Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the state

The state is an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sychophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots - an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans Hermann-Hoppe on the myth of the "noble savage"

In the literature, primitive man has been frequently described as peaceful and living in harmony with nature.  Most popular in this regard is Rousseau's portrayal of the "noble savage."  Aggression and war, it has been frequently held, were the result of civilization built upon the institution of private property.  In fact, matters are almost exactly the reverse.  True, the savagery of modern wars has produced unparelled carnage.  Both World War I and World War II, for instance, resulted in tens of millions of deaths and left entire countries in ruins.  And yet, as anthropological evidence has in the meantime made abundantly clear, primitive man has been considerably more warlike than contemporary man.  It has been estimated that on the average some 30 percent of all males in primitive, hunter-gatherer societies died from unnatural - violent - causes, far exceeding anything experienced in this regard in modern societies...  Of course, primitive warfare was very different from modern warfare.  It was not conducted by regular troops on battlefields, but by raids, ambushes, and surprise attacks.  However, every attack was characterized by utmost brutalilty, carried out without mercy and always with deadly results; and while the number of people killed in each attack might have been small, the incessant nature of these aggressive encounters made violent death an ever-present danger for  every man (and abduction and rape for every woman).

~ Hans Hermann-Hoppe, A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline, pp. 27-28

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on private property

Because the concept of property, for instance, is so basic that everyone seems to have some immediate understanding of it, most people never think about it carefully and can, as a consequence, produce at best a very vague definition.  But starting from imprecisely stated or assumed definitions and building a complex network of thought upon them can lead only to intellectual disaster.  For the original imprecisions and loopholes will then pervade and distort everything derived from them.  To avoid this, the concept of property must first be clarified. 

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1989)

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on government

The State is nothing but a criminal organization.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on democracy

Democracy has nothing to do with freedom.  Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "The Paradox of Imperialism," June 4, 2013

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how exclusion is required to achieve a free society

Libertarians, in their attempt to establish a free natural social order, must strive to regain from the state the right to exclusion inherent in private property.  Yet even before they accomplish this and in order to render such an achievement possible, libertarians cannot soon enough begin to reassert and exercise, to the extent that the situation still permits them to do so, their right to exclusion in everyday life.  Libertarians must distinguish themselves from others by practicing (as well as advocating) the most extreme form on intolerance and discrimination against egalitarians, democrats, socialists, communists, multiculturalists, environmentalists, ill manners, misconduct, incompetence, rudeness, vulgarity, and obscenity.  Like true conservatives,... true libertarians must visibly and ostentatiously dissociate themselves from the false multicultural and anti-authoritarian egalitarian left-libertarian impostors.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 219

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how egalitarianism and cultural relativism threaten the family and private property

[A] community always faces the double and related threat of egalitarianism and cultural relativism.  Egalitarianism, in every shape and form, is incompatible with the idea of private property.  Private property implies exclusivity, inequality, and difference.  And cultural relativism is incompatible with the fundamental - indeed foundational - fact of families and intergenerational kinship relations.  Families and kinship relations imply cultural absolutism.  As a matter of socio-phychological fact, both egalitarian and relativistic sentiments find steady support among newer generations of adolescents... Adolescence is marked by regular (and for this stage normal) outbreaks of rebellion by the young against the discipline imposed on them by family life and parental authority.  Cultural relativism and multiculturalism provide the ideological instrument of emancipating oneself from these constraints.  And egalitarianism - based on the infantile view that property is "given" (and thus distributed arbitrarily) rather than individually appropriated and produced (and hence, distributed justly, i.e., in accordance with personal productivity) - provides the intellectual means by which the rebellious youths can lay claim to the economic resources necessary for a life free of and outside the disciplinary framework of families.

[...]

[S]o long as the threat of moral relativism and egalitarianism is restricted to a small proportion of juveniles and young adults for only a brief period in life (until they settle back into family-constrained adulthood), it may well be sufficient to do nothing at all.  The proponents of cultural relativism and egalitarianism would represent little more than temporary embarassments or irritations...  A small dose of ridicule and contempt may be all that is needed to contain the... threat.  The situation is very different, however, and rather more drastic measures might be required, once the spirit of moral relativism and egalitarianism has taken hold among adult members of society: among mothers, fathers, and heads of households and firms.

As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy - The God That Failed, pp. 217-218

Hans Hermann-Hoppe on the mass delusion of democratic government

The mass of people, as La Boetie and Mises recognized, always and everywhere consists of "brutes," "dullards," and "fools," easily deluded and sunk into habitual submission.  Thus today, inundated from early childhood with government propaganda in public schools and educational institutions by legions of publicly certified intellectuals, most people mindlessly accept and repeat nonsense such as that democracy is self-rule and government is of, by, and for the people.  Even if they can see through the deception, most still unquestioningly accept democratic government on account of the fact that it provides them with a multitude of goods and benefits.  Such "fools," observed La Boetie, do not realize that they are "merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.  Thus, every social revolution will necessarily have to begin with just a few uncommon men: the natural elite.

~ Hans Hermann-Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 92

John Walker reviews Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline"

This short book (144 pages) collects three essays previously published elsewhere which, taken together, present a comprehensive picture of human development from the emergence of modern humans in Africa to the present day. Subtitled “Progress and Decline,” the story is of long periods of stasis, two enormous breakthroughs, with, in parallel, the folly of ever-growing domination of society by a coercive state which, in its modern incarnation, risks halting or reversing the gains of the modern era.

~ John Walker, "Book Review: A Short History of Man," Ricochet, May 20, 2015

Hans Hermann-Hoppe on fiat money

More paper money cannot make a society richer, of course — it is just more printed paper. Otherwise, why is it that there are still poor countries and poor people around? But more money makes its monopolistic producer (the central bank) and its earliest recipients (the government and big, government-connected banks and their major clients) richer at the expense of making the money's late and latest receivers poorer.

~ Hans Hermann-Hoppe