Professor Hoppe’s speech, The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture presented at the Mises Institute’s Austrian Economics Research Conference (Fri., March 21, 2025; see Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian). Podcast at PFP290. Transcript and Grok shownotes below.

Note Professor Hoppe extensively comments on the reaction to his previous criticism of Milei; see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Javier Milei” (PFS 2024); Hoppe, “What To Make of Milei,” LewRockwell.com (Oct. 3, 2024); and Kristoffer Mousten Hansen, “Hoppe versus Milei on Central Banking: Breaking Down the Differences,” Mises Wire (Feb. 6, 2025).

He also discusses various other matters, such as the funding of the Frankfurt School by Felix Weil and its influence on Western Europe and on America (and its connection to “wokeism”); US worldwide hegemony since WWII and NATO provocations of Russia after the fall of the USSR, and its role in provoking the Russia-Ukraine conflict; the US role in the Israel-Hamas conflict and the influence of Israel over US policy and the dangerous alliance of the US and American “exceptionalism” paired with Israel’s “Chosen People” image.

Grok Shownotes:

Introduction and Personal Reflections

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, introduced by Joseph Salerno as a prominent libertarian economist and associate of Murray Rothbard, delivers the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture. He reflects on his long history with the Mises Institute, noting his first visit to Auburn in 1985 or 1986, and humorously attributes any disorganization in his talk to following his wife’s advice to speak conversationally rather than reading a scripted paper. Hoppe outlines three interrelated topics: contrasting monarchical and democratic wars, the Frankfurt School’s role in post-WWII German re-education, and a critique of Argentine President Javier Milei, tying into broader libertarian insights.

Monarchical vs. Democratic Wars

Hoppe contrasts monarchical wars, often arising from inheritance disputes and limited by rulers’ personal resources (using real money and avoiding drafts), with democratic wars, which involve ideological components, mass participation, and vindictive outcomes. Monarchical wars end quickly and reasonably, while democratic ones require justifying “good vs. evil” narratives and punishing the defeated. He highlights the Congress of Vienna (1815) as an example of a monarchical peace after the Napoleonic Wars, restoring France’s borders and ensuring nearly a century of stability.

Examples of Vindictive Democratic Peaces

Using historical cases, Hoppe illustrates democratic peaces’ revengeful nature. The American Civil War ended not just with surrender at Appomattox but with the South’s destruction, mob rule, and lasting stigmatization. He focuses on the “30 Years’ War” of World War I and II: WWI started monarchical but became democratic, leading to the vindictive Treaty of Versailles, which imposed sole guilt on Germany, territorial losses, reparations, and the abolition of monarchies, fueling nationalism and WWII. WWII’s peace was even harsher, with massive German territorial losses, refugee crises, stolen patents, and social engineering for re-education.

The Frankfurt School’s Influence on Re-education

Hoppe details the Frankfurt School’s founding by wealthy Jewish financiers Hermann and Felix Weil, who established the Institute for Social Research in 1923, attracting Marxist intellectuals like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm. These figures, from affluent backgrounds, critiqued proletarian mentality and integrated psychoanalysis. Exiled during the Nazi era, they relocated funds strategically (to Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam, then the U.S.), receiving support from institutions like Columbia University. Post-WWII, backed by U.S. forces, they returned to Germany to re-educate the population, promoting anti-authoritarian ideas that Hoppe links to modern political correctness, family breakdown, and “wokeness.”

Additional Anecdotes on Frankfurt School Figures

Hoppe shares anecdotes, such as Adorno’s recommendation from John Maynard Keynes for emigration to England, and their luxurious U.S. lifestyles in Pacific Palisades, neighboring figures like Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht. He notes Marcuse’s role in U.S. student rebellions and the School’s overall impact on both American and German cultural shifts, despite the founders’ personal conservatism. This re-education, Hoppe argues, was a deliberate American-engineered revenge, introducing fields like political science to instill democratic values.

Critique of Javier Milei: Economic Policies

Shifting to contemporary figures, Hoppe critiques Argentine President Javier Milei, who claims inspiration from Rothbard and Hoppe as an anarcho-capitalist. Despite initial hype and awards (likened to Obama’s premature Nobel), Hoppe argues Milei’s actions contradict libertarian principles. He failed to abolish the central bank, staffing it with former bankers, leading to doubled money supply and halved inflation (from 200% to 100%), which Hoppe deems insufficient. Milei increased debt more than predecessors, renegotiated IMF loans, raised taxes despite promises, and shipped gold reserves abroad, risking confiscation.

Critique of Javier Milei: Foreign Policy and Libertarian Reputation

Hoppe emphasizes Milei’s foreign policy as freely chosen and damaging to libertarianism. Instead of neutrality and non-intervention, Milei seeks NATO membership, boosts military spending for internal uses, and aligns with figures like Trump (a protectionist war-maker), Zelenskyy (a corrupt leader prolonging Ukraine’s war), and Netanyahu (accused of genocide). Hoppe warns this associations tarnish libertarians as supporters of warmongers, ruining their anti-war reputation. He notes criticism from Milei’s defenders, who ignore these issues despite Hoppe’s right to critique given Milei’s citations of him.

Central Insights of Austrian Libertarianism

Hoppe reiterates key libertarian tendencies: states arise from wars (e.g., unified Germany and Italy via 19th-century conflicts, even Switzerland’s Sonderbund War). States centralize for more loot, while libertarians favor decentralization (e.g., a Europe of a thousand Liechtensteins for competition and foot-voting). He introduces the “paradox of imperialism”: internally liberal states like the U.S. become most imperialistic due to productive populations funding wars.

U.S. Imperialism and Global Consequences

Post-WWII, Hoppe views the U.S. as the world’s most imperialist power, turning Western Europe into NATO vassals with 800 global military bases. NATO expanded eastward despite Soviet collapse, provoking Russia (e.g., 2014 Ukraine coup, ignoring Russian-speaking regions’ autonomy demands, leading to the 2022 invasion). U.S. wars caused 20 million deaths (Vietnam, Iraq, etc.), massive European immigration, Islamic radicalization, and spread of wokeness via Frankfurt School influences. Hoppe criticizes U.S.-Israeli ties, seeing the “exceptional nation” and “chosen people” alliance as dangerously aggressive.

Concluding Pessimistic Reflections

Hoppe concludes pessimistically, hoping for U.S. defeat in Ukraine not as Putin support but to curb American rule over Europe via vassal states. He dismisses fears of Russian invasion as absurd, advocating survival over futile resistance (“better red than dead” in some cases). Despite loving America personally (career, family citizenship), he deems its government the greatest global threat. The talk ends with applause and adjournment, noting no time for questions.

From Grok:

Cleaned Transcript: Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian (AERC 2025)

7:17 – Introduction by Joseph Salerno

[JOSEPH SALERNO]: Now it’s my pleasure to introduce a man who really needs no introduction to this audience. He’ll be our lecturer for the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture sponsored by Helio Beltrão. Hans-Hermann Hoppe is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, former editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, and founder and president of the Property and Freedom Society. Dr. Hoppe earned his PhD and his habilitation from Goethe-Universität. Professor Hoppe taught at several German universities as well as at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center for Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy. In 1986, he moved from Germany to the United States to study under Murray Rothbard. He remained a close associate of Murray until his death in January 1995. In addition to his many English-language books and articles, Professor Hoppe is the author of three books in German and numerous German-language articles on philosophy, economics, and the social sciences. He will address us today on “Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian.” Please welcome Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

[Applause]

8:46 – Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Lecture: Thanks and Personal Reflections

[HANS-HERMANN HOPPE]: Here though, I thank Lew Rockwell, Tom DiLorenzo, and Joseph Salerno for the invitation. And to clear up the veteran part in my lecture, I should point out that my first visit to Auburn took place in, I think, in the fall of ’85 or in the spring of 1986. So Auburn for me is my sweet home in Alabama.

When I came here, the only people who were here before and are still around were Lew Rockwell, of course, Marty, Pat Barnett, Judy Thommesen, and Mark Thornton, who are still around and have a claim to be even more at home in sweet Alabama than I have. And I think John Denson—I don’t know if he’s present, but he was here at the time too.

Now, my wife told me, when you give a speech, don’t do what you have done for the last few years: craft some carefully written long article and then read from that. But instead, give a lecture in a conversational style and give a lecture like you did when you were still teaching. So if I’m slightly disorganized and there are repetitions and so forth, please forgive me. All of that goes back to the order of my wife. And as you know, you cannot possibly contradict your wife, because they are the boss at home.

11:16 – Three Interrelated Subjects: Monarchical vs. Democratic Wars

I will touch on three interrelated subjects. The first one concerns a topic that I chose to give at the May conference on revisionist war history. Tom invited me to give a lecture there. I couldn’t come in May; didn’t fit into my schedule. But I decided on a topic, and I will say a few words about the topic that I will cover and that will hopefully also be included in the volume that will be produced out of that conference, which unfortunately I have to miss.

I thought it would be good to say a few words about that first in order to wet your appetite for a conference like that, and secondly because I wanted to force myself to then finally put on paper my at the moment still somewhat vague thoughts that I have on that thought, on that speech or article that I’m planning for this.

I’m planning to contrast, as some sort of an ideal typical way, monarchical wars on the one hand and democratic wars. Monarchical wars being wars that are mostly conducted because of territorial disputes arising out of inheritance disputes. They are easily begun and they are easily concluded, because monarchs conducted their war with their own resources. They rarely could use draft, for instance, and they had to end the war usually rather quickly because they ran out of money, because at that time money was still real money.

Democratic wars on the other hand are wars that have some sort of ideological component. The entire people is involved in the war, and you must give them reasons why they fight the war. One side is bad, the other side is good, and you cannot simply end them by occupying certain territories, because the bad guys have to be punished by the good guys.

So I want my main concern will be to show the difference between monarchical peace—I’m not so much interested who is guilty and why is the war started exactly—but to contrast monarchical peacemaking with democratic peaces.

And to give you some examples: take the war, the end of the Napoleonic Wars that ended in 1815, and there was a Vienna Congress. The war was a democratic war as far as France and Napoleon was concerned. There was an ideological war; they wanted to liberate Europe, and conducting the war with these slogans: liberty, fraternity, and so forth, you know all of this.

Now this war was lost ultimately against the opposing monarchs from Prussia, Austria, Russia, and England. The peace was the last monarchical peace, and the war ended in such a way that Napoleon was sent into exile. France was restored to the borders that existed before the French Revolution of 1789. Some reparations had to be paid from France to the winner monarchical coalition, but that was basically it, and the peace lasted for almost a hundred years. That was a peace conducted by gentlemen.

Now monarchical wars then were by and large reasonable, non-vindictive wars. Democratic wars on the other hand always ended with revenge had to be taken; they were vindictive peaces.

One example for instance was the war of secession. It ended with the North defeating the seceding South, but it was not ending with Grant and Lee agreeing in Appomattox to lay down the weapons and leave it at that, but there was a revenge taken. The South was destroyed; they are for more than a decade some sort of mob rule was installed in the South, and until this day the South is considered to be somewhat low-life people that have to apologize until the end of the day for having had the audacity trying to secede from the union.

But that example is not the most interesting for me. The most interesting case is there, and I want to spend most of the time on that subject, is the so-called 30 Years War. Many historians refer to it as a 30 Years War of World War I and World War II.

World War I began as some sort of monarchical war. Different monarchs all had some imperial ambitions, and the war then ended as an increasingly democratic war, especially after the Americans entered the war and the Russian Revolution broke out and the Russian czar was executed and so forth.

There, of course, a very revengeful peace that ended World War I. The losing countries had to throw out their monarchies; the ruling aristocratic classes in these countries were stripped of all of their powers. Germany had to accept to had to unconditionally surrender and accept sole guilt for everything that had taken place, even though these sorts of things are very complicated; lots of people were actually guilty in things. But sole responsibility was put on the German side. They lost tremendous amount of territory and were forced to pay enormous amount of reparations.

The vindictiveness of this peace was of course—I should also mention that the abolition of the monarchies in Germany and also in the Ottoman Empire and in Austria led of course to a massive rise of nationalist movements. New borders were drawn up in Europe; countries that did not exist before came into existence. We still have plenty of problems in the Middle East and also in Europe that result precisely from the fact that all borders in Europe were redrawn, and it was almost predictable that this vindictive peace would need to lead and did lead of course to the next war very quickly.

The next war then Germany again lost or the German allies lost the Second World War, and there the peace imposed on them was even more vindictive. There were just huge territories taken away from Germany; there was about more than 10 million refugees; enormous compensation had to be paid. The Americans for instance stole all the patents that German industries had, and the most interesting thing was that this time social engineering was used in order to re-educate the German population.

Some German authors have called that they introduced a character wash, so Germans had to re-learn history instructed by the American victors. And here I want to add something that is quite interesting: which role the so-called Frankfurt School played in this re-education program that was initiated in Germany with great success up to this day.

22:53 – The Role of the Frankfurt School in German Re-education

So let me tell you a little bit about the Frankfurt School. It was founded by, financed by two people: a German Jew, Hermann Weil, who immigrated to Argentina and became the wealthiest grain dealer in the world, and his son Felix Weil, who was born in Argentina and studied then in Germany and became very rich, not only because his father was the biggest grain dealer in the world, but as a teenager he inherited from his mother, his Jewish mother, a fortune of about $400 million in current terms.

During his studies he became acquainted with all sorts of left-wing intellectuals in Germany that grew up after World War I. One of the effects of World War I in Germany was of course that after the aristocracy and the monarchy were abolished, socialist parties of all sorts of orientation—hardcore, not so hardcore, softcore—all sorts of socialist and hardcore nationalist parties emerged.

This Felix Weil, the son, became friends with leading left-wing intellectuals in Germany and set up an institute, the Institute of Social Research, that was associated with the University of Frankfurt. All of the leading figures of this institute were Jews, just as Felix Weil and his father.

He built a building for them, paid people who were employed by this institute quite well—as you can, as I mentioned, these people were enormously wealthy—and they had established a network of countless socialist friends all over Europe.

They were not Bolsheviks; as a matter of fact, they disliked what they saw going on in the Soviet Union. And even though they were all Jewish, practically all of them were Jewish, they did not particularly like the Ostjuden, that is the Eastern European Jews; they were considered to be low-life Jews, whereas those people who were influential at this Institute of Social Research all came from very wealthy families.

Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse—you are familiar with some of them; Erich Fromm—all of them had very wealthy businessmen as their parents. You have some sort of parallel development as you saw was the relationship between Marx and Engels. Marx also came from a well-off family, but of course his supporter, his financier Engels was a son of a very rich industrialist. So here you have something very similar.

Felix Weil also pursued an academic career; he also got a PhD, but he was the one who supported the more successful academics, more successful than he himself, because he also had to just take care of his father’s business in Argentina, so he had to go back to Argentina back and forth and could not devote himself full time to the operation of this institute.

They were considered themselves all Marxists but of different varieties of Marxism. It reminded me a little bit of what Murray Rothbard always said when his extended family came together: the only serious question that ever arose—should I become a member of the Communist Party or should I stay on the side and be a supporter of the Communist Party? So that was the variation of the leaders of the Frankfurt School.

From the beginning, the first director, who was only for a short period the director and did not have all that great of an influence, was Carl Grünberg. Carl Grünberg, by the way, was a doctoral advisor for Ludwig von Mises when Ludwig von Mises was not yet an economist but an institutionalist. He was a Marxist but not interested in high theory, just more in the history of the workers’ movement.

The next director who then became very influential and was a theoretician was Max Horkheimer. Again, as I said, Max Horkheimer came from a very wealthy family, but nonetheless had some parents had some little misgivings that he married the wrong girl and so forth and was dependent, as far as finances are concerned, from this Institute of Social Research.

They were very smart as far as their finances are concerned. Even before the Nazis came to power, they had already managed to transfer their funds to other places. The building that was dedicated, given to them, was taken over by Nazi organizations very quickly, but their funds had already been transferred to foreign accounts.

First they established some residency in Geneva; they had residences in Paris and they had residences in Amsterdam. After it became clear that the Nazis would also take over the Netherlands and take over France, and Geneva also became increasingly an unsafe place—all of these they were at Geneva at the same time when Mises was in Geneva in 1934.

They were even partly supported by the same organizations in Geneva that also funded the stay of Mises in Geneva. And then they finally they moved to the United States. They established contacts with Columbia University, then they established contacts with the New School of Social Research, and in the end because they lived a very luxurious life on the money that Felix Weil gave them.

Felix Weil—I remember the numbers; there nobody knows exactly how big the funding was, but it is known that in the 1930s when they had already gone to the United States, he supplemented the funding by $40 million at that time to make sure that these guys led a luxurious life.

Now what their idea was: the proletarians were obviously not the type of people that would bring about the socialist revolution. You had to—there was something wrong with the mentality of the people. That’s why they became also very much interested in psychoanalysis. The guy that was in charge of psychoanalysis was Erich Fromm.

They became then, after the war, after the end of the war, some of them returned to Germany, supported by the Americans. They had Herbert Marcuse, for instance, was working for the American Secret Service. So they returned to—some of them returned to Germany; some of them stayed in the United States. Marcuse and Erich Fromm stayed in the United States. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer and a whole bunch of other people went back to Germany.

They were then installed by the Americans or the occupying forces in Germany to professorships all over Germany. That was all planned by the Americans, so this is not like a spontaneous revenge, but this was socially an engineered revenge that took place. Political science, for instance, did not exist as an established field in Germany before. Political science was a field introduced in Germany in order to teach the Germans how to be good democrats in the sense that Americans consider to be good democrats.

And both of them—the American wing, Marcuse, Fromm, and various other people who stayed in the United States, and the German people—they are in a way responsible for re-educating the population. They thought the problem with Germans were that they had an authoritarian personality.

The most famous studies that they produced, also funded by Jewish organizations in the United States, was to find out what type of people are inclined to become fascists, what type of people are inclined to become authoritarian personalities. And they found of course a reason that in the authoritarian structure of German families, and you have a father who is a powerful father and the mother does motherly stuff and the kids have to listen to what the parents tell them, and all of this had to be driven out of the German public.

Now interestingly, these people themselves—Adorno and Horkheimer—were personally conservative types. I met them; I studied in Frankfurt. I’m in some ways an outgrowth of this school myself. But if you look what the result of that was, all political correctness stuff that was already implied in what these people taught.

That is, there was sexual liberation, destruction of families, different lifestyles, anti-authoritarian training of children, and so forth. All of that came out of it. I think these people in the end were almost disappointed themselves; that is not exactly what they wanted, because as I said, personally they were conservative types. But the result of their program was precisely what we even now have in the United States: wokeness and all of this is ultimately the outgrowth of the teaching of the Frankfurt School.

37:53 – Additional Notes on the Frankfurt School Figures

Okay, so this is the first subject that I want to cover. I should mention as a little interesting side: Adorno, who immigrated first to England, and then and he needed a recommendation to go to England as an immigrant, and the one who wrote the recommendation that he should go to England was John Maynard Keynes.

Now John Maynard Keynes did not know Adorno personally, but Adorno’s family was a prominent family; they had joint acquaintances with some British high-ranking British people, and they approached John Maynard Keynes, and John Maynard Keynes wrote then to the immigration bureaucracy: this Adorno is a very interesting guy and he’s a great musician and is interested in aesthetics, so let him come to England.

From England then he went to the United States. As said, they lived in the United States at the end at the Pacific Palisades. Max Horkheimer was for instance the neighbor of Thomas Mann; they had houses next to each other, and when one guy went on vacation, the other one watered the flowers and things like that. So also Bertolt Brecht was involved in these circles. So very powerful German figures who afterwards became enormously influential in the United States.

Again, you recall Herbert Marcuse was responsible for much of the student rebellions in the United States too. So it was the Frankfurt School educated the Americans in a way, and they educated the Germans.

So now let me stop with this subject and come to the next one, coming again staying in Argentina. The Weils—Felix Weil or an Argentine Argentine—and next subject is now next superstar from Argentina, Mr. Milei.

40:35 – Critique of Javier Milei

Now Mr. Milei of course is not a Marxist. He claims that he is an anarcho-capitalist, and he is on record that he was inspired largely by Murray Rothbard and by myself. He also has written that those were the people who inspired him.

He was hailed immediately in Europe as a new superstar, as a new Jesus. Now he was of course he’s not Jesus, because he’s also creation of the Jewish oligarchs in Argentina, and has toyed himself with the idea of converting to Judaism.

Now I, after he was awarded all sorts of prizes even before he even did anything, that reminded me a little bit like the award that they gave to Obama when he won the Nobel Peace Prize before he actually started killing people. And there it was Milei got all sorts of prizes before he could show anything of his skills.

I gave, after he was in power for 9 months or so, I gave a little speech at my annual conference criticizing him. And I felt of course, given that he cited me as one of his inspirations, that I was perfectly entitled to also criticize him.

Now what I criticized was of course I did not deny that he had to make compromises. Some people afterwards accused me: don’t you realize that he can’t do everything that he wants immediately? After all, there’s a parliament and all the rest of it, like in every other country. Now of course I was aware of that. I was also aware of the fact that you have to make compromises in such a situation.

But on the other hand, the compromises that you make should not be compromises that are contrary to the goal that you ultimately have and that you claim are your goals. And my criticism concerned only these types of things where I thought: look, this is this is not what libertarianism, what anarcho-capitalism is.

So I criticized him for instance—I said, see here. Also of course did not deny that some of the things that he did were improvements, but on the other hand Argentina was in such a disastrous situation that it was difficult not to make any improvements.

So he claimed for instance—let me just repeat here some of my criticisms that I made—that the central bank has to be abolished, and that is un—that is there is no debate about that; must be abolished.

So I pointed out he didn’t abolish the central bank. Not only that, all the people that he employed on the top administration were former central bankers. That does not exactly instill great hope if you want to abolish the central bank and all people that you put in charge of monetary affairs were former central bankers.

Then he attacked me when he heard that I had criticized: why didn’t you abolish that? You can’t do that; that is impossible to do that; it would cause even higher inflation than existed before. Now that indicated in my mind of course that he doesn’t understand anything about economics.

Now if you shut down the central bank and if you even allow the central bank to cover all the demand deposits that are not covered by cash in the banks, that would not lead to any increase in the money supply, and you would get a situation where the peso would actually rise in value. There are no more pesos printed; all the banks are solvent so to speak because enough cash had been printed in addition to cover all the fiduciary media. Then you would get down the inflation rate in no time basically to zero.

Now if you look at what the inflation rate is—it used to be 200% per year or something like this—it is in the meantime it is about 100%. Now what great achievement is it if you get the inflation rate in more than a year down 200%? I thought that had to be criticized, this sort of thing.

Instead of taking these advice to heart—I should mention that Christopher Hansen wrote two great articles: how to shut—what would happen if the central bank would be shut down. They explained quietly that the peso would immediately rise, and he claimed that if you would shut the central bank the there would be hyperinflation. So how can there be hyperinflation if you don’t print any additional pesos? I mean I was amazed that anybody could just claim that that would be the consequence.

Then he said, so this was non-negotiable, the central bank being closed; he didn’t do it. All the ex-bankers who were responsible for this still in charge. The money supply increased by doubled during his period in charge—now more than 100% increase of the money supply. All these fans—they don’t understand anything about economics—they did think that was completely unimportant.

He took on more debt than any of his predecessors in one year. So those are the two most interesting statistics from an Austrian point of view: what does he do to the money supply and what does he do to debt? That increased; money supply increased.

Then he could have said: okay, we have plenty of foreign debt, and he might have been able to persuade people: look, I cannot repudiate the debt. This is of course what Rothbard would have done: the debt was assumed by his previous predecessors. And he could have said: that’s the end of it; we don’t repay the debt.

But it was not that he tried to explain: yeah, maybe then they will be mad and the Americans will send their army into Argentina, and because of that I have to do it. No, what he said is: to repay this debt, that is what you must do if you are an honest businessman who has to keep his contracts.

Now but government debt are not normal private debt that have to be repaid. Future Argentinian taxpayers have to pay this foreign debt. He is now in negotiation with the International Monetary Fund to replace the old debt with some new debt.

Then he said: there will be no taxes increased; if I—I rather cut off my arm than raising any tax. Now he did raise several taxes, and he still runs around with two arms.

Then he shipped the gold that Argentina has to England or some places outside of Argentina. You all know what happened for instance to Russian assets: they were frozen, and Russians could not even access their assets in foreign countries anymore. So given these types of dangers that foreign countries can simply confiscate your gold if you have your gold stored at other places, nonetheless he sent that out there.

Now my reaction to all of this was that I should say that lots of people criticized me for being so audacious to criticize this great man, because nothing—he was just walking on water as far as German libertarians were concerned. None of these were actually anarcho-capitalists themselves; almost none of them were professional economists who could just have judgment on what is it. It was just: he promised that I cut the state down; I cut the state down—that was sufficient in order to just excuse everything that he did.

The worst thing however was that none of his defenders—he has really groupies—none of his groupies for instance ever commented on what he did as far as foreign policy is concerned.

53:29 – Milei’s Foreign Policy and Libertarian Reputation

Now as far as foreign policy is concerned, he was of course completely free to choose whatever he wanted to do. What internal policies you could say: yeah, okay, there’s a parliament and there’s an opposition party and all the rest of it. As far as foreign policy was concerned, he was completely free to say whatever he wanted.

Now what is a position that libertarians have as far as foreign policy is concerned? Now our position is that we are neutral; we stay out of foreign countries’ business; we do not engage in any entanglements with other countries. We are a peace party; we don’t want war; we are non-interventionists.

Now but what did Milei do? First of all, he said: I would love to join NATO, even though Argentina is not exactly in the North Atlantic as you. Then he increased the budget for the military and also claimed that the military could also be used for internal purposes, for instance to curtail drug dealings and this sort of thing. He bought plenty of weapons from other countries.

And then he declared who his beloved friends are. So there Trump is of course the greatest. Now I’m not saying that Trump is the worst person in the world; I certainly prefer Trump over Kamala. But Trump is not a libertarian. Trump is a protectionist, and Trump is a war maker. He already sends huge sums of money to Israel to conduct a war; he bombs now the Houthis; he was involved in bombing Syrians; and of course he is still involved in the Ukraine war and still sending weapons and so forth to the Ukraine up to this day. I’ll come back to this point in a moment.

Again, the other great friend that he had was Zelenskyy. Now Zelenskyy is a president of the Ukraine. The Ukraine was considered to be the most corrupt country in all of Europe, if not in the world.

Zelenskyy also Jewish, promoted by the Jewish oligarchs in the Ukraine. They hugged each other, and he was a great defender of freedom. He is a hustler running around trying to collect money from all countries in the attempt to ruin his own country. He grabs people off the street and then sends them to the front into the meat grinder to be killed in the war against the Russians.

I’ll come back to the Ukraine thing. And then of course his greatest friend of all is Netanyahu. Now Netanyahu—whatever you say about Netanyahu, I mean Netanyahu is of course a mass killer; he is involved in genocide.

I cannot understand how any libertarian who would ever defend a man like Netanyahu, but he was dancing in the street with Netanyahu. When I say these sorts of things, I should mention that to say in Germany for instance I could never mention anything like this, because Israel in the minds of Germans and most Europeans can do whatever they want. And what is the excuse? The excuse is: oh, 80 years ago there was a big Holocaust. I don’t know why the Holocaust 80 years ago—how that could possibly be an excuse for what completely different people do to people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holocaust.

But he is the greatest friend of Milei. I thought if this is what he does, that ruins the reputation of libertarians in the entire world. We will all become involved in this: oh, you’re a friend of Milei—yeah, then you must be a friend of Putin? Then you must be a friend of Netanyahu; then you must be a friend of Zelenskyy; and then you must be a fan of Trump.

So libertarianism all of a sudden means being a fan of Netanyahu, a fan of the clown Zelenskyy, and a fan of Trump. That is not what libertarianism means; we are opposed to all of them.

Now given this that our reputation as libertarians will be ruined by these people, I think it is important—that is my third little subject that I want to touch upon—we have to remember a few central insights of Austrian libertarianism.

1:00:01 – Central Insights of Austrian Libertarianism

The first is—and these are not laws but tendencies—states are the result of wars. All modern states that we know for instance are the result of wars. That there is a United Germany is a result of wars that took place in the 19th century. Germany consisted in the 19th century of some 39 or 38 different principalities. It was only as a result of war that we had a United Germany. Some great Germans were opposed to this; good, for instance the most famous German poet opposed this heavily: that it’s a stupid idea to have a United Germany, because the decentralized Germany you had every little principality competing against the other to have the best theater, to have the best library, to have the best artists, the best scientists, and so forth. As soon as Germany was united, culture went down in Germany.

The same applies to Italy. Italy was also only united also by war only in the 1860s. And it even applies to little countries like Switzerland. Switzerland also required a war—very similar to the war of secession independence in the United States. It was this—it’s called the Sonderbund War—between the pro-liberal Protestant cantons against the so-called reactionary Catholic cantons.

So Switzerland is always presented as some harmonious and wonderful example of peaceful relations. Now it also required a war in Switzerland to create the central Swiss state, even as small as that is.

And then there is of course a tendency—not again not a law—that all states try to centralize. To centralize means you get more loot.

Libertarians, Austrian libertarians are in favor of decentralization. I always promoted the idea of a Europe of a thousand Liechtensteins. Liechtenstein only has about 36,000 inhabitants; is by far the wealthiest state in Europe. And a centralized state as you see for instance in the European Union is economically far inferior to smaller states like Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Competition is eliminated; you can no longer vote with your feet against governmental power. The worst thing that we can possibly imagine would be a world state with a world central bank. Wherever you go, the same rules and structures apply; you can no longer vote with your feet, because the rules are everywhere exactly the same.

And then there is another insight that is of importance: that is I have called that the paradox of imperialism. Interestingly it is those states that are internally most liberal that have the greatest tendency to become imperial forces, because every war of course requires that you have to have resources. So your home population must be productive; a productive population at home allow from which the government can then parasitically draw allow you most to be more successful in wars.

And if we now look at the current state of affairs when it comes to this, we have to say that after World War II the United States has become the most imperialist country in the world. All of Europe, all of Western Europe became immediately vassals of the United States. They were members of NATO; in all of these countries American troops are stationed.

And if you imagine you have Chinese troops or German troops or French troops stationed in the United States, what would Americans say about that state of affairs? But in every European country this is precisely the case: you have American troops in Germany; you have American troops in Italy; you have American troops in Spain; you have American troops in Turkey. There’s practically no country where you don’t have American troops stationed. As a matter of fact, on the worldwide there are 800 military installations outside of the United States.

The Americans expanded NATO continuously. Initially after the Soviet Union broke apart, the idea was there no purpose to NATO anymore. NATO was allegedly the institution created in order to defend ourselves against the Bolshevik takeover. After that was no longer a possibility and the Soviet Union broke apart, the Russians withdrew their troops for instance from East Germany. East Germany was occupied by Russians in the same way as West Germany was occupied by the United States. The Russians withdrew; the Americans didn’t withdraw. No, they expanded their territory step by step closer and closer to Russia. And of course Russians considered that to be a threat.

What would Americans have done if the Chinese had stationed troops in Mexico or Canada? I can tell you that would have taken just a few weeks and they would have started a war against them. So the Russians warned: don’t get too close to us. And they were specifically concerned about the Ukraine.

The Americans first organized a coup in the Ukraine and ignored for instance the fact that there were the Eastern provinces in the Ukraine who spoke predominantly Russian, and that they wanted to have some autonomous status, just like South Tyrol for instance has an autonomous status in Italy. They speak in South Tyrol; they speak German, and the Italians granted them some sort of autonomy, self-rule. That’s what the Eastern provinces in Ukraine wanted.

But that was not permitted by the Americans and the British. They supported the Ukrainians to make war against their own Eastern provinces. They bombed them from 2014 on until the Russians finally said: you know, that’s enough, and we start attacking the Ukraine. It was a provoked war that started.

And the Americans prevented that any type of peace treaty which was already underway would come to would be permitted, and consider this still something that is worth to continue until there is no Ukrainian left over living. All the rich Ukrainians of course left the country; went to Germany and Austria and Switzerland, all of course on German taxpayers’ expense and so forth.

1:10:29 – US Responsibility for Global Conflicts and Immigration

Apart from this, the Americans are also responsible for wars all over the place. There are estimates that there are about 20 million people killed as a result of American adventures outside of the United States: 20 million people—Vietnam, Iraq, Sudan, Libya—you name the countries.

What is the consequence of that for Europeans: like the massive immigration flows that we have coming to the European countries are the result of these American wars. We have hundreds of thousands of people left these countries ending up in European countries, being all on welfare, and the Germans, the Swedes, the Danes have to pay the bill for damage caused by the United States.

They are also responsible for this radicalization of Islam, because these people grew out of all of these wars that were conducted by the United States all over the world.

And of course as I said before, the Americans are also responsible for wokeness becoming more and more popular in Europe. This wokeness is as I said is largely or at least to a large extent a responsibility of the Frankfurt School operating in the United States and operating also in Europe, but the United States always overdid it. It was more popular in the United States than it was in Europe, but Europe by and large always imitates what takes place in the United States.

1:12:47 – Concluding Thoughts on US Foreign Policy and Israel

To conclude, personally I think I should mention one word about the Israel stuff too. And Israel is of course—Israel is sort of ruling the United States; the foreign policy in the United States is largely a policy. In the older days when America just wanted to make the world safe for democracy—my old friend Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn: it’s more important to make the world safe from democracy rather than make the world safe for democracy.

But the addition to the traditional attitude of Americans: we are exceptional people, and of course because of that we should invade the world and convert the world to our superior values. As soon as then the people who consider themselves the chosen people come together with those that already think that they are the exceptional nation, then a country really becomes a dangerous country. And in my view America is so far the most dangerous country that exists.

And I say this as somebody who made a career in the United States, as somebody who loves the United States—but the United States is not the government of the United States. My children have American citizenship, so I’m not an anti-American, but I am against the American government, what they do, and consider them to be a big danger for the world.

I wish that they will be defeated in the Ukraine, not because I’m a Putin fan, but one should never make the mistake to think because you want somebody to be defeated that you are automatically a friend of the other side. But Putin will not rule me; I will be ruled by the Americans or the German vassals who listen to what the Americans tell them to do. And to have them suffer a defeat would be good for me.

To succeed in all of these imperial ventures—that would be the true disaster. Putin will not attack Western Europe; that is just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The guy is simply not capable to do this. This Russia is of course a mighty country, but nonetheless they are not economically capable of occupying all of Western Europe.

And sometimes it is better to give up rather than to be killed by somebody else. It is not always good advice to say: rather dead than red. If you have a family, if you have children, sometimes is better to be alive even if it is even if it’s red, instead of being killed for no purpose—for no purpose whatsoever.

With these—how can I say—rather pessimistic conclusions, I will end my somewhat rambling talk. And I hope you forgive me for this. The alternative would have been to read you a very carefully crafted piece of paper, but I think that would have bored you to hell, whereas this might have been a little bit more entertaining. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

1:17:43 – Closing Remarks

Thank you, Dr. Hoppe, for so much controversy. We have no time for questions. We are now adjourned. Award winners, please stay back, and students with scholarships, please be at the lobby for a picture. Thank you.