Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (; ; born 2 September 1949) is a German-American academic associated with Austrian School economics, anarcho-capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, paleolibertarianism, and opposition to democracy.

Hoppe has written extensive criticisms of democracy, notably in his 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed. Some of the speakers invited at his Property and Freedom Society conferences in Turkey have been white nationalists. which was subsequently withdrawn after a controversy over academic freedom.

Early life and education

Hoppe was born in 1949 in Peine, West Germany. His parents had settled there in 1946 after fleeing from East Elbia, which after World War II came under Soviet occupation. He has stated the expropriation of his mother's family who were East Elbean Junkers has been a lasting trauma.

He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, from 1976 to 1978 and earned his habilitation in Foundations of Sociology and Economics from the University of Frankfurt in 1981.

Career From 1981 to 1985 he taught in West Germany and Italy. From 1986

Hoppe has said that Rothbard was his "principal teacher, mentor and master". Hoppe said he was "working and living side-by-side with him, in constant and immediate personal contact," and said that from 1985 until Rothbard's 1995 death, he considered Rothbard his "dearest fatherly friend".

Mises Institute and John Randolph Club

The Mises Institute was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell, Burton Blumert, and Murray Rothbard, following a split between the Cato Institute and Rothbard, who had been one of the founders of the Cato Institute. After Rothbard's death in 1996, Hoppe was a leading anarcho-capitalist figure at the Mises Institute. Quinn Slobodian and Dieter Plehwe describe Hoppe as a "racialist right-wing libertarian", and Slobodian writes that the conferences have included members of the former John Randolph Club along with "new advocates of stateless libertarianism and racial secession".

In 2016, Hoppe was criticized for inviting white nationalist speakers such as Jared Taylor and neo-Nazi Richard B. Spencer to speak at the PFS, where also venture capitalist Peter Thiel spoke. Describing the PFS, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in 2016 that "in Hoppe one can see the connection between the ultra-Libertarians and white nationalists". Slobodian wrote in 2023 that "prophets of racial and social breakdown share the stage with investment advisors and financial consultants" at the conferences. Passages in the book oppose universal suffrage and favor "natural elites". Hoppe argues that monarchy would preserve individual liberty more effectively than democracy. The book helped popularize Hoppe in the far-right, particularly a section of the book that called for the exclusion of political rivals.

Janek Wasserman writes that Hoppe "reimagined the Austrian legacy as one of authoritarianism, conservatism, antidemocracy, and anti-Enlightenment". Hawley notes that Hoppe has argued "libertarians must actually be radical conservatives", and that libertarians must favor a right to discrimination, including on the basis of race.

Reviewing Democracy: The God That Failed, Walter Block, a colleague of Hoppe's at the Mises Institute, wrote that Hoppe's arguments shed light "on historical occurrences, from wars to poverty to inflation to interest rates to crime". While Hoppe concedes that 21st-century democracies are more prosperous than the monarchies of old, Hoppe argues that if nobles and kings replaced today's political leaders, their ability to take a long-term view of a country's well-being would "improve matters", Block wrote. Block shared what he called minor criticisms of Hoppe's theses regarding time preferences, immigration and the gap between libertarianism and conservatism.

Alberto Benegas-Lynch Jr., a professor of economics at the University of Buenos Aires who is associated with the libertarian Cato Institute, criticized Hoppe's thesis that monarchy is preferable to democracy. Benegas-Lynch provided evidence that modern monarchies tend to be far poorer than modern democracies. In response, Hoppe argued that comparing mostly African monarchies with mostly European democracies led to a distortion.

Asked by The Intercept in 2021 about his incorporation into far-right internet memes celebrating political murder, Hoppe responded that the question was ignorant, writing, "I have been an intellectual champion of private property right, free markets, freedom of contract and association, and peace", and, "What do I know? There are lots of crazy people out there!" Hoppe describes a society of covenant communities made up of residents who have signed an agreement defining the nature of that community. Hoppe believes that these covenant communities should have the right to certain forms of discrimination, including the physical separation of people whose lifestyle is deemed incompatible with the norms of that community. He writes that "There would be little or no 'tolerance' and 'openmindedness' so dear to left-libertarians. Instead, one would be on the right path toward restoring the freedom of association and exclusion implied in the institution of private property".

Hoppe writes: "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... naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. 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-centered 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."

Critics such as Phillip Magness have argued that Hoppe's cultural conservative views were not derived from Mises's Austrian economics, but rather from outside philosophical traditions such as other right-wing political thought and the Frankfurt School.

Support for immigration restrictions

Although a self-described anarcho-capitalist who favors abolishing the nation-state, Hoppe also garners controversy due to his support for governmental enforcement of immigration laws, which critics argue is at odds with libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. Hoppe argues that as long as states exist, they should impose some restrictions on immigration. He has equated free immigration to "forced integration" which violates the rights of native peoples, since if land were privately owned, immigration would not be unhindered but would only occur with the consent of private property owners.

Hoppe's Mises Institute colleague Walter Block has characterized Hoppe as an "anti-open immigration activist" who argues that, though all public property is "stolen" by the state from taxpayers, "the state compounds the injustice when it allows immigrants to use [public] property, thus further "invading" the private property rights of the original owners". However, Block rejects Hoppe's views as incompatible with libertarianism. He argues that Hoppe's logic implies that flagrantly unlibertarian laws such as regulations on prostitution and drug use "could be defended on the basis that many tax-paying property owners would not want such behavior on their own private property". Another libertarian author, Simon Guenzl, writing for Libertarian Papers, argues that: "supporting a legitimate role for the state as an immigration gatekeeper is inconsistent with Rothbardian and Hoppean libertarian anarchism, as well as with the associated strategy of advocating always and in every instance reductions in the state's role in society."

In terms of specific immigration restrictions, Hoppe argued that an appropriate policy will require immigrants to the United States to display proficiency in English in addition to "superior (above-average) intellectual performance and character structure as well as a compatible system of values". He suggested that these criteria would lead to a "systematic pro-European immigration bias". Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation argued that the immigration test Hoppe advocated would probably be prejudiced against Latin American immigrants to the United States.

Remarks about homosexuals and academic investigation

Hoppe's statements concerning race and homosexuality have provoked controversy. In a 4 March 2004, lecture on time preference at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), he stated that homosexuals tend to be more shortsighted than heterosexuals in their ability to save and plan economically (in part because they tend not to have children), suggested that John Maynard Keynes's homosexuality might explain his economic views, and that very young, very old, and childless people, are generally less future-oriented. Hoppe later said the comments lasted only about 90 seconds of a 75-minute class and that he had given similar lectures for 18 years without prior complaint. After a student complaint and ensuing request from the university, Hoppe apologized to the class, comparing the remarks to cultural generalizations about food preferences. The student then filed a formal complaint alleging Hoppe did not take it the apology seriously.

An investigation followed. In February 2005, UNLV provost Raymond W. Alden III issued Hoppe a non-disciplinary letter of instruction finding that he had "created a hostile or intimidating educational environment in violation of the University's policies regarding discrimination as to sexual orientation". The letter also instructed Hoppe to "... cease mischaracterizing opinion as objective fact".

Hoppe appealed with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, which threatened legal action and defended academic freedom.

UNLV President Carol Harter acted upon Hoppe's appeal on 18 February 2005, deciding that Hoppe's views, even if non-mainstream or controversial, should not be cause for reprimanding him. She dismissed the discrimination complaint against Hoppe, and the non-disciplinary letter was withdrawn from Hoppe's personnel file. She wrote, "In the balance between freedoms and responsibilities, and where there may be ambiguity between the two, academic freedom must, in the end, be foremost."

Hoppe later wrote about the incident and the UNLV investigation in an article entitled "My Battle With the Thought Police". Martin Snyder of the American Association of University Professors wrote that he should not be "punished for freely expressing his opinions". In 2009 UNLV proposed a new policy that included the encouragement of reporting by people who felt that they had encountered bias. The proposed policy was criticized by the Nevada ACLU and some faculty members who remembered the Hoppe incident as adverse to academic freedom.

Argumentation ethics

In the September 1988 issue of Liberty, Hoppe attempted to establish an a priori and value-neutral justification for libertarian ethics by devising a new theory which he named argumentation ethics. Hoppe asserted that any argument which in any respect purports to contradict libertarian principles is logically incoherent.

Hoppe argued that, in the course of having an argument about politics (or indeed any subject), people assume certain norms of argumentation, including a prohibition on initiating violence. Hoppe then extrapolated this argument to political life in general, arguing that the norms governing argumentation should apply in all political contexts. Hoppe claimed that, of all political philosophies, only anarcho-capitalist libertarianism prohibits the initiation of aggressive violence (the non-aggression principle); therefore, any argument for any political philosophy other than anarcho-capitalist libertarianism is logically incoherent.

In the following issue, Liberty published comments by ten libertarians, followed by a rejoinder from Hoppe. In his response, Hoppe derided his critics as "utilitarians". Libertarian philosopher Jason Brennan rejected Hoppe's argument, saying, "Hoppe's argument illicitly conflates a liberty right with a claim right, and so fails."

J. Mikael Olsson argued that Hoppe had not provided any non-circular reasons why we "have to regard moral values as something that must be regarded as being established through (consensual) argument instead of 'mere' subjective preferences for situations turning out in certain ways". In other words, the theory relies "on the existence [of] certain intuitions, the acceptance of which cannot itself be the result of 'value-free' reasoning."

According to commentators, his original appropriation theory based on argumentation ethics initially tended toward the labor theory of property, but later moved toward the first possession theory of property perspective.

Influence Hoppe was an influence on the neoreactionary monarchist blogger Curtis Yarvin, also known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug.

Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, has cited Hoppe as one of his major influences and has recommended his bibliography in the past, despite recent grievances between both about the ideologic purity of Milei's administration and the praxis for a libertarian on a democratic system.

Personal life Hoppe resides in Turkey with his wife Gülçin Imre Hoppe, an Austrian school economist and hotelier.

Ther PFS Congress series takes place at their family-owned hotel, the Karia Princess in Bodrum.

Books (edited) The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production. Ludwig von Mises Institute (2003). . .

Book contributions "Introduction." . In: The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard. New York University Press (1998). . Audiobook available. "Government and the Private Production of Defense." In: The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute (2003), pp. 335–368. . . Audiobook narrated by George Pickering.

Articles

"On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property." Liberty, vol. 2, no. 1 (September 1988): 20–22. "Symposium: Breakthrough or Buncombe?" Liberty, vol. 2, no. 2 (November 1988): 44–54. Symposium proceedings featuring Murray N. Rothbard, D. Friedman, L. Yeager, D. Gordon and D. Rasmussen. "Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem?" Review of Austrian Economics, vol. 9 (March 1996): 143–149. . "Small is Beautiful and Efficient: The Case for Secession." Telos, vol. 107 (Spring 1996). "The Libertarian Case for Free Trade and Restricted Immigration." Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 13, no. 2 (Summer 1998). Center for Libertarian Studies. "On Property and Exploitation," with Walter Block. International Journal of Value-Based Management, vol. 15 (2002): 225–236. "My Battle with the Thought Police." Mises Daily (12 April 2005). Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Book reviews "In Defense of Extreme Rationalism: Thoughts on D. McCloskey's The Rhetoric of Economics." Review of The Rhetoric of Economics by Donald McCloskey. Review of Austrian Economics, vol. 3 (1989): 179–214.

Collected works Jacob, Thomas (editor). Hoppe Unplugged: Ansichten, Einsichten und Provokationen aus Interviews und Reden von Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe [in German]. Hamburg: tredition GmbH (2021). Online supplement. "Views, insights and provocations from interviews and speeches by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe."