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Author | Hans-Hermann Hoppe |
---|---|
Publisher | Mises Institute |
Publication date | 2021 |
ISBN | 978-1-61016-734-5 |
Website | mises.org/Economy, Society, & History |
Economy, Society, & History is a book written by German American economist and author Hans-Hermann Hoppe in 2021. [1]
The book is an organized collection of ten lectures made by Hans-Hermann Hoppe in 2004 at the Mises Institute in Auburn, AL. [2] [3] Hoppe was invited by Lew Rockwell to speak at the Mises Institute and deliver the lectures in 2004. [4] The text includes a wide variety of topics covered by Hoppe including: economics, sociology, history, anthropology, politics, and issues related to cronyism, imperialism, Hoppe's view of monarchy and democracy, and even a critique of the works of Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek, whom Hoppe describes both men as, "...fundamentally and philosophically...statists" as well as "moderate free marketeers" whose work according to Hoppe, "...lends itself to...the continued and unabating power of the state." [5]
The book elaborates further on some of the criticisms of democracy as first prominently advocated by Hoppe in Democracy: The God That Failed, an earlier book of Hoppe's from 2001. [5]
The book opens with a foreword written by Sean Gabb, as well as a preface by Hoppe himself in which Hoppe speaks to the unedited nature of the lectures in the written published version, Hoppe says:
My lectures were not based on a written text, but on notes, supplemented by only a few handouts. Hence, the somewhat informal tone of the following text and its occasional personal and conversational asides. Based on personal experience I do not expect this fact to diminish but rather to actually enhance the appeal and accessibility of the present work, however, and thus felt no need now for any stylistic changes.
The series of lectures from Hans-Hermann Hoppe cover the following chapter by chapter:
Very old people are sometimes said to go through a "second childhood." ...assuming that they do not care for future generations, or perhaps they do not have offspring or any friends whom they want to hand over their own fortune to, and then, because their own remaining lifespan is very short, they have not much of a future left, so they go through the phase of a second childhood, by and large consuming and more or less entirely ceasing to accumulate savings.
What is the most likely explanation for the greater amount of capital accumulation and success and so forth, of the Protestant religion, is simply their puritanical outlook, which involves the idea that you work without enjoyment. Work is the only way to riches. The riches or wealth that you accumulate are an indicator of grace. Work is, for Protestants, almost like prayer. There's a certain amount of asceticism that Protestants accept. You don't enjoy life; you just pain yourself, work harder and harder.
...activities that increase the well-being of at least one person, without reducing the well-being of other individuals. [5]
Whereas Hoppe says that "parasitic activity" is defined as:
...activities that make some people better off, at the expense of making other people worse off. [5]
To Hoppe, "...a certain delay of gratification is necessary [low time preference] on the part of man in order to give up the temptations that these forms of parasitic behavior might represent." Hoppe argues that government is essentially just an institution of parasites, but offers hope on the basis of what he calls "The fundamental law of parasitism..." which is that:
One parasite can live off a hundred or a thousand hosts very comfortably, but we cannot imagine that thousands of parasites can live a comfortable life off one or two or three hosts. In that case, their life would be miserable too, so what we recognize from this fundamental law of parasitism is that those people who aspire to create an institution such as a state must also always have an interest to be, themselves, just a small group that is capable of ruling, of exploiting, of taxing and exercising an arbitration monopoly over a group of people far larger than they themselves are. [5]
Hoppe also states near the end of this lecture that there are four stages to the imposition of a state:
...even most conservative or free market intellectuals, such as, for instance, Milton Friedman or Friedrich von Hayek, are fundamentally and philosophically also statists." Hoppe elaborates further on this criticism stating, "...moderate free marketeers, such as Hayek or Friedman, or even among some so-called minarchists, is not only philosophically flawed, but it is also practically ineffective and even counterproductive. There ideas can be, and in fact are, easily co-opted and incorporated by the state rulers and by the statist ideology. In fact, how often do we hear nowadays from statists, in defense of a statist agenda, cries such as "even Hayek or Friedman says such and such" or "not even Hayek or Friedman would propose anything like this? [5]
Hoppe closes with an optimistic take on the future being redeemed by secessionist activity over any sort of voting or participatory activity within democratic institutions. Hoppe says:
What I would recommend, in particular, for the United States and so forth, is to realize that democracy will not abolish itself. The masses like to loot other people's property. They will not give up the right to continue doing this. However, there are still, in the United States and in many other places, small islands of reasonable people, and it is possible that on small local levels, some people, some natural authorities can gain enough influence in order to induce them to secede from their central state. And if they do so, and if that accelerates, if it happens at many places simultaneously, it will be almost impossible for the central state to crush a movement such as this. Because in order to crush a movement such as this, again, public opinion has to be in favor of this and it would be difficult to persuade the public to attack to kill, to destroy small places that have done nothing other than to declare that they wish to be independent of the United States. [5]
![]() | |
Author | Hans-Hermann Hoppe |
---|---|
Publisher | Mises Institute |
Publication date | 2021 |
ISBN | 978-1-61016-734-5 |
Website | mises.org/Economy, Society, & History |
Economy, Society, & History is a book written by German American economist and author Hans-Hermann Hoppe in 2021. [1]
The book is an organized collection of ten lectures made by Hans-Hermann Hoppe in 2004 at the Mises Institute in Auburn, AL. [2] [3] Hoppe was invited by Lew Rockwell to speak at the Mises Institute and deliver the lectures in 2004. [4] The text includes a wide variety of topics covered by Hoppe including: economics, sociology, history, anthropology, politics, and issues related to cronyism, imperialism, Hoppe's view of monarchy and democracy, and even a critique of the works of Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek, whom Hoppe describes both men as, "...fundamentally and philosophically...statists" as well as "moderate free marketeers" whose work according to Hoppe, "...lends itself to...the continued and unabating power of the state." [5]
The book elaborates further on some of the criticisms of democracy as first prominently advocated by Hoppe in Democracy: The God That Failed, an earlier book of Hoppe's from 2001. [5]
The book opens with a foreword written by Sean Gabb, as well as a preface by Hoppe himself in which Hoppe speaks to the unedited nature of the lectures in the written published version, Hoppe says:
My lectures were not based on a written text, but on notes, supplemented by only a few handouts. Hence, the somewhat informal tone of the following text and its occasional personal and conversational asides. Based on personal experience I do not expect this fact to diminish but rather to actually enhance the appeal and accessibility of the present work, however, and thus felt no need now for any stylistic changes.
The series of lectures from Hans-Hermann Hoppe cover the following chapter by chapter:
Very old people are sometimes said to go through a "second childhood." ...assuming that they do not care for future generations, or perhaps they do not have offspring or any friends whom they want to hand over their own fortune to, and then, because their own remaining lifespan is very short, they have not much of a future left, so they go through the phase of a second childhood, by and large consuming and more or less entirely ceasing to accumulate savings.
What is the most likely explanation for the greater amount of capital accumulation and success and so forth, of the Protestant religion, is simply their puritanical outlook, which involves the idea that you work without enjoyment. Work is the only way to riches. The riches or wealth that you accumulate are an indicator of grace. Work is, for Protestants, almost like prayer. There's a certain amount of asceticism that Protestants accept. You don't enjoy life; you just pain yourself, work harder and harder.
...activities that increase the well-being of at least one person, without reducing the well-being of other individuals. [5]
Whereas Hoppe says that "parasitic activity" is defined as:
...activities that make some people better off, at the expense of making other people worse off. [5]
To Hoppe, "...a certain delay of gratification is necessary [low time preference] on the part of man in order to give up the temptations that these forms of parasitic behavior might represent." Hoppe argues that government is essentially just an institution of parasites, but offers hope on the basis of what he calls "The fundamental law of parasitism..." which is that:
One parasite can live off a hundred or a thousand hosts very comfortably, but we cannot imagine that thousands of parasites can live a comfortable life off one or two or three hosts. In that case, their life would be miserable too, so what we recognize from this fundamental law of parasitism is that those people who aspire to create an institution such as a state must also always have an interest to be, themselves, just a small group that is capable of ruling, of exploiting, of taxing and exercising an arbitration monopoly over a group of people far larger than they themselves are. [5]
Hoppe also states near the end of this lecture that there are four stages to the imposition of a state:
...even most conservative or free market intellectuals, such as, for instance, Milton Friedman or Friedrich von Hayek, are fundamentally and philosophically also statists." Hoppe elaborates further on this criticism stating, "...moderate free marketeers, such as Hayek or Friedman, or even among some so-called minarchists, is not only philosophically flawed, but it is also practically ineffective and even counterproductive. There ideas can be, and in fact are, easily co-opted and incorporated by the state rulers and by the statist ideology. In fact, how often do we hear nowadays from statists, in defense of a statist agenda, cries such as "even Hayek or Friedman says such and such" or "not even Hayek or Friedman would propose anything like this? [5]
Hoppe closes with an optimistic take on the future being redeemed by secessionist activity over any sort of voting or participatory activity within democratic institutions. Hoppe says:
What I would recommend, in particular, for the United States and so forth, is to realize that democracy will not abolish itself. The masses like to loot other people's property. They will not give up the right to continue doing this. However, there are still, in the United States and in many other places, small islands of reasonable people, and it is possible that on small local levels, some people, some natural authorities can gain enough influence in order to induce them to secede from their central state. And if they do so, and if that accelerates, if it happens at many places simultaneously, it will be almost impossible for the central state to crush a movement such as this. Because in order to crush a movement such as this, again, public opinion has to be in favor of this and it would be difficult to persuade the public to attack to kill, to destroy small places that have done nothing other than to declare that they wish to be independent of the United States. [5]