state of affairs? (4) How to transition (I assume a tax revolt -- I haven't read the book) to this new system.
David W -- I've never advocated any plan to be implemented by elites, instead advocated a return to constitutionally limited government. You persist in straw man arguments.
MLS - The idea of classifying all "states" as being responsible for >150M deaths in the 20th century greatly subtracts from your argument in that you do not distinguish between those states that govern more justly (and why) from those that do not. It is an unproved assumption that states are an unnatural evil, not a necessary (but dangerous) organization arising from the nature of men (in fact, Hoppe sounds like he admits smaller states would exist). It is the nature of man that is a critical and fundamental missing element in much of anarcho-libertarian debate. The criticism of states and their usurpation of rights is equally valid against powerful economic interests, who would certainly engage in usurpation of rights if they could get away with it.
Marco - In practice the people with the most aggregate power decide the type of government they will have. Hence the importance of a majority committed to justice, private property, self-education, self-defense, and self-determination. The "me" crowd wants the benefits but shifts the costs -- an attitude I see frequently in self-contradictory libertarian arguments as well (Following Lysander Spooner: a person should be able to simply succeed from the laws that society has created. But of course, criminals do exactly that by their actions, so that is a poor argument -- there IS an underlying moral structure that is enforceable by violent power, whether by the state or by collective volunteers).
Published: November 24, 2005 7:36 AM
To Hans Hermann Hoppe's warning that state welfare as regards domestic matters would amount to a 'subsidizing of irresponsibility' - I from India can even say that it is amounting ' to domestic trgedies of sorts' - dowrydeaths and child-neglect inclusive of emotional distortions and deprivations' due to the 'limiting of family size to two and one 'etc.
Vedapushpa
[sociologist]
Bangalore - India
vedapushpa@yahoo.com
Published: November 24, 2005 7:47 AM
Jim Bradley,
No straw man at all. You've being criticizing libertarians for not having a "plan" for "practical implementation" (by whom?), and what Garris's essay makes clear is that with the state out of the way, the voluntary cooperation that is the essence of the social enterprise is perfectly capable of generating the spontaneous order by which society increases the well-being of its members.
As for returning to "constitutionally limited government," please provide your "plan" for its "practical implementation," as well as the means by which what Jefferson called "the chains of the constitution" would not be broken once again.
Published: November 24, 2005 8:21 AM
P.M. Lawrence: you are not seriously suggesting that the same percentage of the population of the United Kingdom had the right to vote in 1914 as they did in 1800?
Published: November 24, 2005 11:08 AM
"will have to be physically removed from society"
Scratch a govt employee like Hoppe, you get a fascist.
Published: November 24, 2005 12:27 PM
Suppose I am a homosexual but heretofore have not advocated nor engaged in any homosexual acts. I am a member of a "covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin...," which I support. I own property, including a house and a building which houses my thriving business. Then, as very often happens, I realize my homosexual tendencies. Some within the covenant learn of my sexual preference and cease to patronize my business, which is their legitimate right. However, my question is can I "be physically removed from society" for the purpose of "maintain(ing) a libertarian order?" I am not an "advocate of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as... homosexuality." I didn't even realize I was one until recently. While one has the choice about whether to engage in homosexual acts, one does not choose whether to be a homosexual. Now suppose I engage in homosexual acts behind closed doors. No one in the covenant ever observes these acts, but some think homosexual acts are occuring within the confines of my property, again behind closed doors.
I have some questions for those of you who have attempted to explain Hoppe's position and/or support it. Would it be legitimate to "expel me from libertarian society?" If so, on what basis? Remember, I support the protection of family and kin. And I am not an advocate of homosexuality. Furthermore, if I would be expelled, would my property be confiscated or would I be compensated? If either, who would do the confiscating and/or who would do the compensating?
Published: November 24, 2005 12:56 PM
Allen:
Regarding Hoppe and homosexuals, you are right. In another passage of the book (can't remember where), Hoppe hints that the libertarian order he envisages would probably drive several of them, and others, "back into the closet", so to speak. However, I wonder if a homosexual who wanted to live openly as a homosexual and adopt children in this society would be considered an advocate, and therefore expelled.
Regarding mathematics, the passage you are quoting was written by myself, not David Friedman (the Friedman passage referred to natural law rights in Hoppe's ethics).
Even if you view mathematics as analytic a-priori, there is still room for "experimental" methods. For example, suppose we have an equation and I prove a complicated theorem which states that this equation has no rational solutions, that is no rational number (of the form p/q, where p and q are both integers) is a solution. You think the theorem is false and decide to prove me wrong. After some work you find a fault in my proof. This however doesn't mean the theorem is wrong. It may still be possible to prove it with a different method. So you set up a computer program which tries to substitute every integer from 1 upwards into the equation. A few days later the program finds that X = 912989716761526751250 is a solution. You check it and it's right. This proves that the theorem is wrong, since a whole number is a particular case of a rational number.
Published: November 24, 2005 1:09 PM
Excellent article. Hoeppe's one of the best thinkers here.
Published: November 24, 2005 2:11 PM
Regarding experimental methods in math: unfortunately, physicists (including great physicists) tend to miss the point of mathematics completely - they see it as a natural law for some reason matching inner workings of the universe, and so, like any other laws, they consider it to be a subject to experimental testing.
In fact, there are NO experimental methods in mathematics. What is misleadingly called experimental mathematics is merely automation of the quite old-fashioned formal reasoning and analythical work - a computer simply allows it to be made faster, that's it. Exactly the same results could in principle be obtained by "just thinking".
The confusion mostly arises because some prominent mathematicans (most notably, Penrose) hold unabashedly Platonistic view of the physical world - in such, mathematics is, indeed, a foundation of the physical world itself. Most professional mathematicans I know consider it a serious lunacy, because it is pretty much obvious that out of the infinite number of axiomatics we only use a few - the ones which happen to match our intuitive understanding of what's going on in the real world. The second reason why Platonic view of mathematics is invalid is because the real world is, for all we can know, finite, whereby most issues in foundaitons of mathematics have arisen precisely because of the need to deal with infinities. Needless to say, no observable physical quantity can be infinite.
Published: November 24, 2005 5:29 PM
I considered myself a libertarian well before learning of Hoppe. But I am proud to boast that I am not a conservative. Among other differences, conservatives have problems with homosexuals enjoying the same rights as heterosexuals, whereas libertarians do not. On page 189 of his book is the conclusion that "conservatives must be libertarians and libertarians must be conservatives." I am not a conservative. Is Hoppe a libertarian?
Published: November 24, 2005 5:53 PM
Raymond, as you know if you have that book and have read it, exactly half of that chapter you mention is a crushing assault on conservatives. The other half is an attack on libertarians who are insufficiently libertarian for compromising in their defense of property rights. Another slight hint as to Hoppe's views on conservatism can be found in the helpfully titled article: The Intellectual Incoherence of Conservatism.
Published: November 24, 2005 8:29 PM
While agreeing with the broad sweep of Hoppe's article, I found I could not agree with all of his differentiations between other animals and the human one in the first few paragraphs - we are not THAT different from other social animals, particularly simian and cetatian, which have also developed very sophisticated levels of co-operative activity motivated by individual benefit - culturally transmitted ones that vary from group to group, no less!
The gulf between the 'substance' of Man vs the 'substance' of other animals has narrowed a lot since Mises's day. That comparitive foundation for Hoppe's argument definitely needs updating if critics are not to use it to debunk his subsequent conclusions on a 'baby and bathwater' basis.
Published: November 25, 2005 6:53 AM
Hoppe quote from Intellectual Incoherence of Conservatives: "You cannot have your cake and eat it too, for instance. Or what you consume now cannot be consumed again in the future."
What a brain. Sheer genius.
Published: November 25, 2005 8:27 AM
Can't think of a time or place in the last 3000 years where the cities didn't have political control over the farm communities. Not in any place large enough to have a real city.
Published: November 25, 2005 9:53 AM
Yesterday, I posted some comments to the Mises Blog, which do not appear to have been listed on all of our computers. Luke Fitzhugh seems to make one of the same points, that a homosexual who “supports the protection of family and kin� ought not be expelled. Again, it is unreasonable to expect parents to accept the expulsion of their children who happen to be born that way. Let us note that even in the animal kingdom, creatures are born with a wide variety of sexual characteristics.
One can clarify the difference between advocacy and action by the case of hedonism. It would undermine an order were its objective to maximize the immediate pleasures of its members, but if one engages in a Roman orgy, he should not be expelled.
Marco de Innocentis refers to my comments (which were not listed in my Blog) about mathematics, by “Even if you view mathematics as analytic a-priori, there is still room for "experimental" methods.� He then shows how experimenting with many integers can refute a theorem. However, that constitutes an analytic, and not a synthetic, refutation. Even if one had a physical experiment that produced a refutation, it would not be legitimate until it were described in purely analytic form. Insights can be provided by reference to reality, but only logical refutations count in an analytic a-priori discipline. So although I agree with Marco that mathematicians ‘experiment’ perhaps by trial-and-error, or by examining graphs and results in physics, these provide insights, while only analytic methods are legitimate for proofs or disproofs.
Here, I also agree with averros that in principle, all results in an analytic discipline can be found by just thinking. However, I do not think that he has refuted the Platonic view of mathematics by stating that reality is finite while math is infinite. First let us note that all that has ever been written, or ever will be written in mathematics, is comprised by a finite number of letters. Thus if we view mathematics from the perspective of a completely formal manipulation of symbols, all is finite. Moreover, even if we interpret the symbols for the various orders of infinity as having the physical meaning that is usually given. Plato views the ideal world as the true reality, which could be infinite, while the world that we experience would be but a finite reflection.
As an aside, someone ‘refuted’ a certain number theorem of Ramanujan, by presenting integers on the order of zillions that countered his conclusion. In response, Ramanujan said that if someone understood the theorem, he would note that it only applied asymptotically, which did not take effect until there were integers far greater than those employed in the ‘refutation’. Ramanujan was less concerned with what happened for the first few integers, than he was about the last few.
Published: November 25, 2005 10:24 AM
Hoppe allows discrimination based on gestation to the point where there is no right to life. (He may simply be quoting Rothbard, but he should also read Doris Gordon, otherwise avoid or address the issue). But why is gestation (abortion) special? Why not infanticide, burning widows when their husbands die (are women persons or property or do we just all make up our own minds?). Then again, why is liberty itself better than anything else when all is individual and relative and a "personal choice"?
If there are fixed standards which would allow for liberty to be good or a virtue, there are also fixed standards that will identify evils and vices. And many of those would redefine things called liberty here into license.
If there are no fixed standards, then liberty is merely another nice thing, but wouldn't warrant any of the strong defenses often given here for it.
To twist Augustine (in essentials: unity, in doubtful matters: liberty, in all things: charity), we have in all things liberty, unity and charity are entirely optional and probably to be discouraged, at least until more analysis which might prove their utility is done.
As to the 10 identical people, Even if each spend one hour per day doing 10 tasks needed for survival, it would likely be more efficient for each one to do each task for 10 hours (or some other division). This is simply a case of the fallacy if the surgeon can maintain his instruments faster than a workman that he should do that - but if he can spend time doing surgery instead of maintainence, he can make more money. For division of labor not to work, there would have to be equality and isolation so contrived as to make any result inapplicable.
A final semantic problem is that I don't see a clear definition of "family". Why isn't the "mayor" simply the big-father of the family of all within the border? Or does he mean the traditional family? Probably not since that would require a recognition that some social structures work (to preserve liberty) and others don't.
Maybe freedom is simply a public good that few libertarians (much less anyone who prefers the comfortable slavery) will actually pay the costs to obtain. Put differently, if the only way to obtain liberty is to force it upon an unwilling population violently, ought it be done?
Published: November 25, 2005 11:41 AM
tz,
Liberty is a purely practical matter in that it is but a means to an end, that end being the improvement of one's lot in life. Freely cooperating with others via the division of labor is the very essence of the social enterprise in that it alone generates the spontaneous order by which we progress as a species. For as Proudhon rightly said, liberty is "the Mother, not the Daughter, of Order," which is why we must it must be so fiercely protected.
Published: November 25, 2005 12:09 PM
tz says;
"Hoppe allows discrimination based on gestation to the point where there is no right to life."
HUH? Where did you see that?
"why is liberty itself better than anything else when all is individual and relative and a "personal choice"?"
Because liberty is based on and is consistent with natural law, and is the default setting for a peaceful society. In other words, you and I may live in the same city. I wish to be free, you do not. Only in liberty is there a chance for both of us to have what we want - I can continue to be free, while you can choose to indenture yourself.
"If there are fixed standards which would allow for liberty to be good or a virtue, there are also fixed standards that will identify evils and vices."
Under liberty, the only evils are initiations of force, the only vices things which contradict one's own internal or community standards. Once any other state exists, all vices can be made into evils, and all evils can be visited on targets of democratic choice with impunity.
Published: November 25, 2005 12:19 PM
(1) Humans are qualitatively different from animals in the way that we cooperate, by using, for example money to enhance kin and especially reciprocal altruim. See for example my article on the origins of money. (This article also contains an update on Menger's theory of money). No other animals have formed a catallaxy. I don't think this depends on any profound emotional differences.
(2) I agree the 10 identical people would learn to become non-identical (and even unequal) since distribution of knowledge and division of labor will generally better satisfy their preferences.
(3) It's too bad Austrians aren't more empirical. Hoppe makes some good points about, for example, the relative amount of taxes under democracy and monarchy. A good specific example (I don't know if Hoppe cites this) is that taxes reached their low point in England just before Cromwell's revolution, and have generally risen ever since as parliament gained more power. I note, however, that taxes were also higher earlier in English history when the monarch was even more powerful. Thus the balance achieved between Parliament and the Crown just before Cromwell may be the optimal balance of power between the owner of certain kingdom-wide property rights related to military and taxation (the monarch) and a taxpayer-elected (in modern terms analogous to shareholder-elected) body with veto power over most of the monarch's taxing power. I'd love to see more empirical study on whether this is an accurate view of English history and what the minimal-tax balance looked like in other countries.
Unenumerated blog
Published: November 25, 2005 5:39 PM
No, Marco, I am pointing out that the Reform Acts indulged in one of the fundamental democratic fallacies - counting heads rather than taking account of individuals.
The point is that as between (say) 1830 and 1845, MORE people in Britain had the vote - but SOME people who had had the vote in 1830 lost it because of the Reform Acts. The franchise had been enlarged but NOT extended.
In this light, 1914 is not commensurable with 1800 anyway since none of the same individuals were involved.
Published: November 25, 2005 8:46 PM
> It's too bad Austrians aren't more empirical.
Actually, Austrians point out that the amount of information which can be gathered by the observation is seriously limited (you cannot deduce the structure of utility function by observing few trades), and rightfully resist making unstated assumptions about the utility functions. This leaves them in position of saying "we just don't know" in places where mainstream economists (which all make unstated assumptions about how humans make decisions, of one kind or another) happily pontificate.
In this respect, Austrian economics is akin to the theory of evolution - it cannot predict what exactly will happen, but places constraints on the range of possibilities instead, or offers only qualitative predictions. For someone understanding that knowledge of incompleteness of information is preferable to the false knowledge of precise figures, Austiran economics actually yields better quality predictions: the difference is the same as between a professional scientist estimating error margins and saying "oh, well, this will be approximately 0.6" and a student reading off 0.6238319 off the instrument and thinking that he knows the precise answer.
That said, both Rothbard and Hoppe cite a lot of historical data; unfortunately history is full of noise and disinformation, and it is hard to make any conclusive statements about the history, not tainted by the deliberate or unconscious selection (if not outright fabrication) of facts and interpretations by the generations of historicans and propagandists. At the very least, the axiomatic logical reasoning can be directly verified by the reader; this is not so for the historical accounts. This makes logical method of constructing social theories preferable to the empirical. (Although I would not deny the value of empirical validation - but historical anecdotes can not be generally considered reliable tests for anything).
In my opinion, economics will become a real quantitative science only after a comprehensive quantitative model of human behaviour is built - an undertaking which is equivalent to building a fully-functional artificial intelligence. Which may render economics of human societies to be a marginally useful field of scientific inquiry anyway. (Just like the modern ethology, which does have working quantitative models based on game theory - which are of interest only to the researchers in the field, unlike the qualitative insights from the same discipline, which are quite useful in the everyday life :)
Published: November 25, 2005 9:09 PM
It should be quite clear to any objective observer that Hans-Hoppe is a racist. It is a constant undertone in almost all of his works and most pronounced in his essay “Natural Order, The State, and the Immigration Problem�, published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies (Winter 2002). He seems to believe that discrimination and oppression of one ethnic/racial group over another is acceptable and preferable, without regard to wither or not one has a “right� to do so (again, see the aforementioned essay). In fact, I would say he believes such behavior is natural and instinctive. For Example, he talks about the “natural� repulsion of different races from one another and the races as “subspecies�.
Hans-Hoppe’s character is one which is classically German, but one which has not been seen in such a raw and visceral form since the end of World War Two. The best examination of this character type was done by Dr. Carroll Quigley (1910- 1977), formerly chair of the Political Science Department at Georgetown University. In his monumental work “Tragedy and Hope: a History of the World in Our Time�, (on pages 409-457) Quigley examines the need of Germans of Hans-Hoppe’s type for an absolute and totalitarian society. They long for a rigid and ordered system that will encompass their whole lives and free them from making any personal decisions. Quigley believes this need is an outgrowth of Germany’s tribal origins. Within the Germanic tribes, life was completely ordered; one knew one’s positions and the implied responsibilities. Quigley asserts that the German psyche suffered a great trauma from which it has yet to recover. The Germans abandoned their tribal societies for the more advanced, but equally totalitarian post-Constantine Roman society, only to have it destroyed shortly thereafter.
The need for a “total� society, with rigid conformity is a need that is still felt by Germans like Hans-Hoppe. I do not believe that Hans-Hoppe is a Libertarian, but rather a man who sees the ideology of “Anarcho-Libertarianism� as a path to that all encompassing society with rigid conformity which he so desires. He would probably be equally happy with socialism, national-socialism (Nazism), and any other system that offered to serve his goal.
One of the most dangerous outgrowths of personalities like Hans-Hoppe’s is the tendency to devalue human beings who are not a part of the “group�. Quigley states that the Germanic tribes where so absolute in there nature, that members of the group considered outsiders to be “barley human�. The great German composer Richard Wagner once wrote in a private letter “The thing which is most dangerous to a German’s character, is to rule over non-Germans.�. Indeed, persons of Hans-Hoppe’s type can be perfectly harmless in and of themselves, they may even be “good� people, but when among others (unlike themselves), they can be a destructive force and to borrow from Hans-Hoppe, “must be physically restrained�. Most disturbing of all is their violent, and irate reaction if the “non-person� or “barley human� person does not act or think in accordance with their worldview. Reinhard Heydrich said, “If I ever met a Pole worthy of setting at the same table as me, I will have him shot�.
Han-Hoppe’s ideas or more likely aligned to xenophobic racist Thomas Fleming’s. He wants a per-Enlightenment world of rigid caste and “noble� elites. He is a true German nationalist! This ideology is hinted at in his book “Democracy: The God that Failed�; in which he argues that in a purely capitalist society, a few great families would remain the wealthiest. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, during the height of Western laissez-faire capitalism, there was a constant flow of new (and less the previously distinguished) family moving to the top rungs of wealth. This is also the case in the newly developed countries in East Asia.
Hans-Hoppe has a few good positions, but the ideology by which he comes to those positions is dangerous to civilization and to civilized persons. I can no more embrace Hans-Hoppe then I can embrace a Marxist who supports free trade because Lenin (in “Imperialism, The highest form of Capitalism�) argued it would cause “class conflict�. Like John Prince-Smith, Hans-Hoppe is likely to become a statist as he observes that people are not acting in accordance to his desires under “free cooperation�.
We must all be careful of Hans-Hoppe and read his works with a “discriminating� eye; that is unless you are a racist German Nationalist that shares Hans-Hoppe’s views. My only question is how he justifies his association with the ideas of a Jew like Ludwig von Mises. In traditional German Nationalist thinking, Jews are “non-persons�.
Published: November 25, 2005 9:15 PM
Marco:
I think you are correct in suggesting that I should read the whole chapter of Hoppe's book. I'm going to have to buy the book and read the whole thing. However, i would have thought that if you were going to provide a quote of a paragraph or two from that book that supported your position you would have done it by now. The two paragraphs you did quote certainly do not stand up to the task.
Hoppe makes a point or two here ( http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe15.html ):
"In my book Democracy, The God That Failed I not only defend the right to discrimination as implied in the right to private property, but I also emphasize the necessity of discrimination in maintaining a free society and explain its importance as a civilizing factor. In particular, the book also contains a few sentences about the importance, under clearly stated circumstances, of discriminating against communists, democrats, and habitual advocates of alternative, non-family centered lifestyles, including homosexuals.
"For instance, on p. 218, I wrote "in a covenant concluded among proprietors and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, … no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant ... such as democracy and communism." "Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. … (violators) will have to be physically removed from society."
"In its proper context these statements are hardly more offensive than saying that the Catholic Church should excommunicate those violating its fundamental precepts or that a nudist colony should expel those insisting on wearing bathing suits. However, if you take the statements out of context and omit the condition: in a covenant… then they appear to advocate a rights violation..
"My praise of discrimination was part of a frontal attack against what is sometimes called left-libertarianism – against the politics that equates liberty with libertinism, multiculturalism, and so-called civil rights as opposed to existence and enforcement of private-property rights. In retaliation, to discredit me as a "fascist," a "racist," a "bigot," etc., the left-libertarian smear-bund has routinely distorted my views by quoting the above passages out of context."
If people would read, and then think, they could avoid coming to conclusions that are, as was aptly described earlier, preposterous. Hoppe's arguments are libertarian from top to bottom. It is really something to see how people use their emotional reaction as an excuse to throw reason and thought out the window.
Secondly, you state "Hoppe doesn't say clearly why homosexuals should be banned..." This uncharacteristic oversight on Hoppe's part becomes understandable when one realizes that he in fact does not say that homosexuals should be banned. What he says is this "in a covenant... no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant" and also "in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal..."
Jeffrey is correct that this should not need a rehashing at this late point in the game.
Published: November 26, 2005 2:16 AM
Very nice. Hoppe the homesteader, who thinks his covenant binds all heirs for eternity, no different than the Pilgrim fathers who were theocratic dictators of a "shining city on the hill," no different than lunatics Jim Jones or David Koresh.
It is revealing indeed that Mr. Edwards claims a slam dunk that should not need a rehashing at this late point in the game. It sounds like he's ready to don an armband and join the SA because there's nothing further to discuss about human rights or constitutional law.
Like I said previously, Herr Hoppe is irrelevent and made no original contribution.
Published: November 26, 2005 3:08 AM
P.M.:
The question of "why doesn't it dither forever and starve to death?" does not need to defer to physics for an answer. The answer is because that involves choosing an inferior third option, starvation. The ass will by instinct prefer survival over suicide. It will probably not be too aware of the ponderous decision he has made in choosing one bale of hay over the other.
Published: November 26, 2005 4:23 AM
Jim:
You say that "this article ... fuses conservative thought with libertarian structure contrary to your [my] assertions in our previous debates that a pure private-property society is desirable and achievable -- pure private property society is not possible as a common morality exceeding property rights is necessary, nor will anarcho-libertarianism prevent a lax majority from allowing the consolidation of power into the hands of elites, nor will it prevent the majority from turning the state to its advantage."
One of us is not following what Hoppe was driving at in the article because i do not disagree with anything he has said, or anything i have inferred him to mean in the article.
If i understand how you come to this interpretation it is that you think a covenant becomes a social apparatus of coercion and essentially a state. Furthermore, you take Hoppe to suggest that this state is necessary and will be run by an elite such as what we often refer to here on this site as the "ruling elite".
I do not think that is what Hoppe is driving at. First of all, the covenant is entirely and at all times voluntary. You can agree to it or secede, but you can't violate the agreement and expect not to be removed from the community. It involves strict adherence to property and contract and through those two, the right to exclude. There is no state, no theft, no compulsion and no violence. Just plain libertarian contract enforcement.
Published: November 26, 2005 4:42 AM
Luke:
To underscore the answers embedded in my post above,
"no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant"
and
"there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal..."
In the context of Hoppe's text, the terms "advocate" and "promote" stand out as key to answering your questions. And that is to say if you don't advocate and don't promote, you are keeping to the contract.
Published: November 26, 2005 4:50 AM
Andre:
You begin your post with a statement that suggests that you hold objectivity and non-racist perspectives in high esteem:
"It should be quite clear to any objective observer that Hans-Hoppe is a racist."
you then continue on to make your case in a fashion that strikes me as most ironic, given such an introduction:
"...Hans-Hoppe’s character is one which is classically German, but one which has not been seen in such a raw and visceral form since the end of World War Two... Quigley examines the need of Germans of Hans-Hoppe’s type for an absolute and totalitarian society. They [Germans] long for a rigid and ordered system that will encompass their whole lives and free them from making any personal decisions. Quigley believes this need is an outgrowth of Germany’s tribal origins. Within the Germanic tribes, life was completely ordered; one knew one’s positions and the implied responsibilities. Quigley asserts that the German psyche suffered a great trauma from which it has yet to recover. The Germans abandoned their tribal societies for the more advanced, but equally totalitarian post-Constantine Roman society, only to have it destroyed shortly thereafter."
Finally, to support your position you quote not Hoppe, but instead German composer Richard Wagner and Reinhard Heydrich. It's very refreshing to see such an objective analysis of Hoppe's racism based on ... his race?
Too funny.
Published: November 26, 2005 5:20 AM
I agree, something's too funny. Please state succinctly what, if any, original proposition Herr Hoppe has contributed to freedom philosophy.
Examples:
"An act against natural equity is void." (James Otis)
"The earth belongs in usufruct to the living." (Jefferson)
"Civilisation implies, in any society, the freedom to criticize the government of the day; free speech; free press; free thought; free religious observance; no racial persecution; fair treatment of minorities; and courts of law and justice which have an authority independent of the executive and untainted by Party bias." (Churchill)
"Evil requires the sanction of the victim." (Ayn Rand)
"Justice is the armed defense of innocent liberty." (me)
Published: November 26, 2005 6:39 AM
Content aside, Hoppe’s article is the worst piece of writing I’ve read in quite some time. Never mind the plethora of typos and grammatical errors. Hoppe’s piece is disjointed. Conclusions do not flow naturally and reasonably from premises.
I suspect he didn’t write the piece, but dictated it off the top of his head, stringing facts, arguments and speculations here and there upon the skeleton of his theme (monopolist government is responsible for the fall of great cities) like tinsel flung haphazardly on a Christmas tree.
Hoppe should have place his last paragraph first. It is more a premise than a conclusion anyway.
Halfway through the piece Hoppe abruptly changes from the present tense to the future. As a result the tone of his article changes from well-reasoned argument to arbitrary futurism.
He writes, for example, that “almost by definition it follows that with the establishment of a city government interracial, tribal, ethnic, and clannish-familial tensions will increase…� And “in the great trading centers…the legal distinction between inlander and foreigner…will almost invariably lead to some form of forced exclusion and a reduced level of interethnic cooperation.�
ALMOST by definition? ALMOST invariably? What kind of reasoning is this? Of course, it is not reasoning at all, it is merely wild speculation and personal opinion.
In this article Hoppe had a real opportunity to examine the true nature of cooperative action, its necessary prerequisites and conditions, its inexorable consequences and implications. For instance, he might have reasoned that cooperative action is merely two (or more) human beings purposely concerting their individual action in order to bring about a new state of affairs that is more satisfactory to both, when considered from their own, subjective points of view.
What are the necessary mechanics of this “concerting� of individual action? What new social relations, conditions and requirements does this “concerting� of individual action impose on the cooperators? What social and societal consequences must necessarily follow?
Hoppe begins his article as if to objectively explore and answer these questions, but soon slips into a muddle-headed morass of absurd personal observations. For instance, Hoppe opines that non-private roads “whereon everyone may proceed wherever he wants� will bring together different households and villages “into closer contact than they might have preferred…�
Mises taught all of us that individual human beings prefer, not households and villages. How does Hoppe know what individuals in particular households or villages might or might not prefer?
Hoppe speculates further that with “the arrival of bureaucrats from various racial, tribal, and ethnic backgrounds in the capital city, the frequency of interethnic marriage will increase, and the focus of interethnic sex — even without marriage — will increasingly shift from the upper class of merchants to the lower classes — even to the lowest class of welfare recipients.�
Even if Hoppe’s wild speculation is correct, why is it necessarily governmental bureaucrats that "will" or "must" affect this change? Wouldn't a flood of "lower class" immigrants have the same effect?
Moreover, is Hoppe contending that “class� determines how individuals think and act? Is Hoppe here slipping into Marxian social analysis?
No? Too harsh? Well, consider this speculation: “As a result of this overproportional growth of low and even underclass people and an increasing number of ethnically, tribally, racially mixed offspring especially in the lower and lowest social strata, the character of democratic (popular) government will gradually change as well.�
Hoppe, apparently, knows (somehow) what the correct proportion of "lower class" growth should be in a democracy. Clairvoyance perhaps? Or elitism? Or racism? Who knows?
Lest there be any doubt about Hoppe’s sloppy language and muddle-headed, subjectivist thinking, consider this one sentence:
“Human cooperation — division of labor — based on integrated family-households and on separated households, villages, tribes, nations, races, etc., wherein man's natural biological attractions and repulsions for and against one another are transformed into a mutually recognized system of spatial (geographical) allocation (of physical approximation and integration or of separation and segregation, and of direct or of indirect contact, exchange and trade), leads to improved standards of living, a growing population, further extensification and intensification of the division of labor, and increasing diversity and differentiation.�
Whether you profess to understand what Hoppe has in mind or not, I rest my case.
Published: November 26, 2005 9:17 AM
Paul -- I think at this point you'll persist in playing the "this is really libertarian society" and refuse to accept the basic facts that Hoppe describes what we already had and to the extent that he doesn't, it isn't possible to implement. So we're back to a shared extra-private-property morality with a series of smaller governments united to a common set of laws that protect individual rights (such as we had and have) and that the last and ultimate protection is that every man "should be armed" to prevent the usurpation of rights, etc. etc. Absolutely nothing truly groundbreaking and contrary to Spooner, each individual cannot "succeed" neither are violators of the "covenant" to be tolerated instead removed from society by force, etc. etc.. What is the point?
Published: November 26, 2005 10:00 AM
I agree with Paul Edwards that “if you don't advocate and don't promote, you are keeping to the contract.� Let us note that unless belonging to an enterprise requires adherence to its purpose, then anything goes. To wit, one who is committed to sabotaging a nation would remain a citizen in good standing, while an employee of a company could engage in pursuits that favor the competition.
Membership in a group should be determined by the nature of that group. If there are no qualities associated with membership, then that group has no nature. That is, if anything is defined as an apple, then being an apple has no meaning. If being an American only indicates a geographic location, then America is no more than an area of geography. The guiding principle for membership in a social group has to be mutual advantage. If it is, the group is viable; if it is not, it cannot survive. What other principle could guide the approach to social membership?
Tz asks “why is liberty itself better than anything else when all is individual and relative and a "personal choice"?� David White answers that “Liberty is a purely practical matter in that it is but a means to an end, that end being the improvement of one's lot in life� while Vince Daliessio responds that “liberty is based on and is consistent with natural law, and is the default setting for a peaceful society.�
Now I concur that liberty is practical (or to state this negatively, any encroachment of freedom is destructive). I also concur that liberty is consistent with natural law, since man’s nature requires it. Thus there are practical and theoretical arguments for liberty. Here, Ayn Rand has made a telling case for liberty. It may be said that aggression undermines man, so our guiding societal principle ought to be the non-initiation of force.
Yet this leaves out another dimension that justifies liberty, namely that of aspirations. Each individual has ideals that he aims for, as do civilizations. This is not quite the same as that which is derived (objectively) from man’s experience or nature, since it is a (subjective) sense of what someone, or a civilization, ought to be. Whereas an aversion to aggression is uniformly correct, which hierarchy of aspirations one selects is a choice among many conceivable alternatives. Thus, it remains to be evolved, which hierarchy best elevates and inspires. Liberty is surely a primary aspiration, which can be seen by literature as well as by philosophy.
Published: November 26, 2005 10:29 AM
Good points Allen, however Liberty is not just desirable for its utility but for its own sake, as a necessary neutral condition for peaceful existance. If the utility of liberty were the greatest thing going for it, we here would be no better than Mill and the Benthamites, and we would evaluate everything in light of whether it benefits others. I would prefer to evaluate everything on whether it benefits me and does not harm others by violence or deprivation of their justly-aquired property.
Published: November 26, 2005 11:35 AM
The rules laid out to live in Hoppe-ville would not appeal to very many.Yet that is no problem in an anarcho- capitalist world.I may not agree with Hoppes' ideas, but I agree with his right to express/enforce them on his own property.He cannot impose his ideas in Mikey-ville by force.
And he is free not to have any dealings here,Mikey-ville being rife with gays, lesbians,
pot smokers, promiscuous singles,money squanderers,and other assorted goof-offs who are so much more fun to hang out with than uptight preachers of family values, whatever they are,
most families I know fight like cats and dogs.
Published: November 26, 2005 2:54 PM
Vince,
I fully concur with your preference for evaluating liberty "on whether it benefits me and does not harm others..." That's why I define liberty in terms of individual utility -- "the improvement of ONE's lot in life." Yes, society advances accordingly, but since society exists for the individual, not the individual for society, preserving individual liberty is always of paramount importance.
What this has to do with the city is simply that because man is, as Aristotle said, a "political animal" -- i.e., a being of the "polis" -- he naturally associates with others, free and voluntary exchange being the source and sustenance of that association. That the state subverts this process by creating social imbalances that, among other things, distort the relationship between town and country, is the very stuff of human history. For once the state "arrives on the scene," the natural rhythm of society is undone, and its "invisible hand" is replaced to one extent or another by an all too visible fist, from the ancient conquest and subjugation of sedentary populations by the "earthborn" (a term approvingly employed by Plato in his aptly named "The Statesman") to their well-born heirs who rule over the modern-day welfare state.
Mikey,
Whatever one thinks about Hoppe's ideas, the fact that the state does not allow people to associate as they see fit, so long as they do not harm or otherwise impose themselves on others, is really all you need to know about its inherent immorality.
Published: November 26, 2005 4:12 PM
"I may not agree with Hoppes' ideas, but I agree with his right to express/enforce them on his own property. He cannot impose his ideas in Mikey-ville by force."
Rubbish. If Mikey-ville dumps raw sewage in a river, your downstream neighbors can and will justifiably declare war.
Published: November 26, 2005 4:14 PM
[rant]
Dear Mr. Wolf DeVoon - would you please learn to think before posting? Your childish and content-free babbling is not welcome. And, no, analogy is not a valid argument, and neither are mudslinging, name-calling, and willful discarding of context.
Andre Faulksmen - I'm a racist, too. I think demagogues are an inferior, genetically deficient race, and should be exterminated. That includes all those who think that posting ad hominems like calling someone a racist is a valid way to disprove what the target of a smear attack says.
People, please, do not feed the trolls!
[/rant]
Published: November 26, 2005 10:39 PM
Because averros is exempt from the rule that says posts must be signed with a valid email address, I will assume he/she is a Mises Blog moderator. Yet it seems peculiar to be singled out and slimed with adjectives I haven't heard since grade school. I wonder also about the moral stature of someone who advocates extermination of "demagogues."
In any case, I'll do as you ask and cease all further communication in future. In parting, I recommend that impartial readers reflect on an unanswered question: What original contribution has Hoppe made to freedom philosphy?
Unchallengeable supremacy of private property, governed by a feudal elite, is not an original proposition.
Ciao.
Published: November 26, 2005 11:31 PM
I, for one, am sorry Wolf is leaving - arguing against his points from Misesian principles simply helps us strengthen our case! As for his assertion that our property rights would be enforced by a "feudal elite", I submit that that is exactly the current state of things we are currently working to overturn!
Published: November 27, 2005 2:48 PM
The rule in favor of a valid email address for blog commentators is not software enforced.
Published: November 27, 2005 6:47 PM
Paul Edwards, you misunderstand the nature of the problem that Buridan was trying to explore with a concrete thought experiment. Of course the donkey has motives not to starve - but how, within a framework of logic and symmetry, does it achieve that result? There must be a mechanism in there somewhere to break the symmetry.
It's the same kind of thing that theologians were exploring in asking how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. A literal reading is obviously absurd, but they shouldn't have been derided for that. They were trying to find out where one should draw certain lines of definition, between physical substance and the lack of it, just as much as the Greek philosophers were trying to bring out matters of definition in asking how many hairs make a beard.
The point here, of general application, was that there has to be some tie breaking mechanism. It doesn't have to be quantum physics, that was just a further illustration of the same point - a particular and not a general thing. The particulars illustrate the general for us, but they do not provide any general solution, just the framework that solutions (if any) must fit.
Published: November 27, 2005 8:49 PM
For the record - I'm not a moderator and not an affiliate of Ludwig von Mises Institute. I do have reasons for keeping my identity private, and would prefer that my words be judged by their own worth, and not by who I am.
Vince - I'm not against testing and refining our argumentation in discussions with opponents; but there's nothing to be gained by arguing with demagogues - they are imprevious to reason. In any case, they are not in short supply - any leftist or neocon blog is full of them. What I'm enjoying here is the higher-than-usual intellectual level of discussion, with people actually listening and trying to understand what their opponents say. This is a rarity, and is worth preserving. I'm afraid this is not going to last... the more attention the libertarian (and specifically ancap) ideas attract, the more demagogues (and, eventually, paid provocateurs) are likely to show up. They could actually be dangerous, too - I think noone here needs to be reminded of the recent attack of the politcorrect gang on Prof. Hoppe.
Published: November 28, 2005 12:50 AM
Jim:
If i may restate my original response, but more succinctly it is that you said this:
"this article ... fuses conservative thought with libertarian structure contrary to [my] assertions... that a pure private-property society is desirable and achievable"
To this, i answer, i don't know what this article says that supports your contention and i wouldn't mind if you'd point them out to me.
In my opinion, Hoppe's concluding paragraph summarizes and is perfectly consistent with my thinking and my assertions:
"The state — a judicial monopoly — must be recognized as the source of de-civilization: states do not create law and order; they destroy it."
I believe this truth explains why no amount of faith in constitutionalism can save us.
The fact is, as Hoppe drives home further, it is the family that is key to civilization, not any supposed "limited" state:
"Families and households must be recognized as the source of civilization. It is essential that the heads of families and households reassert their ultimate authority as judge in all internal family affairs. Households must be declared extraterritorial ter