Hulsmann

[Laughing_Man]

Can anyone tell me more of the philosophy of Hulsmann? Is he a left or right libertarian?

[liberty_student]

As I understand left libertarianism, he is definitely not a left libertarian.

This is from Wikipedia,

He is an anarcho-capitalist within the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

Here are some MP3 interviews with Lew Rockwell.

Guido Hülsmann: What Should Geithner and Bernanke Do?

Hyperinflation

Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle

Hyperinflation?

The Problem With Fiat Money

Is a Gold Standard Too Costly?

Guido Hülsmann: The Economic Crisis in Europe and America

Guido Hülsmann: Immoral Money Production

[Laughing_Man]

So is he like a Hoppian? I developed my basics on Rothbard though I do not like the ‘conservative’ nature of Hoppe. I’m just about to finish all of Woods’ podcasts so I wanted to see if Hulsmann was among the authors I like.

[jtucker]

I would describe him as a 19th century-style Catholic anarchist with a deeply scientific mind.

[hayekianxyz]

@Laughing Man

So is he like a Hoppian? I developed my basics on Rothbard though I do not like the ‘conservative’ nature of Hoppe. I’m just about to finish all of Woods’ podcasts so I wanted to see if Hulsmann was among the authors I like.

Well, he is a member of The Property and Freedom Society, so I can imagine that he’s a Hoppean to some extent. I’ve not read a lot of his work, but what I’ve read is really great, I plan on reading Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism soon though.

On the other hand I’ve always been curious what Hoppe’s religious views are, from a passage in Democracy: The God that Failed I get the impression he is Catholic:

@Professor Hoppe

Moreover, the family household also represents the model of the social order at large. Just as a hierarchical order exists in the family, so is there a hierarchical order within a community of families - of apprentices, servants, and masters, vassals, knights, lord, overlords and even kings - tied together by an elaborate and intricate system of kinship relations; and of childrens, parents, priests, bishops, cardinals, patriachs or popes, and finally the transcendant God. Of the two layers of authority, the earthly physical power of parents, lord, and kings is naturally subordinate and subject to control by the ultimate spiritual intellectual authority of fathers, priests, bishops, and ultimately God

That is one of my favourite passages from the book.

[Stephen_Forde]

@Laughing Man

I developed my basics on Rothbard though I do not like the ‘conservative’ nature of Hoppe.

What about the ‘conservative’ nature of Rothbard?

[wilderness]

@Stephen Forde

@Laughing Man

I developed my basics on Rothbard though I do not like the ‘conservative’ nature of Hoppe.

What about the ‘conservative’ nature of Rothbard?

The conservative or liberal nature of any libertarian are (moral) value arguments. A libertarian upholds the moral value NAP that conflates to the right of liberty. These conservative, liberal, or whatever stances are social justice positions and have nothing to do with liberty - other than liberty allows these stances.

[Laughing_Man]

@Stephen Forde

@Laughing Man

I developed my basics on Rothbard though I do not like the ‘conservative’ nature of Hoppe.

What about the ‘conservative’ nature of Rothbard?

Perhaps you can specifically point to an article that is ‘conservative.’

[Byzantine]

@Laughing Man

Perhaps you can specifically point to an article that is ‘conservative.’

This excerpt from “Big Government Libertarians” is downright curmudgeonly:

Libertarianism is logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture, society, religion, or moral principle. In strict logic, libertarian political doctrine can be severed from all other considerations; logically one can be – and indeed most libertarians in fact are: hedonists, libertines, immoralists, militant enemies of religion in general and Christianity in particular – and still be consistent adherents of libertarian politics. In fact, in strict logic, one can be a consistent devotee of property rights politically and be a moocher, a scamster, and a petty crook and racketeer in practice, as all too many libertarians turn out to be. Strictly logically, one can do these things, but psychologically, sociologically, and in practice, it simply doesn’t work that way.

Thus, Justin Raimondo pointed out, in pondering what went wrong with the libertarian movement, that the early movement of the 1970s grievously erred by deliberately cutting itself off from any sort of right-wing or any other culture or tradition in the United States. Following the spirit of Ayn Rand, of whom most libertarians had been ardent followers, libertarians claimed to be genuine individualists and revolutionaries, totally separate from the right-wing, and bringing to the world their own brand new political revelation. And indeed, the libertarian movement has always been almost willfully ignorant of any history or any aspect of foreign affairs. Arcane syllogisms of libertarian theory, science fiction, rock music, and the intricacies of computers, have been the sum and substance of their knowledge and their interest.

Part of this grandiose separatism, which I did not fully realize at the time, stemmed from an intense hatred of the right-wing, from libertarian anxiety never to be connected with or labeled as a conservative or a right-wing movement. And part of that hatred has come from a broader and even more intense hatred of Christianity, some of which was taken over from Ayn Rand.

To be specific, one important aspect of the recent shift toward statism and Big Government consists of a spill-over, of an infection, of libertarians’ political views by their deep-seated egalitarianism. Scratch an egalitarian, and you will inevitably find a statist. How does the libertarians’ burgeoning and pervasive egalitarianism square with their supposed belief in individualism, and for allowing every person to rise by his own merit unhobbled by government? The resolution of this problem is much the same as other, more common versions of Political Correctness.

Libertarians are fervently committed to the notion that, while each individual might not be “equal” to every other, that every conceivable group, ethnic contingent, race, gender, or, in some cases, species, are in fact and must be made “equal,” that each one has “rights” that must not be subject to curtailment by any form of “discrimination.”

And so, flying in the face of their former supposed devotion to the absolute rights of private property, the libertarian movement has embraced almost every phony and left-wing “right” that has been manufactured in recent decades.

Shortly before I left the libertarian movement and Party five years ago, a decision which I not only have never regretted but am almost continually joyous about, I told two well-known leaders of the movement that I thought it had become infected with and permeated by egalitarianism. What? they said. Impossible. There are no egalitarians in the movement. Further, I said that a good indication of this infection was a new-found admiration for the Reverend “Doctor” Martin Luther King. Absurd, they said. Well, interestingly enough, six months later, both of these gentlemen published articles hailing “Dr.” King as a “great libertarian.” To call this socialist, egalitarian, coercive integrationist, and vicious opponent of private-property rights, a someone who, to boot, was long under close Communist Party control, to call that person a “great libertarian,” is only one clear signal of how far the movement has decayed.

Indeed, amidst all the talk in recent years about “litmus tests,” it seems to me that there is one excellent litmus test which can set up a clear dividing line between genuine conservatives and neoconservatives, and between paleolibertarians and what we can now call “left-libertarians.” And that test is where one stands on “Doctor” King. And indeed, it should come as no surprise that, as we shall see, there has been an increasing coming together, almost a fusion, of neocons and left-libertarians. In fact, there is now little to distinguish them.

Throughout the Official Libertarian Movement, “civil rights” has been embraced without question, completely overriding the genuine rights of private property. In some cases, the embrace of a “right not to be discriminated against” has been explicit. In others, when libertarians want to square their new-found views, with their older principles and have no aversion to sophistry and even absurdity, they take the sneakier path blazed by the American Civil Liberties Union: that if there should be so much as a smidgen of government involved, whether it be use of the public streets or a bit of taxpayer funding, then the so-called “right” of “equal access” must override either private property or indeed any sort of good sense.

Thus: when Judge Sarokin, soon to be elevated, by bipartisan consensus in the U.S. Senate, to the august federal court of appeals, ruled that a smelly bum must be allowed to stink up a New Jersey public library, and follow children to the bathroom, because it is public and therefore he cannot be denied access, the national chairwoman of the Libertarian Party issued an official statement praising the decision. In the same way, libertarians join the ACLU in protecting the alleged “right of free expression” of bums and beggars on the streets of our big cities, no matter how annoying or intimidating, because these streets are, after all, public, and therefore, so long as they remain public, they must continue to be cesspools, although precisely how this is implied by high libertarian theory is a bit difficult to grasp.

In the same way, the leading left-libertarian Beltway legal activist maintains proudly to this day that he was only following libertarian principle when, as an official of the federal Department of Justice – which in itself is not too easy to square with such principles – he aided the federal judiciary in its truly monstrous decision to threaten to jail the City Council of Yonkers, New York, because this council had refused to approve a low-income public housing project on the grounds that it would soon become an inner-city sewer of drugs and crime. His reasoning: that this resistance was a violation of egalitarian nondiscrimination doctrine, since Yonkers already had other public housing projects existing within its borders!

[Laughing_Man]

I see contradiction in this argument.

1. Rothbard states that since parades are on public streets, they should be ‘permitted’ by the state apparatus..what of the right to to assemble?And why should we be enabling the state with a illegitimate power over us?

2. Rothbard states that corporations should be able to hire or fire individuals since it is their property, yet writes this:

‘Things have gotten to the point where one of the most prominent of the libertarian think-tanks practices its own form of gay affirmative action, hiring or promoting only openly-proclaimed gays, and, at the very least, firing any staff member who is less than enthusiastic about this procedure or about gay rights in general.’

3. Rothbard believes in property rights to which I would wholeheartedly agree with him. However, no where is there a right to not be offended about gay parades.

I’m glad you presented this because I am usually in such concurance with Rothbard that it is always beneifical not to fall into hero-worship.

[Byzantine]

What a horrible man.

[Laughing_Man]

@Byzantine

What a horrible man.

Who Rothbard?

[liberty_student]

@Laughing Man

I’m glad you presented this because I am usually in such concurance with Rothbard that it is always beneifical not to fall into hero-worship.

This ^^.

[Byzantine]

@Laughing Man

Who Rothbard?

Yes. I heard he was married as well.

To a woman.

[Laughing_Man]

@liberty student

@Laughing Man

I’m glad you presented this because I am usually in such concurance with Rothbard that it is always beneifical not to fall into hero-worship.

This ^^.

I’m scratching my head…

[Laughing_Man]

@Byzantine

@Laughing Man

Who Rothbard?

Yes. I heard he was married as well.

To a woman.

WHAT?! Do you have proof of this? If so why have you been holding out on it!? Why do you think I would feel that some great travesty that he is married to a woman? I hope to one day engage in this blasphemious act if it is to be called such

[Juan]

The Irrepressible Rothbard - LewRockwell

That is, I think, just an example of Rothbard pandering to cultural/social/whatever conservatives. Those are not scholarly articles, or libertarian articles, but mostly are examples of political opportunism.

[liberty_student]

@Byzantine

@Laughing Man

Who Rothbard?

Yes. I heard he was married as well.

To a woman.

I’ve listened to at least one interview with Joey. She’s a hoot. You can see that she and Murray were a dynamic match.

[liberty_student]

@Laughing Man

I’m scratching my head…

Fleas? lol [:P]

Too many people get into hero worship. Better to just deal in ideas. Obviously some people have better ideas than others, but no individualist should be placing another man (or woman) on a pedestal IMO.

[Laughing_Man]

@liberty student

Fleas? lol

My non-falsifiable theory of communist hair gnomes

@liberty student

Too many people get into hero worship. Better to just deal in ideas. Obviously some people have better ideas than others, but no individualist should be placing another man (or woman) on a pedestal IMO.

I concur