Hans-Hermann HoppeRecensioni

Dieses Buch beeindruckt durch ein Wissen, dessen sich wenige wirklich bewusst sind: wie haben Menschen als Jäger und Sammler gelebt und wie hat sich der Übergang zum sesshaften Menschen zugetragen? Nun, Leben war lange nur das, was die Natur oder der Nachbar abwarf. Gab die Natur nicht genügend her, dann waren es Nachbarn, die man überfiel.

Nachkommen wanderten aus und gründeten neue Stämme, sie passten sich unterschiedlichen Umgebungen an. Unterwegs war man lange zu Fuß und schneller per Boot. Vor 6000 Jahren wurde das Pferd domestiziert und somit waren auch inner-territoriale Bewegungen möglich, die Welt wurde umfassender besiedelt, bei insgesamt geringen Bevölkerungszahlen. Das Pferd bzw. seine wirtschaftliche Nutzung war eine echte Revolution, die bis vor 200 Jahren gleich blieb.

Menschen, die sich an schwierige Umgebungen anpassen musste, erreichten höhere Denkprozesse bzw. Lösungen, während jene im Paradies einfach vor sich hin lebten und wenig Grund zum Nachdenken hatten. Ihnen wurde alles mehr oder weniger mundgerecht serviert. Ein Paradies mit Gedankenleere mithin, eher traurig.

Wer dem Autor bis hierher folgen kann bzw. einer bestechenden Logik zustimmen kann, wird die dann folgenden Gedanken zur heutigen Demokratie als atemberaubend empfinden, ein Blick auf Plutokraten und Bankgeschäftemacher, die sich der Mehrheit von Wahlvölkern bedienen, um jene Quellen anzuzapfen, die fleißige Menschen bis zum Umfallen füllen müssen, die modernen Sklaven des Heute, denen man schon beginnt, Maulkörbe umzubinden.

Kein Gedanke bleibt auf dem anderen nach diesem Buch und völlig klar wird, dass unkontrollierte Entgrenzung durch Globalisierung und die Schimäre des Multikulti jene Träume sind, die Plutokraten soeben weltweit in die Tat umsetzen, während sie in hochgesicherten Arealen und Inseln leben und die heimatlosen Ameisen für sich arbeiten lassen.

Politiker in diesem Zusammenhang sind nichts anderes als Hand-Langer, die nach ihrer Karriere gerne an jenen Fleischtöpfen grasen, die sie vorher bedient haben (Baroso-Syndrom).

Wer immer schon ein tiefes Unbehagen empfindet gegenüber sich zementierenden Strukturen europäischer Demokratien und weltweiter Globalisierungsgewinnern, der liegt mit diesem Buch richtig. Man sollte zumindest die Schwächen und insb. die Bürokratisierung bzw. Anwaltisierung von Demokratien kennen, um ihre Chance optimal einschätzen zu können.

Usando seu conhecimento vasto e as reflexões da Escola Austríaca de Economia, Hans-Hermann Hoppe aborda ao longo de Uma Breve História do Homem duas questões principais: Qual a origem da família e da propriedade privada? Como a Revolução Industrial teve início?
Os leitores verão que o desenvolvimento do direito à propriedade assegurado e o livre-mercado foram essenciais para o progresso da humanidade. A pergunta a ser feita em relação ao nosso tempo é: Estes conceitos continuarão a evoluir, beneficiando toda a humanidade, ou o Estado será capaz de frustrar esta evolução?"
-- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. (Fundador e CEO do Ludwig von Mises Institute)

Obra mais emblemática de Hans-Hermann Hoppe e propõe uma verdadeira revolução intelectual contra a legitimidade da democracia como entendemos hoje. É uma interpretação econômica e filosófica da História e salienta os incentivos associados aos governos de propriedade privada (monarquia) e de propriedade pública (democracia) visando compreender o crescente expansionismo dos governos. Este livro é uma leitura aconselhável a todos os que perderam a fé na democracia como vemos aplicada no mundo atual e que não toleram mais suas falhas éticas e econômicas. Explica de maneira lapidar a contradição entre democracia, liberdade e do aumento do bem-estar da sociedade. O argumento moral de Hoppe é corajoso e cuidadosamente justificado na obra.

This a long essay covering the same material as Hoppe's best work, Democracy: The God that Failed. In order to shorten it, little justification is given for his assertions, and for someone who isn't already a Rothbardian/Hoppean/Anarcho-Capitalist, it may be hard to accept these assertions without justification. However, it does accurately summarize the AC perspective on politics, although it doesn't go into enough detail on how to get from the status quo (large democratic states) to this end state. The audiobook is decent but I'd prefer it be read by Hoppe himself.

Essay on how to establish the libertarian social order within existing democracies

Hoppe is..Hoppe. Every one of his essays and books is essentially making the case for the same desired outcome, but focusing on different aspects of the overall argument. In this essay he describes how both we got to where we are today (territorial monopoly democracy) and how to use the tools of democracy to return to a libertarian social order (anarchocapitalism)

Hoppe’s weakest argument

While Hoppe makes a moderately good argument for private defense against crime, the argument for private defense as effective against state or other action is far less solid. Fundamentally, he doesn’t know much about the technology of warfare, and in particular any new forms of warfare. He assumes attacks are symmetric and essentially conservative of value; in reality attacks can cause damage far out of proportion to their cost, can be essentially impossible to attribute, and generally can be challenging to deter even as a single entity controlling a majority of the world’s combat power.

This book makes the case that 1) democracy, in the sense of mob rule, is a bad social order, as it inevitably leads to socialism 2) monarchy, particularly of the feudal and highly localized/informal model, is superior 3) a theoretical libertarian/anarcho-capitalist social order would be superior to even monarchy. These are pretty shocking conclusions for most Americans today (and westerners in general), but the argument, from some basic and acceptable premises, seems sound -- in particular, the argument for monarchy of the circa 1215 ad English kind being superior to modern "democratic socialism" of the form found in most of the world to varying degrees (including the US).

(I originally heard of Hoppe as "a racist guy who gave intellectual support to the far right", and then later as "someone so extreme as to call Hayek and Mises and Friedman leftists". Eventually, after seeing enough other references (and the popular "Hoppean Snek" series of memes ... the snake from the Gadsden flag crossed with Augusto Pinochet, engaged in "physical removal, so to speak"), I decided to read Hoppe's greatest book. )

I think the case for monarchy or some kind of limited franchise republicanism is well made. The case for anarcho-capitalist utopia seems a bit weaker (essentially, that everything is done by contract, and there are insurance companies with a non-monopoly of force which take a lot of the protective functions of the state). The main weakness of the anarcho-capitalist argument is Hoppe repeatedly says "X is bad", which it is, but it's entirely possible X is less-bad than the alternatives.

Another problem Hoppe finds with "mainstream libertarianism" and modern culture is essentially moral -- he argues that true liberalism/anarcho-capitalist libertarianism must be highly morally upright, and that a wide array of things would be sufficiently injurious to life that they would be banned (not by monopolistic law, but by covenant) -- hence the famous "physical removal" arguments, the proposal that some property could be posted "no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no homosexuals, drug users, Jews, Moslems, Germans, or Zulus" as an example, etc. I think it's important here to separate out his deliberately provocative "to ban" list, from his idea that private property owners should have the ultimate right to ban anyone for any arbitrary reason. However, he does repeatedly reinforce the value of the traditional heterosexual/nuclear/etc. family and a lot of very conventional beliefs as ultimately best, and I think that's debatable -- it's possible something was never the best, or was the best in a certain setting but not the current setting, etc. -- but I do agree on the fundamental premise of private property owners being unrestricted in their use of property (provided it doesn't interfere with the property rights of others.)

The weakest part of his argument is localized secession as a route to achieving this anarcho-capitalist utopia; as we've seen, this just doesn't happen in the modern world, in that the only people who tend to do so are just as statist as those they're separating from. States also violently suppress any true secession from their system. I'm a firm believer in technology as the only route to achieving any kind of durable and lasting property protection (through computing, cryptography, and at some point, the conquest of new physical frontiers), and I don't think Hoppe has particularly considered that.

The book is very accessible -- it's a collection of 13 essays, each of which can stand alone. There are extensive footnotes, including quotes from other works and references to those works. This probably isn't the ideal introduction to libertarian thought, but it, along with Murray Rothbard, define one extreme.

So I will be grateful to Hans for his first chapter which set out the core social issues which drive socialism and capitalism. Unfortunately his pompous pedantic style takes 8 chapters re-iteratively to prove socialism doesn't work then skates over in two chapters why capitalism is the right answer..Pretty clear where his loyalties lies. Nevertheless his so careful 'flawed' analytical style, does, if you ignore the repetitive cumbersome inclusion/exclusion, so as to not leave a stone unturned, terminology, reveal tangentially different ways of thinking about these core social structures. But it is a painful slog. The problem is it leaves the mind fogged with irrelevances so you cannot reason against the painfully slow development of his argument.
Hans would have us to reverentially accept that his analytical logic propels us to the only one outcome. Any other answer has, by his definition, to contravene this solid logic. Whilst accepting his core premise of sic 'aggressive' ownership, my real world experiences of all the dynamics of subtlety cannot not just be brushed aside and dismissed. Left with reading fatigue but also a quest to find alternative views for other social states and outcomes.½

Több olyan történelmi esemény van, ami a történelemoktatás alapján teljesen magától értetődőnek tűnik, ha viszont mélyebben elkezdünk elemezni, akkor igen nehéz megmagyarázni, hogy pontosan miért (vagy miért éppen akkor) következett be az esemény. Hopp három esszében elemez három ilyen fontos történelmi fordulópontot.

Az első a neolitikus forradalom, vagyis a vadászó-gyűjtögető életmódról a földművelő életformára váltás. Ez egy nagyon logikus lépésnek tűnik, egészen addig, ameddig rá nem döbbenünk, hogy ez valójában az életminőség romlását jelentette a legtöbb ember számára. Itt úgy érzem Hoppa elég jó elemzést ad, a magyarázata hihető, a következtetései elfogadhatóak. A család kialakulásának leírása tűnt ebben a részben nekem megalapozatlannak.

A második történeti fordulópont az ipari forradalom. Nem túl meglepő módon itt olvashatunk a malthusi csapdáról és arról, hogyan tört ki ebből az emberiség. Korábbi elméleteket cáfol, igen jó ellenérveket felhozva, de a "miért éppen itt és ekkor" kérdésre szerintem nem tud választ adni a szerző, legalábbis semmilyen kézzelfogható bizonyítékot nem találtam ebben az esszében.

A harmadik rész azt elemzi, hogy jutottunk el az arisztokráciáról a monarchián keresztül a demokráciáig. Az előző két eseménytől eltérően ezt nem tartja Hoppe pozitív változásnak (ez nem meglepő, tekintve, hogy a leghíresebb könyvének címe: Demokrácia, a bukott bálvány). A demokrácia kritikája sok újdonságot nem tartalmazott számomra, és valóban rengeteg igazság van benne, de a korábbi korok iránti nosztalgia elég furcsa volt, nem igazán győzött meg a szerző arról, hogy mondjuk a választófejedelmek korában sokkal jobb volt a világ.

Összefoglalva, három valóban nagyon érdekes kérdést elemez a szerző, és ha a véleményével nem is kell mindig egyetérteni, vitaindítónak nagyon jó a könyv.

This is a fitting essay (70 pages) to read during an election year. In his essay, Hoppe argues that democracy was really a bad idea and things were much better under feudalism with the aristocrats in charge. He feels that "the entire history we are told and taught in schools and standard textbooks, which presents democracy as the crowning achievement of human civilization, is just about the opposite of the truth." Hans-Hermann Hoppe is "an Austrian school economist and libertarian/ anarcho-capitalist philosopher" As an Autrian/libertarian, Hoppe's libertarian hammer makes every problem seem to stem from the Austrian nails of anti-statism and the sacredness of private property. .

His views are overly simplistic in many ways since he sees the dark ages representing the natural order to things since "everyone is bound by ONE law, (b) there is no law-making power, and (c) there was no monopoly on who people could choose to judge disputes. His view of the dark ages ignores the fact that people in villages could not travel to other villages due to the difficulties of transportation resulting in a very limited choice of judges being actually available. Hoppe also simplistically feels that AL disputes will be about property ignoring the fact that two people in a dispute might have a dispute about who they want to choose for a judge.

Kings eventually seized power and started creating laws and imposing taxes. Because the King's legitimacy stemmed from an appeal to the people, this evolved later towards democracy. Hoppe does not like Democracy as a system that allows anyone to create laws which he feels leads an elite to define laws that benefit the elite. Hoppe feels that this is worse than democracy.

Although the book and its thesis is entertaining, the whole thesis seems rather shallow - it all sounds more like a theory out of the ivory tower than a thesis developed from historical evidence. The theories of taxation, as explained in David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5000 Years" are better grounded with evidence when he explains that property taxes were valuable because it regularly confirmed the property owner's right to the title.

the book is published by the Libertarian Mises Institute and has the major advantage of being inexpensive.

This is a pretty disappointing piece of work. The author cites his predecessors Rothbard and von Mises much too frequently and makes only a minimal personal contribution to the arguments being presented. His "theory" about the nature of democracy and monarchy is probably the dumbest political model I've ever encountered. Also, large sections of the book have been copied word by word from one chapter to another, so on several occasions you find yourself reading the same thing all over again. Avoid this one.