Professor Hoppe was awarded the Murray N. Rothbard Medal of Freedom by the Mises Institute in 2015. The award is granted “In recognition of significant and wide-ranging libertarian leadership, as a scholar or public intellectual, established through the generosity of George W. Connell.” The transcript of Professor’s Hoppe’s remarks upon the presentation of the award on March 14, 2015 is provided below.
Transcript:
Lew Rockwell: Some years ago in Germany there was an event that took place that would turn out to be momentous for the Austrian School and for the cause of freedom and reason as well. Jürgen Habermas, the top Marxist in Germany, had a brilliant student who had been raised up in socialism, and that young man, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, came to the conclusion that socialism was not only deeply inimical to human flourishing but of course deeply immoral as well. So this young man who could have had, and was certainly headed to a brilliant establishment academic career ending in a chair at a top university, didn’t have that kind of a career—because he chose the truth as versus, to go along, in the same sense that of course Mises and Rothbard did as well.
This young man later wrote to Murray Rothbard—and I can still remember Murray’s excitement in getting this letter from Hans—that he wanted to come and study with him in New York. And this had never happened to Murray before, it should of course have happened to him. But here was a student worthy of him, a colleague worthy of him, what developed into a deep friendship. Hans went to New York, studied with Murray. When Murray later was able to get his first chair and his first appointment with graduate students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he worked to bring Hans there with him and together the two of them established a center for Austrian economics and for libertarian political theory. That, while it was allowed to flourish, before a Marxist became Dean—I remember Murray always saying “all Deans are evil.” I hope we don’t have any Deans here but… One of Rothbard’s laws.
So they developed this, and of course Hans has gone on in a tremendous number of books, in teaching, in example, to carry the Rothbard tradition forward, and all I can say Hans is, if Murray were here today, he would be definitely saying “attaboy Hans.” So I’m just thrilled and honored on behalf of the Mises Institute, Jeff Deist, and all of us, to present to Hans today the Murray N. Rothbard Medal of Freedom. This is made possible by the late George Connell, who was a Rothbardian engineer in Parachute, Colorado. I always love the name of that town. And he would be thrilled as well that Hans was receiving this medal that’s tremendously well deserved. Dr. Hoppe.
Hans Hoppe: I just want to say thank you very much and express my luck and fortune that I met Murray Rothbard, who is in my view of course the greatest of all social theorists whoever lived. I met many extremely bright men in my life. I never met a person like Murray Rothbard. Murray was a genius. I always felt a poor soul as compared with him. I’ve never met anybody like him. He knew more than anybody else seemed to know. He worked with an enormous speed. He was witty and humble and was an inspiration for all who had contact with him. That the last 10 years of his life, except for his wife, I probably spent more time with him than anybody else. I will be eternally grateful for this fortune that was bestowed on me. Thank you.
