Introduction to Hoppe's main work

[MH]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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.

If you quoted the quotes you quoted i should suppose that the quotes somehow bring about the essence of his ideas.
Then i haven't red the book...
Again...sometimes it is possible to summarise book with just the amount of quotes you used.
It is also possible to put a book/subject out of context with just few cherry picked quotes but i don't think that you meant it.
Did you?

anyway... i don't like it.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Maybe - no, probably it already is too late right now.

Great, then we can stop talking about it.

[u crank]

An opposing point of view.

Hoppe’s exaggerated liberalism or libertarianism is based on a wrong methodology. He ignores everything that does not fit into his simplistic premises and fails to acknowledge reality or other academic disciplines apart from his own school of thought. He systematically overlooks the problems of the real world or simplifies them until they fit into his model. From the perspective of classical liberalism one must criticise Hoppe’s dogmatic and intolerant – one could also say – ideological strategies and approaches which lead him to a kind of autistic totalitarianism. Hoppe does not understand at which point his argumentation loses the argumentative character to become blind ideology.

http://www.oliver-marc-hartwich.com/...-hermann-hoppe

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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.

There's no requirement for you to pay respect. What I would suggest instead is a attitude that isn't mean-spirited and condescending to people who disagree with you.


It doesn't take long to see from the little bits you've posted here that Hoppe is absurdly simplistic and reductive. Not worthy of a serious time or intellectual investment, by my view.

Quick example.

He suggests Monaco, Liechteinstein, Singapore etc as models for the new autonomous regions. These areas are only notable in how they deviate from normal tax and trading structures, providing them with a comparative economic advantage. They win, and are seen by Hoppe as models because the playing field is not level. If we all had Monaco's tax laws, Monaco would no longer be special. The attractive nature of these regions is only because of their rarity. It's a moronic argument not worthy of serious consideration.

If I see quote after quote of rubbish like that, I'm hardly going to go into horrendous detail filleting the rest. Not worth it.

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.

Tak wrote quite a good set of points that you completely ignored, you then posted a wall of quotes and proceeded to complain that nobody was taking you seriously.

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.

I didn't go into detail because it didn't warrant it. See the point about SIngapore etc above - the materiel presented is not serious. Don't mistake brevity for frivolity.

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.

The End is Nigh, eh? I'd say the Black Death or the Spanish flu were pretty nasty.

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.

This would be why I'm not taking a serious scholarly interest in anything you write or post from Hoppe. This over-generalised totally unfalsifiable conspiratorial rubbish. There was a thread where you were banging on about hormone problems due to gender engineering or saome such EU-dictated socialist control mechanism. I asked for any sort of proof - you kept the thread going and didn't provide any.

And seriously? The US is barely struggling out of recession, the eurozone is drowning in debt, China is waiting for it's housing bubble to burst, Kim Jong Un is playing with more dangerous things than firecrackers, and to top it all off the planet is melting..............and you think everyone is happy at a party drinking champagne?

This reminds me of another bloody stupid thing Hoppe wrote.

Originally Posted by Hoppe

According to the pronouncements of our state rulers and their intellectual bodyguards (of whom there are more than ever before), we are better protected and more secure than ever. We are supposedly protected from global warming and cooling, from the extinction of animals and plants, from the abuses of husbands and wives, parents and employers, from poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers.

Come on. You can't expect to post this kind of rubbish and not be told it's rubbish. Our leaders tell is everything is ok? That we've fixed the climate? That we're done with discrimination? That must explain how every newspaper is filled with nothing but good news.

Give. Me. A. Break.

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.

Again, over-generalised apocalyptic garbage. Apparently those of us who believe that democracy might be worth hanging on to all think we're standing in champagne.

Mine's a double.

[Skybird]

Ah, Hartwich, I read him regularly, too, even quoted him once or twice in threads, even find some of his stuff good.

However, where he claims that Hoppe is for example not explaining what is natural in hbis idea of natural order, Hartcwich simply is wrong and did not study his work carefully enough. Hoppe explains that absolutely, in his books often in context of where the first kings and the first landlords and the first tribe leaders may have emerged from, and how. It is in several parts of his work, but I just pick it from the quotes I already give, as an introductory illustration:

In every society, a few individuals acquire the status of an elite through talent. Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, and bravery, these individuals come to possess natural authority, and their opinions and judgments enjoy wide-spread respect. Moreover, because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are likely to be passed on within a few noble families. It is to the heads of these families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct that men turn to with their conflicts and complaints against each other. These leaders of the natural elite act as judges and peacemakers, often free of charge out of a sense of duty expected of a person of authority or out of concern for civil justice as a privately produced "public good."

What Hoppe does not spend time on, is elaborating much to what degree such an order offers opportunities for corruption again, corrupting power. However he admits that royals and monarchs tried to cheat and betray for sure - its just that the context of feudal land order with its unique settings of law and different status of private property they found it much more difficult for the most to be successful in that. He also lists empiric indices like taxes and money devaluation, innerpolitical power projection and the relation between king and the laws he must follow to illustrate his point that in monarchies comparable problems of corruption and abuse existed like in democracies: but that democracies allow them to come to much greater blossoming, leading to much greater inefficiency of the administrative apparatus, costs, corruption, and damage to the capital stock. - THAT IS PART OF THE REASON WHY HOPPE SAYS HE DOES NOT WANT A MONARCHY, although he sees a monarchy as the lesser and much cheaper evil, compared to democracy. To explain in full detail what he means by private law society, leads a bit to far in this thread, I refer to some of the chapters in his book The Failed God, where he illustrates that in greater detail. Hoppe also defends himself against being seen as a libertarian, because to him libertarians today are only lifestyle libertarians who are more socialists than anything and hide that behind the label libertarianism in order to make themselves look distinct from other democratic factions (that would be true for the German FDP for example, and the political direction that in europe is called Liberalism).

There are many such simplifications Hartwich implies, and his criticism may come from the fact that Hartwich, a liberal economist himself, represents what Hoppe is attacking in general: the camp of those who may call themselves different names but all consider democracy to be the inevitable basis of any desirable state order. For Hoppe, democracy is the very root of the evil. Hoppe even sets himself apart from Mises and Rothbarth, therefore, since both also had a positive view of democracy and were not able to identify democracy itself as the casue of why political leadership goes corrupt and the economies derail and the finances of the state always will be ruined by democrats and will go bankrupt.

The the very objects of Hoppe's criticism do not like to be attacked and do not sit still when becoming the object of his analysis, is not surprising.

Hoppe's "natural order"W can be easily misunderstood, I absolutely agree, and he also can be easily mistaken for just any archcapitalist liberal, yes. But I think that impression is misleading. Took myself some time to see it that way, too. and I indeed thiunk that he explains an utopia there, an ideal to strive for. Whether it can be realised, I have some doubts myself.

Some days ago I said that imo Hoppe is best when on the attack. His strength is the analysis of the past, and of the reasons why democracy failed and necessarily must fail every time. His empiric data and arguments based on historical facts, are compelling. n the cure he offers, well, I have admitted from beginning on: that still is under debate. I found his vision however making more sense than what so far I was ab le to come up with as an alternative myself. If somebody however has a better model for an alternative in the future, let'S hear him. Just notg more of what we already have had excessively: more supra-state, less national state, more democracy, more social this, social that, more redistribution, more money printing. I base on the very strong opinion that these factors already have been dismissed by their record as trustworthy alternatives. They are the reason why we have the problem that we have today. Just more of the same, is not convincing to me. I do not expect a sudden miracle when trying to extinguish a fire by spilling more gasoline into the fire.

[Skybird]

"Mean-spirited."

I can sing a long song of that, having been the target of rethorical underhandedness more often than I could ever find tolerable. and I often learned that I get treated with quite some arrogance and verbal cheating, and being attacked in mean ways when I stick to something I say that others do not like. My patience learned to know limits then, yes, and I may chose to cut off a communication by a laconic picture or a sarcastic final comment. It seems I am expected in these situations to endlessly sit still and just take rethorical hits, getting misquoted out of context or have words turned in my mouth or even have words pout in my mouth that I never said nor whose meaning I ever indicated. All this happened so often, and some people really expected me, and still do so, to just swallow it and not to move. But beware Zeus when I dare to react and give the change in the currency others have chosen first! Where I still see chances to have a communication, I try again with arguments, often being answered with complaints about pointless walls of text instead.

This must be a great surprise to you , Tchocky, but I fullheartly return the complaint you directed at me, and I could say the same that you said about me about quite some people here, usually always the same names, and that is the group of names that usually I no longer or only extremely rarely react to anymore, or even have on the ignore-list.

This is also the reason why with other people, who also may disagree with me, I find it easy to communicate, for they do not start to follow this path, and so I don't either. In principle, it is very easy to get along with me, the rule is just one: the stronger you push me, the stronger I push back. That's all. To some degree it seems one has to be loud and modestly aggressive in this forum if not wanting to get plowed under while saying something unpopular or somebody not liking you. I do not like to follow that path until the ugly end when it gets locked however, and also do not follow it that far anymore than I maybe did many years ago were it sometimes went on endlessly, so I tend to step out at some stage and leave the remaining people to themselves, then. They then sometimes say I would "avoid discussion". Well, let that little victory be there's, then - my ego can afford that .

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

"Mean-spirited."

I can sing a long song of that, having been the target of rethorical underhandedness more often than I could ever finbd tolerable. and I often learned that I get treated with quite some arrogance and being attacked in mean ways when I stick to something I say that others do not like. My patience then knows limits, yes. where I still see chances to have a communication, I I try again with arguments, often being answered with complaints about pointless walls of text instead.

This must be a great surprise to you , Tchocky, but I fullheartly return the complaint you directed at me, and I could say the same that you said about me about quite some people here, usually always the same names, and that is the group of names that usually I no longer or only extremely rarely react to anymore, or even have on the ignore-list.

And so it comes down to what so many have said of you; that you are interested in dictating your peception of the truth, not discussion. Again, I suggest that a blog would be more appropriate for your tastes.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

And so it comes down to what so many have said of you; that you are interested in dictating your peception of the truth, not discussion. Again, I suggest that a blog would be more appropriate for your tastes.

On the plus side, it does offer great hilarity when he paraphrases the Jehovah's Witnesses.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

On the plus side, it does offer great hilarity when he paraphrases the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Hmmm....



A new avatar perhaps?

[Hottentot]

The style certainly fits and usually the resemblance becomes closer the more pages the thread accumulates.

[Takeda Shingen]

I wonder how large a donation would be required for Neal to change it.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Skybird

"Mean-spirited."

I can sing a long song of that, having been the target of rethorical underhandedness more often than I could ever finbd tolerable. and I often learned that I get treated with quite some arrogance and being attacked in mean ways when I stick to something I say that others do not like. My patience then knows limits, yes. where I still see chances to have a communication, I I try again with arguments, often being answered with complaints about pointless walls of text instead.

This must be a great surprise to you , Tchocky, but I fullheartly return the complaint you directed at me, and I could say the same that you said about me about quite some people here, usually always the same names, and that is the group of names that usually I no longer or only extremely rarely react to anymore, or even have on the ignore-list.


This is also the reason why with other people, who also may disagree with me, I find it easy to communicate, for they do not start to follow this path, and so I don't either. In principle, it is very easy to get along with me, the rule is just one: the stronger you push me, the stronger I push back. That's all. To some degree it seems one has to be loud and modestly aggressive in this forum if not wanting to get plowed under while saying something unpopular or somebody not liking you. I do not like to follow that path until the ugly end when it gets locked however, and also do not follow it that far anymore than I maybe did many years ago were it sometimes went on endlessly, so I tend to step out at some stage and leave the remaining people to themselves, then. They then sometimes say I would "avoid discussion". Well, let that little victory be there's, then - my ego can afford that .

I'm not talking about rhetorical underhandedness, whatever that may be. I'm not trying to twist your words or anything like that. I'm quoting Hoppe's words and saying that from a straight first reading of what's been posted, they are not worth serious attention - hence suggesting people should go off and buy the book in order to "graduate" to a higher level of discourse is irritating and without merit.

The other point I'm trying to get across is that you can't fairly complain about not being taken seriously when your own language precludes any disagreement whatsoever. Look at your first post in the thread.

It's kind of subsidiary to the main point - don't expect well-constructed rebuttal to poorly-constructed feudalist pipedreams. As presented here.

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.

No, what you posted is fully sufficient for anyone to make a well thought out judgement that the ideology of Hoppe is seriously nuts.
Its so crazy its barking out loud.
The fact that you cannot see the obvious suggests that you share his problem.

[Catfish]

Be careful tribesman, this is exactly the logic the far right in the US uses - it loves Mises as it loves Hoppe. And Communism is the same as National-socialism. No joke, they do believe that.
It makes things easier to condemn, however unfortunately it never solves the real problems.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

the far right in the US uses - it loves Mises as it loves Hoppe.

Can't judge Mises, but for Hoppe the right in the US should not be too certain that the love is mutual. Hoppe has distanced himself from what he called today's lifestyle-libertarians, saying that they are not any libertarian at all, but socialists in deception-mode (mind you, in his logic democracy necessarily always ends in socialist motives deciding the state's policy). Hoppe also says that while he owes to Mises and Rothbard, he leaves them alone in their appreciation of democracy, for which both seem to have had more sympathy than Hoppe has, for the already given explanation.

When the book "The failed god" was published first in the US ten years ago, or eleven, it caused an outcry in BOTH political camps in the US. This must be so, since his reasoning implies that he attacks both parties fundaments of how they want to see themselves and their legitimation.