Hans-Hermann Hoppe

**Hans-Hermann Hoppe** (Triple H for short) is a German-born libertarian and a professor emeritus at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He was a disciple of ancap godfather Murray Rothbard, and now has his own following. His most famous work is *Democracy: the God that Failed*, which should tell you a little bit about what his personal beefs with the State are. The fact that he has made his entire career arguing against the existence of the government from the comfort of his position at a state-run university should tell you the level of self-awareness you should expect from him.

## Arguments

One of Hoppe's most famous ideas is Argumentation Ethics, which goes something like this: 'The Non-Aggression Principle states that when two people have a disagreement beliefs, but neither has initiated violence against the other, the two should attempt to work out their differences peacefully through argument. Since anyone arguing with a libertarian is, by definition, attempting to work out their differences through peaceful argument, they are already acting in line with the NAP, and it would be a performative contradiction to use peaceful argument to argue in favor of violence. Therefore, any argument that is not in line with libertarianism is not only wrong, but logically incoherent.'

It may not be the wisest plan to tell someone that any attempt to disagree with you is automatically nonsense, while simultaneously setting up punching you in the face as a valid rebuttal, but let's set that aside and focus on the content of the argument itself. Specifically, let's look at the obvious Logic 101 problem here: converse statements are not equivalent! "Everyone who follows the NAP is in favor of peaceful argument" is *not the same* as "everyone in favor of peaceful argument is follwing the NAP." There are any number of ideals and philosophies that allow for peaceful communication, and I would go so far as to say pretty much all of them do!

By way of metaphor, let's say you're driving to the zoo. You have your reason for going down the streets you go down, but that doesn't mean everyone going the same way down that street is also going to the zoo. And when they turn off your route and go their own way, that does not mean they're lost or showing a performative contradiction! They just had different reasons for briefly taking the same road as you.

## Notable Quotables

"Private property capitalism and egalitarian multiculturalism are as unlikely a combination as socialism and cultural conservatism. And in trying to combine what cannot be combined, much of the modern libertarian movement actually contributed to the further erosion of private property rights (just as much of contemporary conservatism contributed to the erosion of families and traditional morals). What the countercultural libertarians failed to recognize, and what true libertarians cannot emphasize enough, is that the restoration of private property rights and laissez-faire economics implies a sharp and drastic increase in social “discrimination” and will swiftly eliminate most if not all of the multicultural-egalitarian life style experiments so close to the heart of left libertarians. In other words, libertarians must be radical and uncompromising conservatives."

"In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, **no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists**, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. 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-centered 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."

"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.'"

"Thereby, in order to illustrate one's theoretical conclusions, every attempt should be made to compare societies which, apart from the theoretical distinction under consideration, are as similar as possible. It would be an error, for instance, to illustrate my theory of comparative government by contrasting European monarchies with African democracies or African monarchies with European democracies. Since **Caucasians have, on the average, a significantly lower degree of time preference than Negroids**, any such comparison would amount to a systematic distortion of the evidence. By contrasting European monarchies to African democracies, the theoretically predicted differences between monarchical and democratic rule would become systematically overstated, and by contrasting African monarchies with European democracies, the differences would become systematically understated."

## Citations

<references>

1. ↑ *Democracy -- The God that Failed.*
2. ↑ *Democracy -- The God that Failed.*
3. ↑ "Natural Elites, Intellectuals, and the State." https://mises.org/library/natural-elites-intellectuals-and-state
4. ↑ "On Theory and History, a Reply to Benagas-Lynch Jr." http://www.hanshoppe.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/benegas.pdf