Recent addition to online translations: ??-???·???????????????????, Chinese translation of Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem? (RAE, Vol. 9 Num. 1), translated by Nicolas DONG.
John Derbyshire, attendee of the 2011 PFS Annual Meeting, reflects on this experience there in Taki’s Magazine:
The Shadow Science of Economics
June 02, 2011
I spent the Memorial Day weekend as a guest of Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society at their annual conference in Bodrum, Turkey. It was a wonderfully relaxing break, for which I am very much obliged to the good professor, his charming wife, and their co-organizers. I gave a talk about China and got to see some of Turkey (a country that was new to me), and I listened to some interesting and instructive lectures.
The PFS exists to help promote the economic and political libertarianism of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. I was in Bodrum because Prof. Hoppe was kind enough to invite me, not because I am a particularly dogmatic disciple of those gents. I approve of them and their doctrines in a vague, general sort of way, as I approve of anything much to the right of the statist elephantiasis dominant in the modern West and which looks to be sailing into some great crisis in the near future.
On the other hand I have issues with libertarianism—with free trade, for instance, and with the open-borders dogma that too many libertarians (though not all the ones at Bodrum, perhaps not even a majority) cling to with religious zeal.
Very nice reflections on the recent 2011 PFS Annual Meeting by attendee Benjamin Marks:
by Benjamin Marks, Economics.org.au editor-in-chief
and Mencken’s Conservatism author
In light of the furore arising from my appointment as editor-in-chief of the Australian economics organisation, Economics.org.au, it was decided that I travel as far away from Australia as I could until the media frenzy subsided. I was philosophical about this, figuring that having reached the pinnacle of the Australian economics profession with my appointment, the only challenges left for me were abroad anyway. So, in my new capacity as senior foreign correspondent for Economics.org.au, I attended the 6th Annual Property and Freedom Society (PFS) Conference in Bodrum, Turkey.
The significance of the conference being in Turkey cannot be understated. There was a gaudy Turkish election campaign of some sort playing out during the conference, and big clunky polluting vehicles were driven around the poorly-maintained and traffic-clogged streets with loud songs and speeches advertising the candidates. Imagine an ice cream van that went three times as fast, emitted noise almost as irritating as “Greensleeves” and offered something people had to be forced to fund. Pedestrians were treated like taxpayers. Despite not understanding the language that the election profundities were in — I was the only conference participant who was not at least bilingual —, they were still just as comprehensible to me as the confabulations of English-speaking politicians.
[continue reading…]
Nice review of the 2011 PFS Annual Meeting by Andy Duncan: A Few Days outside the Asylum.
A Few Days outside the Asylum
Mises Daily: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 by Andy Duncan
[The Cobden Centre (2011)]
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans may remember a splendid character (first appearing in So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish) called Wonko the Sane, who lived upon the Earth outside of the asylum. I now know how Wonko felt.
Being a man who claims to be the hardest hard-core Rothbardian in England, (and it’s pistols at dawn in the mist for anyone who wishes to argue the point), I feel I was last inside the bubble of civilization two years ago, when I was lucky enough to be invited to Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society conference, held in 2009. The two years since, inside the asylum, have passed in a hilarious blur as various pin-headed identikit Labservatives or Conliberals jaw-boned at each other (at my expense) about how different they are from each other, because some like pink dots on their blue ties while others prefer yellow dots on their pink ties.
Oh, how Jonathan Swift so beautifully captured the futility of anyone believing in the usefulness of politicians with his immortal book, Gulliver’s Travels, and his description of the ropedancers: [continue reading…]
Two presentations by Prof. Hoppe (in German) from September 24 2010, Philosophicum Lech 2010, “Der Staat, Wieviel Herrschaft braucht der Mensch?”:
- Vortrag von Univ. Prof. Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Staat oder Privatrechtsgesellschaft” (45MB MP3 file),
- Vortrag von Univ. Prof. Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Staat oder Privatrechtsgesellschaft” (68MB MP3 file)
The text is available on Hoppe’s German Translations page: Staat oder Privatrechtsgesellschaft? [Text of speech delivered at the 14th Philosophicum Lech, 24 Sept. 2010].
From the PFS 2011: Politics, Money and Banking. Everything You Need to Know in 30 Minutes
pfs-2011 Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Politics, Money and Banking. Everything You Need to Know in 30 Minutes from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.
My article, “Read Hoppe, Then Nothing Is the Same,” discussing my upcoming Mises Academy course, “The Social Theory of Hoppe” (Mondays, July 11-Aug. 21, 2011) was published on Mises Daily last Friday, June 10 2011. The article has also been translated into Spanish: Tras leer a Hoppe, nada es lo mismo.
“Read Hoppe, Then Nothing Is the Same” by Stephan Kinsella
Combining Misesian praxeology with Rothbardian insights, Hoppe has developed a magnificent, integrated edifice of rational thought.
From today’s Mises Daily:
Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide
Mises Daily: Monday, May 23, 2011 by Stephan Kinsella
Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe burst onto the Austrolibertarian scene in the late 1980s, when he moved to the United States to study under and work with his mentor Murray Rothbard. Since his arrival, Professor Hoppe has produced a steady stream of pioneering contributions to economic and libertarian theory. A key contribution of Professor Hoppe is his provocative “argumentation-ethics” defense of libertarian rights.
The Social Theory of Hoppe: A Mises Academy Course taught by Stephan Kinsella, July 11-Aug. 21, 2011
Interesting article on LewRockwell.com:
The Biblical Nature of Hoppean Monarchism
by Ryan Bassett
Hans Hermann Hoppe has been widely recognized for stating the advantages of a traditional monarchy over that of what is essentially mob rule, that is, Democracy. While it is true that Hans Hoppe is not a monarchist but rather an anarcho-capitalist his insights into the frailties and destructive nature of Democracy are thorough and convincing. His brilliant work, Democracy: The God That Failed, is to date probably his best scholarly work on the subject.
However, the very idea of monarchism is completely antithetical to modern sensibilities in the West. This is particularly true in the United States where a traditional European-style monarchy has not existed since the founding of the nation during the late 18th century. Having been founded upon republican principles, supposedly the official gateway to liberty, Americans possess a natural inclination to dismiss the very idea of monarchy out of hand, branding it as being contrary to a liberty-based and economically prosperous civilization. While it is true that monarchies fail to provide the libertarian panacea many naturally crave it is also an intellectual mistake to envision a republican or democratic form of government as the ideal for liberty. Christians, despite their monarchist past, are just as adamant in their protestations toward any form of civilization outside the mainstream view of republicanism and democracy, erroneously viewing it, like their secular counterparts, as the height of human civilization. Is this actually the case however?
Professor Hoppe’s article, “Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization”, Libertarian Papers 3, 1 (2011) (published as “The Rationale for Total Privatization,” Mises Daily (Mar. 14, 2011)), has been published in Portugese at Mises Brasil: “O fundamento lógico para a privatização total” (May 6, 2011).
From the Mises Blog:
In the history of social and political thought, myriad proposals have been offered as solutions to the problem of social order. Many believe that the search for a single “correct” solution is futile and illusory. Yet a correct solution does exist. The solution is the idea of private property.
FULL ARTICLE by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
(Video of the speech may be found at Hoppe in Brasil on the State versus the Private Law Society.)
As I noted here, Professor Hoppe recently delivered the speech “State or Private Law Society?” in April 2011 at the 2nd Austrian School Conference, Mises Institute Brasil, in Porto Alegre.
His second talk delivered at the same conference, “Economic Crises: How to Cause Them and How to Make Them Worse by ‘Curing’ Them,” is now also available. [Youtube videos of the talk may be found here.]
Below is the video of a talk Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe gave in April 2011 at the 2nd Austrian School Conference, Mises Institute Brasil, in Porto Alegre, entitled “State or Private Law Society?” (pictures from the event). (Update: text of the speech published: State or Private-Law Society.) It’s a truly masterful presentation of the Austro-libertarian defense of what Hoppe calls the “private law society.” For example, Hoppe here brilliantly and succinctly argues that there is but one correct answer to the problem of social order–the libertarian-Lockean rule (see 7:49- of Part 1). At 8:32-9:04, Part 1, he explains why the only answer to the question of who owns your body, is you–who else would own it? And that all other competing rules are either incoherent, contradictory, or obviously unfair. And (at 9:25-10:04, Part 1) that when you appropriate an unowned resource, who else would have a better claim to it than the person who had it first?
Fernando Chiocca, of Mises Brasil, told me that the audience was riveted and loved it; he got standing ovations,
and one reaction in particular was pretty interesting. We have only a couple of Austrian professors in Brasil, and one of them wasn’t acquainted with Hoppe’s work. (He is what we used to call “old school Austrian,” whose ideas were shaped in the era before the modern Mises Institute website, and mainly influenced by Hayek.) In a matter of seconds after Hoppe’s speech, he was in our bookstore buying all Hoppe’s books that we had for sale, requesting autographs from Dr. Hoppe, repeating how marvelous Hoppe was, and declaring to everyone his instantaneous conversion to “Hoppeanism”.
I am reminded here of what Lew Rockwell wrote of Hoppe in his festschrift:
This same Hoppean effect—that sense of having been profoundly enlightened by a completely new way of understanding something—has happened many times over the years. He has made contributions to ethics, to international political economy, to the theory of the origin of the state, to comparative systems, to culture and its economic relation, to anthropology and the theory and practice of war. Even on a subject that everyone thinks about but no one really seems to understand—the system of democracy—he clarified matters in a way that helps you see the functioning of the world in a completely new light.There aren’t that many thinkers who have this kind of effect. Mises was one. Rothbard is another. Hoppe certainly fits in that line. He is the kind of thinker who reminds you that ideas are real things that shape how we understand the world around us. … Often times when you first hear a point he makes, you resist it. I recall when he spoke at a conference we held on American history, and gave a paper on the U.S. Constitution. You might not think that a German economist could add anything to our knowledge on this topic. He argued that it represented a vast increase in government power and that this was its true purpose. It created a powerful central government, with the cover of liberty as an excuse. He used it as a case in point, and went further to argue that all constitutions are of the same type. In the name of limiting government—which they purportedly do—they invariably appear in times of history when the elites are regrouping to emerge from what they consider to be near anarchy. The Constitution, then, represents the assertion of power.
When he finished, you could hear a pin drop. I’m not sure that anyone was instantly persuaded. He had challenged everything we thought we knew about ourselves. The applause was polite, but not enthusiastic. Yet his points stuck. Over time, I think all of us there travelled some intellectual distance. The Constitution was preceded by the Articles of Confederation, which Rothbard had variously described as near anarchist in effect. Who were these guys who cobbled together this Constitution? They were the leftovers from the war: military leaders, financiers, and other mucky mucks—a very different crew from the people who signed the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was out of the country when the Constitution was passed. And what was the effect of the Constitution? To restrain government? No. It was precisely the opposite, just as Hoppe said. It created a new and more powerful government that not only failed to restrain itself (what government has ever done that?), but grew and grew into the monstrosity we have today. It required a wholesale rethinking of the history, but what Hoppe had said that shocked everyone turns out to be precisely right—and this is only one example among many.
[Youtube videos of the talk may be found here.]
Mises Brasil has published Uma vida de ideias – Hans-Hermann Hoppe no Brasil, a Portuguese translation of Lew Rockwell’s “A Life of Ideas,” the opening chapter in Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
Pictures from Hoppe’s participation in the Austrian economics seminar at Mises Institute Brasil are below.
Rodrigo Betancur has translated into Spanish an interview (2011) with Hoppe for Philosophie Magazine.
For more Spanish translations, click here.
Entrevista sobre los impuestos a Hans-Hermann Hoppe
10 de marzo de 2011.
Hace unos meses, un periodista francés, el Sr. Nicolas Cori, se me acercó con la solicitud de una entrevista sobre el tema de los impuestos, para ser publicada en la revista francesa mensual Philosophie Magazine, en el contexto del debate que actualmente tiene lugar sobre la «reforma fiscal» en Francia.
Estuve de acuerdo con la entrevista, que se llevó a cabo por correo electrónico en inglés; el Sr. Cori produjo una traducción al francés, que mi amigo el Dr. Nikolay Gertchev revisó y corrigió, y entonces envié la traducción, autorizada, al Sr. Cori. Desde entonces, hace ya más de un mes, y a pesar de intentos repetidos, nada he oído del Sr. Cori. Sólo puedo especular sobre las razones de su silencio. Lo más probable es que no obtuvo el permiso de sus superiores para publicar la entrevista, y no ha tenido la cortesía ni la valentía de decírmelo.
De todas maneras, aquí está la entrevista original. [continue reading…]
Professor Hoppe’s provocative, radical and wide-ranging interview with The Daily Bell, “Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the Impracticality of One-World Government and the Failure of Western-style Democracy,” published just 3 days ago, has already been translated into Portugese by the Mises Institute Brazil, in two parts: Democracia, estado, ouro, liberdade, direitos autorais, bancos e governo mundial (Parte 1), and Democracia, estado, ouro, liberdade, direitos autorais, bancos e governo mundial (Final).
Professor Hoppe participated in a wide-ranging interview for The Daily Bell, with Anthony Wille, covering a variety of topics, including anarchy and intellectual property. The interview is: “Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the Impracticality of One-World Government and the Failure of Western-style Democracy,” The Daily Bell (Mar. 27, 2011) (LRC version, Mar. 28, 2011) (discussed on the Mises Blog in Hoppe: best interview ever?; and at C4SIF in Hoppe Interview on Anarchy and Intellectual Property).
The logo of the Mises Institute Sweden features depictions of Mises and Professor Hoppe.
