Property, Freedom & Society

Jeffrey Barr

Like German engineering, Professor Hans Hermann-Hoppe’s worldview is orderly, robust, and ultimately compelling.

Yet, I came to discover (and then embrace) this worldview by accident. Though I was generally a good student, I miserably failed the first microeconomics class I ever took. The class was a morass of neoclassic incantations and mathematic models of human behavior that had no grounding in reality. Indeed, at the time, economics looked like Carlyle’s “dismal science,” and the experience was so bad that I vowed never again to set foot in another economics class. But because I had failed, I had to make up the class. Fortuitously, Professor Hoppe’s microeconomics class happened to fit within my schedule in the following semester. My advisor counseled against taking Professor Hoppe, stating, “Many students find him to be . . . unorthodox.”

Having had my fill of economic orthodoxy, I ignored my advisor and happily signed up for Professor Hoppe’s class. Professor Hoppe did not disappoint. In contrast to the dismal science, Professor Hoppe refreshingly professed praxeology: the science of human action. The subject matter made intuitive sense, and Professor Hoppe delivered crisp and articulate lectures, always punctuated with his dry wit and German accent. He eschewed standard economics textbooks; instead, his students read Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson1 and Lew Rockwell’s The Free Market Reader.2 Even Professor Hoppe’s exams poked subversive fun at mainstream economics.

Though I attended many of Professor Hoppe’s lectures in several different classes, I was particularly fortunate to enroll in an unforgettable seminar entitled, “Marxism and Its Critics.” Professor Hoppe devoted the first half of the seminar to indoctrinating the class in traditional, unadulterated Marxism. He insisted that his students be able to recite tenets of socialism better than any Soviet university student. The Good Professor then devoted the second half of the semester to systematically refuting each fundamental socialist contention. In session after session, Herr Hoppe methodically demolished the logical underpinnings of the communist system, attacking the rotten philosophy at its core. It was also this time that I devoured Professor Hoppe’s first English-language book, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism.3 This treatise and the Marxism-and-Its-Critics course solidified Hoppe’s brilliance in my mind. I also realized that I might be in the presence, ironically enough, of Marx’s most formidable critic.

Despite all of the formal coursework with Professor Hoppe, I cherish his informal classes most. At the beginning of each semester, Professor Hoppe would announce that he would meet with students who were interested in joining the Political Economy Club at a local pub. He invited everyone in his classes, though few had the fortitude to attend. Those who did enjoyed long hours of debates on the many issues of the day—and what issues there were to discuss! The late-1980s/early 1990s were exciting times. Murray Rothbard was at the zenith of his prestige. Communism’s fall had vindicated Mises, and the so-called “grassroots Republican revolution” of the early 90s exuberantly confirmed the theories I was learning in university. These events provided much fodder for late-night, smoky meetings of the Political Economy Club. The sessions were less like meetings, and more like Professor Hoppe holding court. A bit detached, Professor Hoppe would often listen to the deliberations, sip his drink, put his hand to his chin, look into the air in deep contemplation, and finally, after gathering his thoughts, he would respond with a, “Ja, Ja, but, you see . . .” Much of the time, I would simply listen to these discussions, daring not to ask an unintelligent question because Hoppe’s genius intimidated me. After knowing Professor Hoppe for nearly twenty years, I confess that I remain in awe of his brilliance so much so that I still feel a bit awkward addressing him as anything but “Professor Hoppe.”

I am proud to be a part of this “festive-writing,” honoring the remarkable career of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Few individuals have had a more profound influence on my life. In an odd way, I will be forever grateful to that awful neoclassical economics professor whose microeconomics class I flunked. Without that failing grade, I might never have had the privilege to call Hans Hermann-Hoppe friend, mentor, and, most of all, professor. Congratulations, Professor Hoppe!

Jeffrey Barr (BarrJ@cityofnorthlasvegas.com) practices law in Las Vegas, Nevada. He studied under Murray Rothbard and Hans-Herman Hoppe in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

4Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, rev. ed. (New York: Manor Books, [1962, 1974]; reprint New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1979).

5Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., Ed. The Free Market Reader: Essays in the Economics of Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1988).

6Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (Boston-Dordrecht-London: Kluwer, 1989).

• 1Professors Hoppe’s publications, including links to translations and a detailed bibliography, are available at his website, www.hanshoppe.com.
• 2“Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Potret Intelektual Anti-Intelektual” [“Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Anti-Intellectual Intellectual”], interview by Sukasah Syahdan, Akal dan Kehendak (Indonesia) (Apr. 28, 2008) (English translation available at www.hanshoppe.com/publications).
• 3“Principles of the Property and Freedom Society,” available at www.propertyandfreedom.org (quoting the Opening Declaration from the Inaugural Meeting: Bodrum, Turkey, May 2006).
• 4Eventually, Hoppe turned into a full-blown Austrian when, in the early 1980s, he went to the United States on a prestigious Heisenberg fellowship. This time his research project concerned political philosophy, but it was again squarely built on Austrian economics. In 1986, he became Rothbard’s colleague at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where he would teach for the next 21 years. After Rothbard’s untimely death in 1995, Professor Hoppe assumed a place of uncontested leadership among Austro-libertarian scholars, becoming the editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, a co-editor of the Review of Austrian Economics, and then a co-editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. Professor Hoppe, now Professor Emeritus of Economics at UNLV and Distinguished Fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, also serves on on the editorial board of Libertarian Papers. In addition to authoring numerous scholarly articles, his important books include Handeln und Erkennen (1976), Kritik der Kausalwissenschaftlichen Sozialforschung (1983), Eigentum, Anarchie, und Staat (1987), A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1989), The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (1993, enlarged 2nd edition 2006), Democracy—The God that Failed (2001), and The Myth of National Defense (editor, 2003). His works have been translated into at least 21 languages, not counting English.
• 5Among Professor Hoppe’s many achievements we should stress in particular his brilliant critique of positivist methodology as applied to the social sciences, a new praxeological approach to political philosophy, an encompassing comparative analysis of socialism and capitalism, and a theory of secession as a means of political reform. Most importantly, in his book Democracy—The God that Failed, Professor Hoppe has delivered a profound critique of democracy, as well as an original reinterpretation of Western history in the twentieth century, both of which have stirred international debate in academia and among the wider public. Other influential works from his pen have dealt with the role of migrations within a free society, and with the role of public intellectuals in political transformation processes. Moreover, he has excelled as an historian of thought and made path-breaking contributions to other areas such as monopoly theory; the theory of public goods; the sociology of taxation; the positive methodology of the social sciences; the theory of risk; the production of security; the transformation of formerly socialist countries; and the evolution of monetary institutions and their impact on international relations. And Professor Hoppe’s work is ongoing: he is currently working on a major book project that will restate and elaborate on his previous work in the fields of epistemology and ethics—more generally, the nature of human rationality. The goal of the book is to provide “a systematic and interdisciplinary reconstruction of human history (pre-history, hunter-gatherer societies, agricultural societies, industrial societies).”
• 6for justly acquired private property, freedom of contract, freedom of association—which logically implies the right to not associate with, or to discriminate against—anyone in one’s personal and business relations—and unconditional free trade. It condemns imperialism and militarism and their fomenters, and champions peace. It rejects positivism, relativism, and egalitarianism in any form, whether of “outcome” or “opportunity,” and it has an outspoken distaste for politics and politicians.