The Economics and Ethics of Private Property
of Private Property
Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy
Second Edition
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Copyright © 2006 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information write the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 36832.
ISBN 13: 978-0-945466-40-6
ISBN 10: 0-945466-40-4
Dedication
TO MURRAY N. ROTHBARD
Preface to the Second Edition
The first edition of The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, published in 1993, has been out of print for several years. For some time and from many sides I have been urged to prepare a new edition, and Llewellyn Rockwell has graciously offered the Ludwig von Mises Institute to serve as its publisher.
Preface to the First Edition
The collapse of socialism across Eastern Europe—as manifested most dramatically by the events of the forever memorable November 9, 1989, when the Germans of East and West reunited, moved and overjoyed, on top of the Berlin Wall—has added more support and urgency to the central thesis of this volume than I had ever hoped for.
Part One. Economics
1. Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security
Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security
In 1849, at a time when classical liberalism was still the dominant ideological force and “economist” and “socialist” were generally considered antonyms, Gustave de Molinari, a renowned Belgian economist, wrote,
2. The Economics and Sociology of Taxation
The Economics and Sociology of Taxation
As the title of the chapter indicates, I have set myself two goals. First, I want to explain the general economic effect of taxation. This part of the chapter represents a praxeological analysis of taxation and as such should not be expected to go much beyond what has already been said by other economists.
3. Banking, Nation States, and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order
Banking, Nation States, and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order
1. MONEY AND BANKING
In order to explain the emergence of barter, nothing more than the assumption of a narrowly defined self-interest is required. Insofar as man prefers more choices and goods to fewer, he will choose barter and division of labor over self-sufficiency.
4. Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis
Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis
I will do the following in this chapter: First, I will present a series of theses that constitute the hard-core of the Marxist theory of history. I claim that all of them are essentially correct. Then I will show how these true theses are derived in Marxism from a false starting point. Finally, I want to demonstrate how Austrianism in the Mises-Rothbard tradition can give a correct but categorically different explanation of their validity.
Let me begin with the hard-core of the Marxist belief system: 1
