Product Description

"Do not steal" is an excellent principle of ethics; it is also the first principle of sound economic systems. In our time, no one has done more than Hans-Hermann Hoppe to elaborate on the sociological implications of this truth. And this is his great work on the topic.

The Austrian tradition is known for offering the most hard-core defense of private property, and the most consistent application of that principle, of any school of economics. The work of Hoppe--a leading student of Rothbard's whose books have been translated into a dozen languages--has focused heavy philosophical and economic attention on this principle.

This book, the 2nd expanded edition after a long period in which it has been unavailable, collects his most important scholarly essays on the topic.

The topics covered by Hoppe are wide ranging: employment, interest, money, banking, trade cycles, taxes, public goods, war, imperialism, and the rise and fall of civilizations. The core theoretical insight uniting the entire discussion is as consistently applied here as it is neglected by the economic mainstream: the absolute inviolability of private property as a human right as the basis of continuous economic progress.

The right to private property is an indisputably valid, absolute principle of ethics, argues Hoppe, and the basis for civilizational advance. Indeed, it is the very foundation of social order itself. To rise from the ruins of socialism and overcome the stagnation of the Western welfare states, nothing will suffice but the uncompromising privatization of all socialized, that is, government, property and the establishment of a contractual society based on the recognition of private property rights.

Hans Hermann-Hoppe is professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This edition is an expansion of the original edition (1993), with new essays on epistemology, ethics, and economics.

Barron's writes:

Hans-Hermann Hoppe's dryly titled The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (von Mises Institute, 2006), is anything but dry. When Ludwig von Mises brought "Austrian School" economics to the U.S., the American Murray Rothbard became his worthy disciple. With Rothbard's death in 1995, the German-born Hoppe, a professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, became Rothbard's most important disciple by far.

Hoppe's writings are like a laser beam. The clarity and force of his arguments seemingly can't fail to hit their targets. But be prepared for arguments that push you beyond your limits. For Hoppe is a Misesian of the Rothbardian kind: an anarcho-capitalist eager to convince you that anything useful that the state does, the market can do better -- in fact, that the state so abuses its appointed roles, there is really no contest between the two.

431 page hardbound volume, with index.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #680784 in Books
• Published on: 2006
• Binding: Hardcover
• 431 pages

Customer Reviews

Property Rights are the Foundation of Civilization
For those who are serious about political philosophy, Dr. Hoppe is a breath of fresh air in an era dominated by a lot of "hot air" from our professors, politicians and pundits. I have found all of Hoppe's other books to be sufficiently accessible to the intelligent layman and indispensable to the serious student and this one is no exception. In it, one will find a collection of essays rich in economic scholarship and deep in philosophical inquiry in which Hoppe delineates the ethics of private property while providing fascinating economic applications of it.

Perhaps the most important essay is On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property, where Hoppe offers the revolutionary Axiom of Argumentation. He demonstrates that only the "private property ethic can be justified argumentatively, because it is the praxeological presupposition of argumentation as such" He observes that self-ownership is implied in the very act of argumentation, and therefore that self-ownership cannot be denied without committing a performative contradiction. He also notes that property is a prerequisite for argumentation because without the ability to appropriate natural resources, mankind would die off and there would be no such thing as arguments. My reliance on his positive foundation of ethics has left my collectivist professors and friends unable to refute the principle of individual self-ownership.

Other essays include a devastating attack on the Keynesian theory of money, employment and interest, a deconstruction of the popular concept of a "public good," and what I found to be a powerful and persuasive critique of "free banking." Also quite interesting are Hoppe's investigation into the insidious origins of fiat currency, his essay examining the similarities and differences between Marxist and Austrian class analysis, and his work on epistemology and the Austrian method. I do not believe that "indispensable" is too strong a word to describe this book's importance for economists and libertarians. As an added bonus, the sturdy textbook binding on the 2nd edition, of which I'm a huge fan, guarantees readers a lifetime of intellectual stimulation.