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The Errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe – Strategies
of Liberation?
Open Republic: October / November
/ December 2005
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Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich – Policy Exchange, London
This article is based on a speech delivered to the ISIL World Freedom Summit 2005 in Gummersbach/Germany, July 17, 2005.
The libertarian world has been debating the ideas of Hans-Hermann Hoppe for many years now, especially after he published his controversial book ‘Democracy – The God that Failed’. I recently had the chance to find out more about Hans-Hermann Hoppe at a seminar that took place right here at the Theodor-Heuss-Akademie in Gummersbach. The main reason for taking part was to get to know more about Hoppe’s philosophy. Sometimes it is hard to judge someone only by what he writes, and it is definitely a lot easier to understand a person if you spend three days in discussions with him. I must say that this is exactly how it was when I met and experienced Hans-Hermann Hoppe at the earlier Gummersbach seminar. Now, to be precise, the experience was a rather shocking one because at the end of these three days I was sure that Hoppe’s theories embody the very opposite of liberal core values.
Now, of course nobody would be surprised if Hoppe, the self-confessed libertarian anarcho-capitalist, would be criticised by socialists or communists, i.e. if they had ever heard of him. But this is unlikely as Hoppe is virtually unknown outside radical liberal and libertarian circles although some of his followers may wish to believe so. I think it makes sense if I briefly outline my own position so you know what is the background of my critique of Hoppe’s positions. By the way, those of you who read German will soon be able to find an essay about Hoppe’s errors which will be published shortly. I have written this article with my friend Bijan Nowrousian, and should there be an interest in making it accessible to a wider audience I would be happy to translate it to have it republished in an English language publication.
But back to my personal political convictions: I confess to the principles of classical liberalism, the philosophy of Locke, Smith, Hume, Mises and Hayek. The freedom of the individual and the protection of property rights are the foundations of their and of my thinking. It is precisely because I regard these values to be of such fundamental importance, that I have doubts about Hoppe’s worldview. Although Hoppe claims to stand for the same values, I consider his theories and strategies neither appropriate nor helpful. As Hoppe himself has chosen the classical liberals to be the butt of his attacks – the title of one his lectures was “The errors of classical liberalism” – he should not be surprised to meet with protest from them. The fact that he has not yet received much decided opposition from this angle, does not mean that Hoppe’s position would be unassailable. Rather it means that his theories have not yet spread beyond the circle of his disciples.
Before I criticise Hoppe, I wish to state that I often find myself in agreement with Hoppe’s analyses of the state of Western democracies. When Hoppe describes how the state that was supposed to protect the property of its citizens has become a threat to secure property rights, he is right – and liberals since John Locke would agree with his analysis. When Hoppe criticises that democracy is prone to be used by groups to push ahead their own interests, then he is right – and liberals like James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock would argue in a very similar way. When Hoppe analyses how a state-enforced monopoly of paper money destroys money, he is right again, and liberals like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek had reached similar conclusions decades before Hoppe. Insofar, Hoppe’s economic reasoning is not at all outside the mainstream of liberal thought.
If Hoppe confined himself to describing and analysing the world as it is: He would be one of many good, liberal economists. But apparently, he would not be satisfied with such a role, and thus he ventures into the spheres of political philosophy and jurisprudence to develop and sketch an alternative to the deplorable state of Western democracies. But there Hoppe loses his razor-sharp analytical brilliance which made him a good economist, and all he does is indulge himself in highly abstract speculations about alternative social systems. He leaves the foundations of classical liberalism far behind and so his thinking is quite literally losing ground.
Let me just summarize Hoppe’s vision briefly: His alternative to democracy means to generalise the efficiencies of the market and to impose a new social system onto society. Hoppe calls this state the ‘natural order’. This is nothing less than a complete privatisation of life. His assumption is that in such a society possible conflicts would either not arise in the first place or be resolved by institutions like insurance companies. Of course, anarcho-capitalism is not a new idea and it was not invented by Hoppe either. But it was Hoppe who combined anarcho-capitalism with a cultural ultra-conservatism, and it is this combination which makes his theory so explosive. One may well discuss the pros and cons of anarchism without having to refer to Hoppe, but it would be hard to understand and discuss Hoppe’s ‘natural order’ without evaluating his ideas about the functioning of an anarcho-capitalist society. Therefore, my critique is a critique of Hoppe’s idea of anarcho-capitalism, not of other anarchists.
It remains Hoppe’s secret what is ‘natural’ about this ‘natural order’. Usually, we call things natural which are nature-given. Thus a bird is natural, but a plane is not. But what is natural about a social system which has never existed? With the same justification communists could label their kind of utopia a ‘natural social order’ because it matches their ideas of human nature. But this is precisely the problem: Just like the social systems of socialism and communism were nothing but armchair theories, Hoppe’s system is the mere result of his own theoretical considerations. Essentially, Hoppe presents himself as a constructivist as he is ignoring grown, historical realities and then replaces them by his own thought experiments. Wasn’t this how communist ideologues proceeded as well? Wasn’t it Hayek’s main criticism of socialist thinking that ideologues believed they could deliberately create a better order for society? And finally: If Hoppe envisages a society based entirely on mutually voluntary contractual agreements, doesn’t he need ‘a new man’ to make this vision work? Does Hoppe seriously believe that imperfect, often irrational and not always moral people can be integrated into a voluntary society, free of any kind of coercion without endangering the freedom and property rights of other individuals? Centuries of contractual theories of society from Hobbes to Nozick make Hoppe’s vision seem rather naïve. Hoppe’s implicit consequence would require the development not only of a new social system, but also a new society and new human beings for this society. So far, it has always been the goal of totalitarian ideologies to create ‘the new man’, and the similarities with Hoppe’s ideas are too amazing to be overlooked.
Hoppe’s constructivism is the result of his methodological approach. Hoppe is a representative of pure apriorism, i.e. the assertion that scientific and academic truths can be deduced by employing pure logic, void of any empirical substantiation. This may indeed be possible to some degree: Nobody would voluntarily enter into a contractual agreement if he believed that it would make him worse off. Or another example: It is not possible to create wealth simply by printing paper money although many people may still believe so. In such cases, it is possible to show that there is an irrefutable economic logic, which is true regardless of empirical facts. Apriorism has a role to play in economics, although I think this should not stop economists from checking their theoretical findings and comparing them with the real world around themselves. After all, economists are not infallible and could have overlooked something in their theories.
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Copyright:
Open Republic Institute Ltd.