Understanding Time-Preference vs Being Homophobic

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s battle with the PC gate keepers

By Anarcho-Viking


Trouble with the thought police

In 2004 during a lecture on money and banking, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe provided an example of how the concept of time-preference plays a major role in the economy, local as well as global. The illustration given by Prof. Hoppe became a national controversy, and was used by the left-wing opinion molders in an attempt to hound the Austro-anarcho-capitalist academic out of polite society, and to consequently destroy his career. The case presented by Hoppe, and that caused the outcry, was hardly controversial at all. We will get to the actual case soon, but let us first clarify what the definition of time-preference is, and why it is such an important component as part of economic analysis.

Time-preference and the Austrian school

The level of time-preference an individual has, is measured by the degree to which that individual is willing to postpone present consumption in favor of the future, delayed gratification of greater benefits than what consumption right away would provide. A trivial, yet classic example of degree of time-preference, can be seen in the experiment of giving a child the following option: Either receiving one cookie right now, or waiting 30 minutes and receiving two cookies. The child’s present desire to consume usually trumps the willingness to await delayed gratification, and hence we conclude through praxeological deduction that children on average have a higher degree of time-preference than more mentally mature persons. The price paid by giving up present consumption in exchange for future value of a good or service must mean that the expected future psychic revenue is greater than the present psychic revenue generated by consuming instantaneously. Nobody would prefer to consume later should the act of consuming generate the same satisfaction today as it would a year from now. Continue reading “Understanding Time-Preference vs Being Homophobic”

Physical Removal – Separating the Facts from the Perversions

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Augusto Pinochet, and the Alt-Right Trolls

By Anarcho-Viking


The meme warriors from 4chan have revolutionized the art of meme warfare, and in the process of doing so; prominent libertarian scholars have appeared frequently together with fascist leaning military dictators, in what I would call the “alt-right meme circus”.

Memeing Gone Rampant

The helicopter is warmed up, photoshoped into the image are the faces of Augusto Pinochet (the former Chilean dictator) and Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Austrian economist and libertarian theorist) replacing the original caricature faces. Loaded onto the helicopter are a few communists or antifa social justice activists. Pepe the frog furthermore drags the commies onto the helicopter, and the helicopter carries the flag of Kekistan (an invented kingdom).

The text on the meme reads, “Hoppe’s physical removal service”, or “The Hoppean helicopter ride”, or “Free Kekistan!” Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

If you identify yourself as an anarcho-capitalist libertarian then you have certainly been exposed to the literature of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and you might laugh in amusement at this type of weaponized autism put forward by the alt-right internet trolls.

While the perversion of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics is entertaining in a warped sort of way, it is understandable that some people could be deceived by this distortion of Hoppe’s arguments, and as a consequence obtain a twisted interpretation of one of the greatest heroes for the cause of liberty.

Physical Removal

In order to clear up the confusion regarding the controversy around Hoppe, we need to look closer at his argumentation ethics, and frame the issue given the presumed conditions from which Hoppe derives his reasoning. In his masterpiece, Democracy – The God That Failed, Hoppe famously claims that:

“in a covenant…among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists”

because some people might promote ideas that would disturb the naturally established covenant and destabilize the covenant’s asserted protection of private property, concepts such as “democracy and communism”.

Hoppe furthermore goes on to argue that “there can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order” and the conclusion is that the alleged enemies of private property preservation “will have to be physically separated and removed from society”, so to speak.

The idea of “physical removal” is coming from the aforementioned statements. These statements, when taken out of context can be widely misunderstood. Continue reading “Physical Removal – Separating the Facts from the Perversions”

Hoppe on Coase

Excerpt from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s lecture:  Law and Economics


From 40:40 through 47:54:

Now I come to, as I said, to the Chicago view.  Which is, as you will see, is a very different approach, and a very dangerous approach at that.  And I want to explain that, in using an example, when I talk about Chicago Law and Economics tradition, I have in particular in mind Ronald Coase and Richard Posner, two of the most, Coase by far the most prominent man in this field and Posner his aut latos.

And I want to use an example that Coase gives of a conflict.  I want to explain how this is solved, so to speak, in the traditional way and how he will solve it instead.

The problem is, that did he describes, is something like; goes something like this:

There is a railroad that emits sparks and the sparks burn down the wheat of an adjacent farm, and the question is now:  who is liable for the damage? Should the railroad be punished or should the farmer be forced to accept the sort of thing and so forth?

Now how does the Austrian, the traditional approach solve this problem?

For them the question is who was there first and who came later.

If the farmer was there first and had, so to speak, spark-free wheat and then the railroad was built afterwards and then the sparks burn down the wheat, then of course the railroad would be held liable would have to stop it or would have to pay compensation to the farmer.

Otherwise if the railroad was there first and emitted sparks, and then the farmer built his wheat field right next to this railroad track, then the decision would be after all the farmer acquired property that was “sparked” instead of spark-free and he has no claim against the railroad owner.  If he wants to have his environment spark-free, would now have to pay the railroad to stop it.

So depending on whom was there first, the case would be decided either in favor of the farmer or in in favor of in favor of the railroad.  It depends, so to speak, who was there first and who has acquired what type of easement.

Now this is not the way Coase would solve this problem.  And I read you what Coase says how to deal with this problem he says:

It is wrong to think of the farmer and the railroad as either right or wrong, as aggressor or victim.  The question is commonly thought of as one in which A inflicts harm on B, and what has to be decided is how should we restrain A?  But this is wrong.

We are dealing with a problem of reciprocal nature.

To avoid the harm to B, would be to inflict harm on A; the real question that has to be decided is:  should A be allowed to harm B or should B be allowed to harm A?  The problem is to avoid the more serious harm.

Now I want to translate that into some sort of slightly absurd example to show to you, in a very drastic way, what an outrageous position this is.  I slightly rephrase Coase’s words here, just to use a slightly different example.  So let’s say we have the case where person A is raping person B , and according to Coase we would not simply have to restrain A, the rapist, rather and now I quote him from the previous quote:

Rather, we are dealing with a problem with reciprocal nature.

In preventing A from raping B, harm is inflicted on A because he can no longer rape freely.  The real question is:  should A be allowed to rape B or should B be allowed to prohibit A from raping him?  The problem is to avoid the more serious harm.

Now you might think isn’t that easy to determine what the more serious harm is, but again this is not that easy either.  Imagine the following scenario:

So A the rapist has been incarcerated for a long time.  For 20 years, he hasn’t seen a woman in 20 years.   Then B, on the other hand, is a professional prostitute.  She is in the business of the sort of stuff.   Now A rapes the professional prostitute.  Now the question is is more harm done to A by preventing him from raping the prostitute, or is more harm done to the prostitute by letting A rape her?

Now the question is obviously a difficult one, right?  You see the perversity of this of this type of thinking.  We might well come to the conclusion that the rape was perfectly alright, because after all, more harm would be done to A if he would be prevented from going on with his activity.