Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe (/ˈhɒpə/;[4] German: [ˈhɔpə]; born 2 September 1949) is a German-American academic associated with Austrian School economics, anarcho-capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, and opposition to democracy.[5][6][7][8][9] He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), senior fellow of the Mises Institute think tank, and the founder and president of the Property and Freedom Society.[10][11]
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
2 September 1949
Gülçin Imre Hoppe[3]
Business school of University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Mises Institute
Property and Freedom Society
Hoppe has written extensively in opposition to democracy, notably in his 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed.[12][13][9] The book favors exclusionary "covenant communities" that are "founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin".[14][15] A section of the book favoring expulsions of democrats and homosexuals from society helped popularize Hoppe on the far-right.[12][16][17]
Hoppe was a protégé of Murray Rothbard, who established him at UNLV, where Hoppe taught from 1986 to 2008.[18][6][5] In 2004, a student's complaint about Hoppe's lecture comments regarding homosexuals and time preference led to an investigation and non-disciplinary letter to Hoppe by UNLV, which was subsequently withdrawn after a controversy over academic freedom.[17]
Hoppe founded the Property and Freedom Society in 2006, and he has included white nationalists among speakers at the organization's conferences in Turkey.[19][20][21][12]
Expulsion of homosexuals and dissidents
Hoppe's belief in the right of property owners to establish communities that engage in racial discrimination, and his assertion that communities could establish exclusive criteria for admission and acceptance, have proven particularly divisive.[43][44]
In Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe describes a society of "covenant communities" made up of residents who have signed an agreement defining the nature 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". He argues that towns and villages could have warning signs saying, "no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no homosexuals, drug users, Jews, Muslims, Germans, or Zulus".[45][15]
Hoppe also makes plain that he believes that practicing certain forms of discrimination, including the physical removal of people whose lifestyle is deemed incompatible with the purpose of establishing certain communities, is completely compatible with his system.
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."[43][17]
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".[17] Hoppe also provoked controversy by calling homosexuality a "perversity or abnormality" analogous to pedophilia, drug use, pornography, polygamy and obscenity.[46]
Walter Block wrote that Hoppe's statement calling for the physical removal of homosexuals from a libertarian political community was "exceedingly difficult to reconcile with libertarianism."[47]
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.[48][34] 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.[49]
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".[50] 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".[51] 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."[48]
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".[52] 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.[53]
Influence
Hoppe was an influence on the neoreactionary monarchist blogger Curtis Yarvin, also known as Mencius Moldbug.[74][75]
Selected works
Books (authored)
German