Political Theory

Re: question about "The Natural Elites, Intellectuals and the State" by Hans-Herman Hoppe

Stranger — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:57:22 GMT

Lilburne:

It's an interesting question. Throughout Conceived in Liberty, a history of colonial America, Murray Rothbard, Hoppe's colleague, seemed to consistently report greater democratic power (more power to assemblies, less to oligarchic councils) as generally resulting in greater liberty. And to me, the relative freedom during the middle ages stemmed mostly from the fragmentation of church and state (coming from the independent super-national power of the Catholic Church) rather than from any inherent qualities of monarchism, contra Hoppe.

If you haven't read Martin van Creveld's Rise and Decline of the State, you must do it immediately. In order to understand Hoppe's argument, one has to tell the difference between a spontaneous democratic association and a democratic state. If we define the state as a ruling corporation, then a state governed by a monarch will be much less abusive than a state governed by elected politicians, as the members of the state will have much less power against the monarch than they do on the politicians.

Compare this to a business corporation. If a corporation is owned by a large number of wildly dispersed shareholders, then the executives will be able to do whatever they want and loot the company in bonuses until the whole edifice is bankrupt. If there are only a few major shareholders, then they can take full control of the capital and even impose themselves as executives to directly govern the corporation.

If there is no central power and democracy only consists of people assembled together and making agreements with each other (the classical Greek democracy) then the power of the government is extremely limited.

Re: question about "The Natural Elites, Intellectuals and the State" by Hans-Herman Hoppe

hayekianxyz — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:47:19 GMT

This may be of interest.

Re: question about "The Natural Elites, Intellectuals and the State" by Hans-Herman Hoppe

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:38:41 GMT

It's an interesting question. Throughout Conceived in Liberty, a history of colonial America, Murray Rothbard, Hoppe's colleague, seemed to consistently report greater democratic power (more power to assemblies, less to oligarchic councils) as generally resulting in greater liberty. And to me, the relative freedom during the middle ages stemmed mostly from the fragmentation of church and state (coming from the independent super-national power of the Catholic Church) rather than from any inherent qualities of monarchism, contra Hoppe.

Re: question about "The Natural Elites, Intellectuals and the State" by Hans-Herman Hoppe

Josh Dennis — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:05:48 GMT

Interesting I realized the potential for abuse with democracy but had never made the link with monarchy. I always stopped at the absolute power of a monarch is corrupting and that that much(or any)centralized power is a bad thing. So The best way to address the problems of both systems is a highly anarchist democracy, or very weak federal government.

Forgive me for being a bit behind the curve I only woke up from my mind-numbed stupor that public education put me in a year ago and started really trying to educate myself and form my own ideals a few months ago.

Re: question about "The Natural Elites, Intellectuals and the State" by Hans-Herman Hoppe

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:43:02 GMT

Joshdennis:

I Just read Hoppe's essay and I think I missed something. To me it sounded like it was against democracy and for monarchy. That seems a little contradictory to the idea of individual freedoms usually shown by libertarian/ austrian economics philosophys so I assume didn't understand something. I'm going to reread it but if someone could correct me that would be great.

It's a matter of ordinal preference. Hoppe prefers anarchy to monarchy, but monarchy to democracy. To Hoppe monarchy is simply "less bad" than democracy, because the monarch has some of the positive incentives of a property owner, yet does not have the false veil of legitimacy that democracy has: a veil which often provides cover for atrocities.

question about "The Natural Elites, Intellectuals and the State" by Hans-Herman Hoppe

Josh Dennis — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:35:00 GMT

I Just read Hoppe's essay and I think I missed something. To me it sounded like it was against democracy and for monarchy. That seems a little contradictory to the idea of individual freedoms usually shown by libertarian/ austrian economics philosophys so I assume didn't understand something. I'm going to reread it but if someone could correct me that would be great.