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. ( )