DemocracyThe God That Failed

by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

  Libertarians, in their attempt to establish a free natural social order, must strive to regain from the state the right to exclusion inherent in private property. Yet even before they accomplish this and in order to render such an achievement even possible, libertarians cannot soon enough begin to reassert and exercise, to the extent that the situation still permits them to do so, their right to exclusion in everyday life. Libertarians must distinguish themselves from others by practicing (as well as advocating) the most extreme form of intolerance and discrimination against egalitarians, democrats, socialists, communists, multiculturalists, environmentalists, ill manners, misconduct, incompetence, rudeness, vulgarity, and obscenity. Like true conservatives, who will have to dissociate themselves from the false social(ist) conservatism of the Buchananites and the neoconservatives, true libertarians must visibly and ostentatiously dissociate themselves from the false multicountercultural and anti-authoritarian egalitarian left-libertarian impostors.

  11

  On the Errors of Classical Liberalism and the Future of Liberty

  I

  Classical liberalism has been in decline for more than a century. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, in the U.S. as well as in Western Europe, public affairs have increasingly been shaped instead by socialist ideas. In fact, the twentieth century may well be described as the century par excellence of socialism: of communism, fascism, national socialism, and most enduringly of social democracy (modern American liberalism and neoconservatism).1

  1The term liberalism here and in the following is used in its original or classical meaning as defined, for instance, by its foremost twentieth-century proponent, Ludwig von Mises, in his 1927 treatise Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition (Irvingtonon-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1985), on p. 19:

  The program of liberalism ... if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production (for in regard to commodities ready for consumption, private ownership is a matter of course and is not disputed even by the socialists and communists). All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand.

  By contrast, modern American "liberalism" has almost the opposite meaning, which can be traced back to John Stuart Mill and his 1859 book On Liberty as the fountainhead of modern moderate—social-democratic—socialism. Mill, notes Mises (ibid., p. 195),

  is the originator of the thoughtless confounding of liberal and socialist ideas that led to the decline of English liberalism and to the undermining of the living standards of the English people. . . . Without a thorough study of Mill it is impossible to understand the events of the last two generations [1927!]. For Mill is the great advocate of socialism. All the arguments that could be advanced in favor of socialism are elaborated by him with loving care. In comparison with Mill all other socialist writers—even Marx, Engels, and Lassalle—are scarcely of any importance.

  For a detailed and devastating critique of John Stuart Mill from a liberal-libertarian perspective see Murray N. Rothbard, Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1995), vol. 2, chap. 8.

  To be sure, this decline has not been a continuous one. Matters did not always become worse from a liberal viewpoint. There were also some reprieves. As a result of World War II, for instance, West Germany and Italy experienced significant liberalization in comparison to the status quo ante under national socialism and fascism. Similarly, the collapse of the communist Soviet Empire in the late 1980s has led to a remarkable liberalization across Eastern Europe. However, as much as liberals welcomed these events, they were not indicative of a renaissance of liberalism. Rather, the liberalization of Germany and Italy in the aftermath of World War II and the current post-communist liberalization of Eastern Europe were the outcome of external and accidental events: of military defeat and/or outright economic bankruptcy. It was in each case liberalization by default of the old system, and the default option adopted subsequently was simply a variant of socialism: social democracy as exemplified by the U.S. as the only surviving—not yet militarily defeated or economically bankrupt—superpower.

  Thus, even if liberals have enjoyed a few periods of reprieve, ultimately the displacement of liberalism by socialism has been complete. Indeed, so complete has been the socialist victory that today, at the beginning of the twentieth-first century, some neoconservatives have waxed triumphantly about the "End of History" and the arrival of the "Last Man," i.e., of the last millenium of global, U.S.-supervised social democracy and a new homo socio-democraticus.2

  2See Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History?" The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989); idem, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Avon Books, 1993). Summing up his own thesis, Fukuyama there writes that

  I argued that a remarkable consensus concerning the legitimacy of liberal [i.e., social-democratic] democracy as a system of government had emerged throughout the world over the past few years, as it conquered rival ideologies like hereditary monarchy, fascism, and most recently communism. More than that, however, I argued that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and the "final form of human government," and as such constituted "the end of history." That is, while earlier forms of government were characterized by grave defects and irrationalities that led to their eventual collapse, liberal democracy was arguably free from such fundamental internal contradictions This did not mean that the natural cycle of birth, life, and death would end, that important events would no longer happen, or that newspapers reporting them would cease to be published. It meant, rather, that there would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled, (pp. xi-xii)

  II

  Even if one regards the Hegelian aspirations of this interpretation as preposterous, according to which liberalism marks only a transitory stage in the evolution of the fully-developed social democratic man,3 liberals still must be pained at the mere appearance of truth of neoconservative philosophizing. Nor can they console themselves with the knowledge that social democracy also is bound to collapse economically. They knew that communism had to collapse, yet when it did, this did not inaugurate a liberal renaissance. There is no a priori reason to assume that the future breakdown of social democracy will bear any more favorable results.

  The neoconservative movement to which Fukuyama belongs emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the American left became increasingly involved with Black Power politics, affirmative action, pro-Arabism, and the "counterculture." In opposition to these tendencies, many traditional left-wing (frequently former Trotskyite) intellectuals and cold war "liberals," led by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, broke ranks with their old allies, frequently crossing over from the long-time haven of left-wing politics, the Democratic party, to the Republicans. Since then the neoconservatives, while insignificant in sheer numbers, have gained unrivaled influence in American politics, promoting typically a "moderate" welfare state ("democratic capitalism"), "cultural conservatism" and "family values," and an interventionist ("activist") and in particular Zionist ("pro-Israel") foreign policy. Represented by figures such as Irving Kristol and his wife Gertrude Himmelfarb, and son William Kristol; Norman Podhoretz and his wife, Midge Decter, son John Podhoretz, and sons-in-law Steven Munson and Elliott Abrams; by Daniel Bell, Peter Berger, Nathan Glazer, Seymour Martin Lipset, Michael Novak, Aaron Wildavsky, James Q. Wilson; and journalist-commentators such as David Frum, Paul Gigot, Morton Kondracke, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Lind, Joshua Muravchik, Emmett Tyrrell, and Ben Wattenberg, the neoconservatives now exercise controlling interest in such publications as National Interest, Public Interest, Commentary, the New Republic, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, and they have close ties to several major foundations such as Bradley, Olin, Pew, Scaife, and SmithRichardson. See on
this Paul Gottfried, The Conservative Movement, rev. ed, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993); also George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America (New York: Basic Books, 1976).

  3Thus, writes Fukuyama,

  for a very large part of the world, there is now no ideology with pretensions to universality that is in a position to challenge liberal democracy, and no universal principle of legitimacy other than the sovereignty of the people. . . . we have trouble imagining a world that is radically better than our own, or a future that is not essentially democratic and capitalist. ... we cannot picture to ourselves a world that is essentially different from the present one, and at the same time better.... it is precisely if we look not just at the past fifteen years, but at the whole scope of history, that liberal democracy begins to occupy a special kind of place.... there is a fundamental process at work that dictates a common evolutionary pattern for all human societies - in short, something like a Universal History of mankind in the direction of liberal democracy.... if we are now at a point where we cannot imagine a world substantially different from our own, in which there is is no apparent or obvious way in which the future will represent a fundamental improvement over our current order, then we must also take into consideration the possibility that History itself might be at an end. (The End of History, pp. 45-51)

  Assuming that the course of human history is determined by ideas (rather than "blind forces") and historical changes are the result of ideological shifts in public opinion, it follows that the socialist transformation of the last hundred years must be understood as the result of liberalism's intellectual—philosophical and theoretical—defeat, i.e., the increasing rejection in public opinion of the liberal doctrine as faulty.4 In this situation, liberals can react in two ways. On the one hand, they may still want to maintain that liberalism is a sound doctrine and that the public rejects it in spite of its truth. In this case, one must explain why people cling to false beliefs, even if they are aware of correct liberal ideas.5 Does the truth not always hold its own attraction and rewards? Furthermore, one must explain why the liberal truth is increasingly rejected in favor of socialist falsehoods. Did the population become more indolent or degenerate? If so, how can this be explained?6 On the other hand, one may consider the rejection as indicative of an error in one's doctrine. In this case, one must reconsider its theoretical foundations and identify the error which can account not only for the doctrine's rejection as false but more importantly for the actual course of events. In other words, the socialist transformation must be explained as an intelligible and systematically predictable progressive deconstruction and degeneration of liberal political theory originating in and logically arising from this error as the ultimate source of all subsequent socialist confusion.

  Ill

  Liberalism's central and momentous error lies in its theory of government.7

  4See on this Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1985), esp. part 4.

  5For an attempt in this direction see Ludwig von Mises, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1972).

  6For an attempt in this direction see Seymour Itzkoff, The Decline of Intelligence in America (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994). Itzkoff here undertakes to explain the social degeneration observable in particular in the U.S. as the outcome of dysgenic effects promoted by public welfare policies.

  7See on the following in particular Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (Boston: Kluwer, 1993).

  Classical-liberal political philosophy—as personified by Locke and most prominently displayed in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence—was first and foremost a moral doctrine. Drawing on the philosophy of the Stoics and the late Scholastics, it centered around the notions of self-ownership, original appropriation of nature-given (unowned) resources, property, and contract as universal human rights implied in the nature of man qua rational animal.8 In the environment of princely and royal rulers, this emphasis on the universality of human rights placed the liberal philosophy naturally in radical opposition to every established government.9 For a liberal, every man, whether king or peasant, was subject to the same universal and eternal principles of justice, and a government either could derive its justification from a contract between private property owners or it could not be justified at all.10 But could any government be so justified?

  The affirmative liberal answer is well-known. It set out from the undeniably true proposition that, mankind being what it is, murderers, robbers, thieves, thugs, and con artists will always exist, and life in society will be impossible if they are not threatened with physical punishment. In order to maintain a liberal social order, liberals insisted, it is necessary that its members be in the position to pressure (by threatening or applying violence) anyone who does not respect the life and property of others to acquiesce to the rules of society. From this correct premise, liberals concluded that this indispensable task of maintaining of law and order is the unique function of government.11

  8See also Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1946), esp. chaps. 8 and 13; Richard Tuck, Natural Rights: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Murray N. Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1995), vol. 1, esp. chap. 4: HansHermann Hoppe, "The Western State as a Paradigm: Learning from History," Politics and Regimes. Religion and Public Life 30(1997).

  9Thus, Ludwig von Mises, Nation, State, and Economy (New York: New York University Press, 1983) characterizes liberalism as "hostile to princes" (p. 33). In order to avoid any misunderstanding it should be noted, however, that this sweeping verdict applies, and is indeed applied by Mises only to the "absolute" rulers of seventeenthand eighteenth-century Europe. It does not apply also to earlier, medieval kings and princes, who were typically just primus inter pares, i.e., voluntarily acknowledged authorities held to be subject to the same universal natural law as everyone else. See on this Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948).

  10Thus Cassirer writes:

  The doctrine of the state-contract becomes in the seventeenth century a self-evident axiom of political thought. . . . this fact marks a great and decisive step. For if we adopt this view, if we reduce the legal and social order to free individual acts, to a voluntary contractual submission of the governed, all mystery is gone. There is nothing less mysterious than a contract. A contract must be made in full awareness of its meaning and consequences; it presupposes the free consent of all parties concerned. If we can trace the state to such an origin, it becomes a perfectly clear and understandable fact. (The Myth of the State, pp. 172-73)

  Whether this conclusion is correct or not hinges on the definition of government. It is correct if government simply means any individual or firm that provides protection and security services to a voluntary paying clientele of private property owners. However, this was not the definition of government adopted by liberals. For a liberal, government is not simply a specialized firm. Rather, government possesses two unique characteristics. Unlike a normal firm, it possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of jurisdiction (ultimate decisionmaking) and the right to tax. However, if one assumes this definition of government, then the liberal conclusion is false. It does not follow from the right and need for the protection of person and property that protection rightfully should or effectively can be provided by a monopolist of jurisdiction and taxation. To the contrary, it can be demonstrated that any such institution is incompatible with the rightful and effective protection of property.

  According to liberal doctrine, private property rights logically and temporally precede any government. They are the result of acts of original appropriation, production, and/or exchange from pri
or to later owner and concern the owner's right to exclusive jurisdiction over definite physical resources. In fact, it is the very purpose of private property to establish physically separate domains of exclusive jurisdiction in order to avoid possible conflicts concerning the use of scarce resources.12 No private property owner can possibly surrender his right to ultimate jurisdiction over and physical protection of his property to someone else unless he sells or otherwise transfers his property (in which case someone else gains exclusive jurisdiction over it). Every property owner may partake of the advantages of the division of labor, however, and seek more or better protection of his property through cooperation with other owners and their property. Every property owner may buy from, sell to, or otherwise contract with anyone else concerning more or better property protection, and every property owner may at any time unilaterally discontinue any such cooperation with others or change his respective affiliations. Thus, in order to meet the demand for protection, it would be rightfully possible and is economically likely that specialized individuals or agencies would arise which would provide protection, insurance, and arbitration services to voluntary clients for a fee.13

  11See Mises, Liberalism, p. 37.

  12The liberal position was summed up nicely by the eighteenth century French physiocrat Mercier de la Riviere, at one time intendant of Martinique and for a brief period advisor to Catherine the Great of Russia, in his L'Ordre Naturel. By virtue of his reason, he explained, man was capable of recognizing the laws leading to his greatest happiness, and all social ills follow from the disregard of these laws of human nature. In human nature, the right of self-preservation implies the right to property, and any individual property in man's products from the soil requires property in the land itself. But the right to property would be meaningless without the freedom of using it, so liberty is derived from the right to property. People flourish as social animals, and through trade and exchange of property they maximize the happiness of all. See Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, p. 370.