Hans Hermann-Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe (b. 1949) is a German-American economist of the Austrian School, Mises' anointed successor, and the theorist of argumentation ethics and "covenant communities" — anarcho-capitalism pushed to its reactionary conclusion.
Doctrine
- Argumentation ethics: the mere act of argument presupposes self-ownership; hence any state or redistribution violates the a priori norms of discourse — libertarianism derived from performativity.
- Democracy: The God That Failed (2001): democracy is "soft despotism" worse than monarchy because politicians loot the future via time-preference manipulation; the solution is private covenant communities with absolute exclusion rights — including exclusion by race, lifestyle, or opinion.
- Paleo-libertarian strategy: alliance with cultural conservatism against the managerial state; his Property and Freedom Society convenes the radical right intelligentsia.
Critique
Hoppe demonstrates where Austrian logic terminates: not freedom but feudal privatized sovereignty — gated lordships with the right to expel. Marxists note the class function: a doctrine that renders every existing property distribution sacred and every challenge to it aggression is simply rentier power given natural-law costume (see Murray N. Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises).