Introduction to Hoppe's main work

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MH

It is getting worse and worse.
I think you must be kidding.

No. It's just thinking against the mainstream follies that have ruined us and even already ruined our future. The fiscal, economical, sociological and juristic indices he gives in hard empirical data in his books prove his model right - since the 17th century, to the present, the development of these indices roughly is in congruence with his model. He gives explanations for what that is so on the basis of reasonable thought and logic. Those wanting to show him wrong, need to prove wrong both the empirical data and the logic.

He also has predicted the turmoil we are in since 2007/2008 correctly - in the mid or late 90s already.

Just to say "democracy is great" and "Hoppe is nuts" is a lousy way to counter him, only adds to the pessimistic outlook one must have for our near future.

He is slaughtering one of your most favourite golden cow. And worse, he then scratches off the paint and shows that it never was made of gold anyway, but was a cheap fake made of wood that you have payed high ticket prices for to party in its shadow. I do not know which of the two acts you guys feel more anger over, but both together is definitely more than you can bear.

But the reserves democracies have eaten up over the past 90 years or so, are not only gone - one has also already consumed resources meant to support the future. We are heading for a total and complete not only fiscal and economic breakdown, but for a total and complete civilizational system breakdown. And I fear that after that breakdown it will not only become not better, but will become even worse, and will stay that for a longer period of time. We are left with no reserves on which something new could be tried.

Most people still live in complete denial of reality when it comes to state debts, and social desintegration of our culture. That that denial is to be expanded so that realizing how the tyranny of the mob leads to a basic-socialist and communist wealth redistribution order and a loss of freedoms and a growth in centralized totalitarian control, is not really surprising. The only thing one may feel surprised by is that even those who usually are the first to defend America's fundament from its founding era, refuse to see the strong links, because realizing them would need to also realize how much the present America has distance itself from its founding reasons and ideas and how distanced from the claimed ideal the current status quo in fact is.

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. - Benjamin Franklin

I do not follow Hoppe blindly and just parrot him. Much of what he says, I have come to in conclusions myself already in the past years. The socialist nature of democracy. The massive redistribution scheme that secures temporary power for the elected elites. The underhanded nature of general elections, the corruption in ruling elites, and how abuse of common interest allows those in power to bribe people to vote for them. The primitive nature of the mob given the right to vote. The ruinous nature of our fiscal and economic system, the danger of our paper money scheme. The need to go back to small regions with administrative autonomy. the superiority of a feudal system once the scale of a community is beyond a certain size limit. If you think back and remember past threads from the past years, you have heard all these single things form me in the past, but always outside a combining context, I never was able to bring it all together in one cohesive model - and I also had to fold over any questions on by what alternative it all could be replaced, imo. I had to owe a coercive answer. My answer was: basic democracy in minimum-size local communities, feudal structures on supra-communal levels. Hoppe'S thoughts of private-law-society and city-states, is more convincing and logical, and he also has finally led me to how to bring all my lose thoughts together. He is less a source of new info to me, but more a help in organizing it all in one cohesive, reasonable theoretic structure. That is the big benefit I take from his work.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The need to go back to small regions with administrative autonomy. the superiority of a feudal system once the scale of a community is beyond a certain size limit.

... basic democracy in minimum-size local communities, feudal structures on supra-communal levels.

We must promote the idea of secession. Or more specifically, we must promote the idea of a world composed of tens of thousands of distinct districts, regions, and cantons, and hundred of thousands of independent free cities such as the present day oddities of Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Greatly increased opportunities for economically motivated migration would thus result, and the world would be one of small [classically] liberal governments economically integrated through free trade and an international commodity money such as gold.

Given humankind's penchant for greed, elitism, and dominance of others it is hard to see how a system like this would work. Human traits and history show that when there is conflict, and there will be, these city states will join together in like minded groups to accomplish their goals. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. This utopian model would only work with a radical shift in human nature.

I'm not entirely disagreeing with Hoppe's analysis of the problem. It's his solution that makes me shudder.

From Democracy: The God That Failed.

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.

[Tchocky]

Ah yes, an appeal for an apartheid feudalism based on undeserved autocracy, posing as a solution to a made-up problem.

Nuts is right.

Oh, and a fair amount of gold-buggery.

It's his solution that makes me shudder.

Be fair, it isn't a final solution, just a policy of errrrr....resettlement.

[Takeda Shingen]

Indeed. Simply purge society of undesirables and we will have a perfect world. I've heard this before......

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Be fair, it isn't a final solution, just a policy of errrrr....resettlement.

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Indeed. Simply purge society of undesirables and we will have a perfect world. I've heard this before......

Who's up for Subsim Bingo?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

From Democracy: The God That Failed.

-> LINK

If people can disprove the logic and data in this, then criticism becomes valid. Until then, it is just noise, and an expression of displeasure over being disturbed while wallowing in one's cozy illusions.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Skybird

-> LINK

If people can disprove the logic and data in this, then criticism becomes valid. Until then, it is just noise, and an expression of displeasure over being disturbed while wallowing in one's cozy illusions.

This is exactly how forum discussions go. Someone posts a link to a book, insulting those who might disagree with it's conclusions. Any disagreements are null and void because they haven't read the book.

Good grief.


Right let's all buy the book (using Neal's handy link above, need money for new torps!).

Then we'll reconvene after a suitable interlude to discuss the book.

If you can manage to stop talking down to anyone who might disagree with you while this is going on, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it. It would be nice if you could also get it into your head that it's possible to disagree out of honesty, and not comfortable lazy illusions. So you can can all the talk about golden cows and false idols. Reading it gives me a headache.

Although I suppose discrimination against those with different opinions is right up your street.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

Who's up for Subsim Bingo?

That is brilliant!

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

If people can disprove the logic and data in this, then criticism becomes valid. Until then, it is just noise, and an expression of displeasure over being disturbed while wallowing in one's cozy illusions.

Disprove it to who? You have obviously made up your mind. Or have you just found someone who agrees with your own 'cozy illusions'?

[MH]

Originally Posted by Skybird

No. It's just thinking against the mainstream follies that have ruined us and even already ruined our future. .

He might have pointed out some problems within current western system to some of which i may agree while some others might not be as serous as he likes them to be.
Nothing new here.

That solutions he comes up with are not some "out of the box thinking".

Just At first glance there so many flaws in them and some others make my stomach turn up side down....well...i'm dramatising here.
His solutions could not be agreeable even if applied in perfect world.
Also in perfect world democracy would work much better therefore his much more dangerous solutions would not be needed.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MH

He might have pointed out some problems within current western system to some of which i may agree while some others might not be as serous as he likes them to be.
Nothing new here.

That solutions he comes up with are not some "out of the box thinking".

Just At first glance there so many flaws in them and some others make my stomach turn up side down....well...i'm dramatising here.
His solutions could not be agreeable even if applied in perfect world.
Also in perfect world democracy would work much better therefore his much more dangerous solutions would not be needed.

And you are sure you know "his solution" in detail, that well, after just having picked up some sentences that I quoted from random quote pages to give not more than just the most compact of summaries about the reasoning by him? Then you do better than I did. It took me to read all those 600 pages of the full book, and s second, smaller one, and to read them even twice, and then some random input from websites, to finally get sufficient details on the implications he suggests, and to put it all together.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

Disprove it to who? You have obviously made up your mind. Or have you just found someone who agrees with your own 'cozy illusions'?

The participants in a discussion are your audience. When you make a claim about something, somebody being wrong, it is in that context you have to give arguments for your claim.

I did as best as I could in the brief time and by using those quotes, I do not wish to tranbslate a whole book jjust to post it then when people can read it themselevs in English, already. It'S just that it is very unlikely that many, even even a single one, will buy the english book and read it. So I took the second-best option and gave that link, and took some quotes from there that at least give a very general idea of what he is about - without going into the details. If it wopuld be possible to pout it all into ust a few sentences - he would not have needed to write several books, som eof them going into the hundreds of pages.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

-> LINK

If people can disprove the logic and data in this, then criticism becomes valid. Until then, it is just noise, and an expression of displeasure over being disturbed while wallowing in one's cozy illusions.

You've got it backwards. You are the one proposing something radical, therefore the burden of proof is on you, dear Skybird. When you can show that your proposed methods will create your utopia, then we have something to talk about. Linking to Amazon is simply noise, and your radio has been playing too loud for too long.

Just go start a blog already. That way you can proselytize to your heart's content and not have to deal with pesky nay sayers that refuse to sit at your feet and accept your views as gospel truth. At the same time, the forum no longer has to be subject to your conspiracy-driven hatred. It's a win-win for all parties involved.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

This is exactly how forum discussions go. Someone posts a link to a book, insulting those who might disagree with it's conclusions. Any disagreements are null and void because they haven't read the book.

Good grief.


Right let's all buy the book (using Neal's handy link above, need money for new torps!).

Then we'll reconvene after a suitable interlude to discuss the book.

If you can manage to stop talking down to anyone who might disagree with you while this is going on, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it. It would be nice if you could also get it into your head that it's possible to disagree out of honesty, and not comfortable lazy illusions. So you can can all the talk about golden cows and false idols. Reading it gives me a headache.

Although I suppose discrimination against those with different opinions is right up your street.

Nonsense. The point is this: I refuse to pay respect to people if their only reaction is not in founded argument adressing arguments by others made before, but in just some noise making and some comment like "he is insane", "totally nuts" "Cannot be that way." People then could as well answer with "blue", "13.74" or "I go fishing" instead.

Just saying "I think he is wrong", is nothing. To explain why one thinks that, and give a reason that adresses the original argument, that is what makes any comment a comment, instead of just a random sound.

I have given plenty of more reaosns and arguments why I think the way I do,. and the quotes I have choosen also include many explanations in themselves, although still leaving out many details. Compared to that the comments by some people in return are not even thin. They are just loud. Yours, for example.

Anyhow, even those of you thinking he or me are insane, you and us and we will not escape the future to come, and that future is nearer than many here want to believe. For a majority still seem to think that the party on tick can run on forever, but it cannot, and it will not. The present problems in the world have the potential to do more damage and to cause greater rifts and crackups in human history than any historic episode ever did before. Whjatz people see today in symptoms, usually is seen as isolated, singular events, that have nothing or at least not much to do with each other. And that is the great misperception. It is not many different little turmoils here and there. It all is just different feature of one and the same, overwhelming turmoil. The island is sinking, and people already stand with their feet in the water. But nobody believes it, everybody thinks its champagne, and so everybody gets a glass and demands some more.

Nuts me or Hoppe were, some claim. It cannot be what should not be, indicate others. Democracy rules, indicate the next.

I agree, some people are insane here. And its not me, trying to find a boat while the majority still parties. Because you guys think it's champagne you are standing in, you demand that the flood valves should be opened. But me is nuts, and insane, eh?

In the end the survivors will see who drinks and who swims. Just that then it will be too late. Maybe - no, probably it already is too late right now.