Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Born	(1949-09-02) September 2, 1949 Peine, West Germany
Nationality	German American
Academic career
Institution	University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Field	Austrian Economics, Political Philosophy
School or tradition	Austrian School
Alma mater	Goethe University Frankfurt
Influences	Ludwig von Mises Murray Rothbard Jürgen Habermas Karl-Otto Apel Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Contributions	Argumentation ethics, Analysis of democracy and public goods theory
Awards	The Frank T. and Harriet Kurzweg Award (2004) The Gary G. Schlarbaum Prize (2006)

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (German: [ˈhɔpə]; born September 2, 1949) is a German-born academic who describes himself as an advocate of private law society. He has written several books and his website lists translations of his writing into various foreign languages. He is Professor Emeritus with the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey. Hoppe's views have generated controversy among his colleagues.

Career

Hoppe was born in Peine, West Germany, did undergraduate studies at Universität des Saarlandes and in 1974 received a PhD from the University of Frankfurt. 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. In 1986, after a succession of teaching jobs in Europe, he moved from Germany to the United States, where he was associated with Murray Rothbard. until the latter's death in January 1995. Hoppe was a Professor in the School of Business at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, until his retirement in 2008.

Hoppe is a Distinguished Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which has published much of his work He has been editor of various Mises Institute periodicals. In 2006, he founded The Property & Freedom Society.

Argumentation ethics

Main article: Argumentation ethics

Hoppe stated a theory which he named Argumentation ethics in an attempt to establish an a priori and value-neutral justification for libertarian ethics.

Hoppe stated his view in the publication Liberty in September 1988. In the following issue, the publication carried a number of comments, followed by a response to the comments from Hoppe. In his comment, Murray Rothbard wrote that Hoppe's theory was, "a dazzling breakthrough for political philosophy in general and for libertarianism in particular" and that Hoppe, "has managed to transcend the famous is/ought, fact/value dichotomy that has plagued philosophy since the days of the Scholastics, and that had brought modern libertarianism into a tiresome deadlock".

Democracy: The God That Failed

Main article: Democracy: The God That Failed

In 2001, Hoppe published Democracy: The God That Failed which is critical of democratic forms of government. Hoppe proposes alternatives and remedies, including secession, decentralization, and "complete freedom of contract, occupation, trade and migration introduced".

Regarding the "covenant entailed in a libertarian (proprietary) community" which he envisions, Hoppe wrote: "There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and removed from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting life-styles 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." Commenting on this passage, Martin Snyder of the American Association of University Professors said Hoppe's words will disturb "[t]hose with a better memory than Hoppe for segregation, apartheid, internment facilities and concentration camps, for yellow stars and pink triangles".

Walter Block, a colleague of Hoppe's at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, wrote that Hoppe's comments calling for "homosexuals and others to be banned from polite society" was "exceedingly difficult to reconcile it with libertarianism" because "the libertarian philosophy would support the rights of both groups to act in such manners." Stephan Kinsella wrote that Hoppe was referring to "private, covenant-based communities—in particular the ones based on more traditional, culturally-conservative heterosexual-family-based norms—who would tend to 'be intolerant of advocates of' ideas incompatible with, or openly hostile to, or 'contrary to the very purpose of' the norms of such a traditionalist covenant."

Views on immigration

In his 1999 article "A Libertarian Case for Free Immigration" Walter Block mentioned one of Hoppe's positions on immigration. Hoppe writes that if immigrants are attracted to the United States because of the welfare state "this is not an argument against immigration but rather against the welfare state."

Academic freedom controversy

On March 4, 2004, during a lecture in a course on money and banking at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Hoppe stated that, in part owing to the fact that they are generally childless, homosexuals do not plan for the future to the same extent as heterosexuals. Hoppe said that homosexuals, like the very young and the very old, are more present-oriented with respect to their behavioral patterns, and also stated some economists believed that John Maynard Keynes' "spend it now" philosophy was influenced by his homosexuality. A student later formally accused Hoppe of creating a "hostile classroom environment".

An investigation was conducted and the university's provost, Raymond W. Alden III, issued Hoppe a non-disciplinary letter of instruction on February 9, 2005, with a finding that he had "created a hostile or intimidating educational environment in violation of the University's policies regarding discrimination as to sexual orientation." Alden also instructed Hoppe to "...cease mischaracterizing opinion as objective fact", asserted that Hoppe's opinion was not supported by peer-reviewed academic literature, and criticized Hoppe for "refusing to substantiate" his statement about homosexuals with any evidence, despite being repeatedly asked to provide it.

Hoppe appealed the decision, saying the university had "blatantly violated its contractual obligations" toward him and described the action as "frivolous interference with my right to academic freedom". He was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein said "The charge against professor Hoppe is totally specious and without merit". The local ACLU chapter president stated that while "[w]e don't subscribe to Hans' theories and certainly understand why some students find them offensive," university attempts to reprimand Hoppe for stating them violated his academic freedom.

Acting upon the appeal on February 18, 2005, Carol Harter, President of UNLV, decided that the veracity of Hoppe's views, and the fact that they were 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:

UNLV, in accordance with policy adopted by the Board of Regents, understands that the freedom afforded to Professor Hoppe and to all members of the academic community carries a significant corresponding academic responsibility. 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 Hoppe should not be "punished for freely expressing his opinions."

Selected works

Books

• Handeln und Erkennen (Bern, 1976) ISBN 978-3261019004 OCLC 2544452
• Kritik der kausalwissenschaftlichen Sozialforschung (Westdeutscher Verlag, 1983) ISBN 978-3531116242 OCLC 10432202
• Eigentum, Anarchie und Staat (Westdeutscher Verlag, 1987) ISBN 978-3531118116 OCLC 18226538
• A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989) ISBN 0-89838-279-3. (Full Text in PDF format)
• Economic Science and the Austrian Method (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995) ISBN 0-945466-20-X. (Full Text in PDF format)
• Democracy: The God That Failed: the economics and politics of monarchy, democracy and natural order. (Transaction Publishers, 2001) ISBN 0-7658-0868-4 OCLC 46384089
• The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (2nd edition, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006) ISBN 0-945466-40-4
• Editor and contributor: The Myth of National Defense. Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production (Ludwig von Mises Institute, October 2003) ISBN 978-0945466376 OCLC 53401048. (Full Text in PDF format) Includes writings by L.M. Bassani, C. Lottieri, M.N. Rothbard, E. von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, B. Lemennicier, G. Radnitsky, J.R. Stromberg, L.J. Sechrest, J.R. Hummel, W. Block and J.G. Hulsmann.

Articles

• Full text of Hoppe's 1998 introduction to The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard (also in PDF format)
• Hoppe, Hans Hermann (1988). "On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property" (PDF). Liberty. 2. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Hoppe, Hans Hermann. "In Defense of Extreme Rationalism: Thoughts on D. McCloskey's The Rhetoric of Economics" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Hoppe, Hans Hermann (1988). "breakthrough or buncombe?" (PDF). Liberty. 2. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Hoppe, Hans Hermann (1996). "Small is Beautiful and Efficient: The Case for Secession". Telos. 107. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe homepage
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Mises Institute
  • Property, Freedom, and Society – Festschrift (essays honoring Hoppe from the Mises Institute)
• The Property and Freedom Society
• Hoppe's archives at LewRockwell.com