[Editor’s note: Earlier this month Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe appeared on SERVUS TV for a discussion “On State, War, Europe, Decentralization and Neutrality.” An English translation of the transcript was prepared by Leonhard Paul, a law student from Germany.]

Interviewer: I would like to welcome our second guest in the studio. It is the philosopher and economist with an international range Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hoppe.

The dream of a united Europe, the eternal longing of the empire. Do you also dream this dream?

While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s expansion has been a central issue in the Russian decision to go to war with Ukraine, this is certainly not the only issue. Moscow has repeatedly maintained that a central factor in its decision was the protection of ethnic Russian minorities in eastern Ukraine from human rights abuses committed by the Ukrainian state.

In the last World War, the United States of America beat the fascists, drew a line between freedom and the communists, and then spent the next 70 years turning into what it claimed to abhor. 

Attempting to understand the political polarization and dysfunction that has increasingly come to define American politics in the twenty-first century requires grappling with a host of interconnected phenomena. The gradual transformations undergone by the Republican and Democratic parties, which saw the steady elimination of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, have deep historical roots. For all its apparent complexity, however, our political dysfunction largely stems from a small set of easy-to-understand problems.