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. ( )

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.