Today I feel like the guy who brought the king some Bud-Light,
although I have the feeling that Hoppe would prefer a nice Waldhaus Schwarzwald Weisse while
overlooking the Bodensee and enjoying a nice Wiener
Schnitzel. From Hans Hoppe and his essay On Getting Libertarianism Right:
Throughout the entire
period, the Ludwig von Mises Institute – mises.org – and Lew Rockwell – lewrockwell.com –
have stood out as bulwarks against the infiltration of libertarianism by
leftist thought….More recently, outlets for explicitly and decidedly
anti-leftist libertarian thought have proliferated. There is “Bionic Mosquito”
with his blog – bionicmosquito.blogspot.com.
I should end this post now, as it can only go downhill from
here! Yet, against my better judgment, I move
forward. While what I have cited above is easily the most important
point Hoppe makes in his essay, I will offer an examination of a few of his
comments that lead to this, the most important point ever made by this student
of Rothbard.
Hoppe begins with a summary of his most familiar argument
regarding the respect for absolute private property rights in the strictest
libertarian tradition as the only method of minimizing the possibility of
conflicts between and among humans.
While the importance of
this “Austro-libertarian” insight can hardly be overrated, however, it is just
as important to recognize what questions this theory does not answer.
What? The NAP is not omnipotent? This is not
a shortcoming of the theory; instead, it is a shortcoming of those who place
the theory as the highest good, or those who proclaim it the one true
faith. It is a shortcoming in those who expect that this is a theory
that can bring itself to fruition – a creation story equal to the one found in
Genesis: creating something from nothing.
Hoppe points out that the theory does not offer an answer to how
a libertarian order is to be achieved – and, once achieved, how it is to be
maintained. These are fair questions, given that the world around us
is anything other than one embracing a libertarian social and political
order. Too many self-proclaimed libertarians ignore the reality of
the world around them, instead naively embracing…
…the currently reigning
– and only “politically correct” – view that all people and in particular all
groups of people are essentially equal as regards their mental and motivational
make-up…
Hoppe describes these as left-libertarians. These
left-libertarians embrace precisely the same world view as those Western elites
intent on destroying what remains of our freedom:
…multi-culturalism,
unrestricted “free” immigration, “non-discrimination,” “affirmative action” and
“openness” to “diversity” and “alternative lifestyles.”
Hoppe asks, regarding the Western elite, “are they all secretly
libertarians?”
Of course, they are not. Which, therefore, leads to
one of the only two remaining possibilities: libertarians such as these are
either knowingly doing the bidding of those Western elites or they are
dolts. Regardless of which of these is true for each individual
leftist, it is undeniably true that it is so-called libertarians such as these
that are “acceptable” to the mainstream.
Hoppe paraphrases Rothbard when he writes:
Owing to their patently
false, unrealistic assumptions concerning the nature of man, [Rothbard] had
pointed out, the very means and measures advocated by left-libertarians for the
attainment of libertarian ends were false as well. In fact, given the
libertarian end, they were counter-productive and would lead to more rather
than less conflict and infringements of private property rights.
You would think that all students who learned at Rothbard’s knee
would understand and incorporate this into their thinking the way Hoppe has
done; either that, or explicitly challenge Rothbard – demonstrate how
destroying culture and tradition is the path toward liberty. (Don’t
hold your breath – it is an argument never coming because it is a laughable
argument.)
Real libertarians – in
contrast to left-libertarian fakes – must study and take account of real people
and real human history in order to design a libertarian strategy of social
change, and even the most cursory study in this regard – indeed, little more than
common sense – yields results completely opposite from those proposed by
libertarian fakes.
I tell you, I am not as blunt or harsh as Hoppe…or maybe I am
worse. I guess it depends on how you read the following: the issue
isn’t one of “real libertarians.” What is lacking is not the
“libertarian”; what is lacking is the ability to think critically, to
incorporate “real people and real human history” in the study of bringing
theory to application.
In other words, what is lacking is thought – it is either this
or “libertarians” such as these are working as agents for those bent on your
destruction.
Hoppe sees that it is in the thinking of Western men where the
ideas of liberty were developed and nurtured:
…i.e., men born and
raised in countries of Western and Central Europe or their various overseas
dependencies and settlements and intellectually and culturally united by a
common lingua franca (once Latin and now English) and the
trans-national Catholic Church or more lately and vaguely a common Christianity.
One need not get all antifa about this: just
check the history. In other words, if the idea of liberty is to be
achieved and sustained, it will be in a society of men who embrace this western
culture and tradition.
Speaking of which, I am in the middle of reading a book about
medieval Japan. From my very cursory knowledge of the history prior
to opening the book, I thought it might offer some views similar to what I have
found regarding the European Middle Ages. I am about half-way
through the book and, at least to this point, on any commonality with the
European Middle Ages on this point of law and liberty I can say…no…not
really. But I will write on this in the coming days and weeks.
These observations alone
should be sufficient to reveal any libertarian advocate of “free,” unrestricted
and non-discriminatory immigration of non-Westerners into the countries of the
West as a fool.
Like I said, you decide if Hoppe is more blunt and more harsh in
his criticism than am I. It may be an ad-hominem, but if it is true
it is not a fallacious ad-hominem, therefore fair game.
For much or even most of
the European middle-ages no State and State authority existed. All authority
was social authority.
I will add: no man “made” law. Law was based on custom
and tradition; law was both old and good. I first came across this
entire topic due to a comment posted by someone when I was a member of Gary
North’s community. The comment referenced Fritz Kern and his
book Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages.
Through Kern’s book, I discovered an examination of Germanic Middle Age law; thereafter, I
discovered the decentralized society that both supported
and was supported by this law. I also found that Hoppe had been here well before I ever
found the space.
Returning to Hoppe:
There were hierarchies
of authority: heads of family households, priests, bishops and a distant pope;
patrons, lords and over-lords; and countless different and separate
communities, religious, social and professional orders, assemblies, guilds,
societies, associations and clubs, each with its own rules, hierarchies and
rank-orders.
No authority had absolute power; no authority could unilaterally
make law and enforce judgment; the serfs had better protection in property than
we in the west have today; each noble had veto power over the king’s
decision if it could be demonstrated that the king went against the old and
good law.
What is the wanna-be totalitarian to do if one wants to become a
totalitarian?
The…would-be-State
promoter…must undermine, weaken and ultimately destroy all competing
authorities and hierarchies of social authority.
As each of these decentralized, voluntary authorities is
destroyed, guess which authority is left to provide comfort, warmth and safety
to the people? You got it.
No one must be free to
autonomously determine its own rules of admission and exclusion.
Free association and
dis-association (separation) of people in physical space and free affiliation
and dis-affiliation of people through shared or un-shared memberships in
various organizations must go.
One by one, each of these decentralized authorities was attacked
– attacked by taking away the right to discriminate, attacked by destroying the
traditions that supported the authority.
And how to achieve this?
By enlisting the support of everyone resentful of not being included or
promoted in some particular association or organization or for being expelled
and excluded from them…. On every level of social authority, you must encourage
and promote deviant behavior (behavior preventing inclusion or leading to
exclusion) and then use these deviants to undermine any authority other than
your own.
Those who were begging for admittance (to be identified in the
beneficiaries of any one of the hundreds of made-up, legislated positive
rights) found in the totalitarian state a comforting voice – “we will break
down these barriers for you.”
To a right-thinking libertarian, this should read “we will
destroy his property rights for you.” To anyone who
understands power, this should read “we will destroy all competing authority
structures until we are the last one standing.”
And lest one believes Hoppe is afraid to spell out clearly the
positions which he finds as destructive to any possibility of moving toward and
sustaining liberty…
“Free” mass immigration
from the non-Western world, “multiculturalism,” “affirmative action,”
“non-discrimination,” the propagation of “openness” to “diversity” and
“alternative life-styles,” to “feminism” and “gay- and gender-ism,” and of
“anti-authoritarianism”…
Hoppe ends on a promising note:
…today, among
self-described libertarians, left-libertarianism is in retreat, while the
influence of realistic-right libertarianism has steadily grown.
To any sentient, thinking being, it is quite clear that left-libertarians are “left,” not libertarian.
Conclusion
Against Hoppe, the left-libertarians are left with slur, slander
and fallacious ad-hominem attacks; this is because they are unable to take on
the argument.
To libertarians such as these – and perhaps my most sincere
wishes go to the open borders libertarians – I return to the video at the
beginning of this post: please take your spiced honey-mead wine with you as you
take your private tour of the pit of misery.
