When Worlds Collude: Hoppe, Bruenig, and their shared vision of the libertarian future (I) – Nolan Chart LLC

Progressive lawyer, online pundit, and internet troll Matt Bruenig has a question forlibertarians: My first question for Cato and libertarians more generally is this: What is upwith Hans-Hermann Hoppe?[1]

I wish I could respond, Who? Alas, I am well aware of Hoppe. Many libertarians and other readers, though, may have just that response. Fortunately, Bruenig hasprovide an introduction:

For the unacquainted, Hoppe is a very prominent libertarian academic, certainly well knownwithin intellectual libertarian circles. He ironically works at the University of Nevada as aneconomics professor, making him a public employee. He publishes frequently in libertarianacademic journals, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, founded theProperty & Freedom Society, is frequently referenced by other libertarians as one of them, and[authored a] 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed. It is a tad on the long side, but itsreally good, the [following] quotes especially.[1]

We will look at Bruenigs quotes later. For now it is enough to say that, while Hoppe does have followers who self-identify as libertarians, many if not most libertarians who know of him want nothing to do with him.

Here is an assessment of Hoppe that I suspect many libertarians who have read him or his admirerswould accept:

The errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe are regrettable for two reasons: Firstly, Hoppe is a highlyintelligent and well-educated economist who for whatever reasons fails to notice when he doesdamage to the values of freedom and property, which he claims to support. This is the tragicpersonal side of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. But it is also tragic for academic discussions: At a timewhen we are surrounded by ever growing welfare states we badly need thinkers like Hoppe to showus how to tackle todays problems. But instead of doing that, Hoppe prefers to take refuge in hispipe dreams of a so-called natural order, which rather resembles the abyss of a variation ofright-wing totalitarianism. For all these reasons, for all his errors and mistakes and for hiswrong-headed methodology we may expect Hoppes ideas to remain a footnote in the history ofpolitical thought. And it may well be better this way. An effective strategy of liberation wouldlook very different. If Hoppe continues to use the terms liberalism and freedom for hisauthoritarian and pseudo-liberal agenda, it is time for the true liberals to claim back theseterms from him.[2]

It is only necessary to add that (1) the very idea of libertarianism that Bruenig claimslibertarians should be following (2) is not only compatible with, but looks like it would result in,Hoppes theorized libertarian society of the future; furthermore, while (3) Hoppes account of that societysuffers from serious flaws and errors, (4) Bruenigs account of that future society, being based on his reading of Hoppe, has the same flaws and errors. Making those four points is easy enough, but demonstrating them requires a bit more work.

Bruenig believes that libertarians should advocate for an ideal state of affairs that he calls Grab-what-you-can world or Grab World. He claims that this is the only possible world compatible with thelibertarian core belief (or set of beliefs) that are referred to under the label of the Non-Aggression Principle or NAP:

The world which follows the non-aggression principle is the one Roderick Long calls the grab-what-you-can world' this quote [from Long] clearly describes the only world that followsthenon-aggression principle the grab-what-you-can world satisfies the non-aggressionprinciple andno other world does almost everyone opposes following the non-aggressionprinciple as itrequires the grab-what-you-can world the grab-what-you-can world is theworld that follows thenon-aggression principle.[3]

This claim follows from Bruenigs definition of force, which is not the standard libertarianone. By his definition, theft, embezzlement, fraud, looting, and other property offensesshould not be considered uses of force: a property offense involves no force (strictly defined) becauseno body has been attacked.[4] By this definition that force is just attacking other peoplesbodies Bruenig reasons his way to Grab World:

Its simple: 1) grabbing pieces of the world does not, by itself, involve initiating forceagainst other people (if it did, then all resource use would be considered aggression), and 2)attacking someone for grabbing up a piece of the world does involve initiating force againstother people.[3]

In Grab World, there is only one law, the Basic Rule: You may not act upon the bodies of otherswithout their consent.[4] Everything else, including the property crimes listed above, wouldbe legal.From this Rule follows the idea of Grab World, as envisioned by its creator, Roderick Long (thelibertarian philosopher from whom Bruenig grabbed the idea):

Imagine a world in which people freely expropriate other peoples possessions; nobody initiatesforce directly against another persons body, but subject to that constraint, people regularlygrab any external resource they can get their hands on, regardless of who has made or been usingthe resource. Any conception of aggression according to which the world so described is free ofaggression is not a plausible one.[5]

Plausibly or not, Grab World is free from aggression (the initiation of force) as Bruenig definesit: in the libertarian set, there seems to be severe difficulties with distinguishing betweenwhat we might call Actual Initiation (defined as who touched who first) and IdeologicalInitiation[6]. What [libertarians] actually mean by initiation of force is not some neutral notionof hauling off and physically attacking someone.[7]

David S. Amato points out that Bruenigs criterion of Actual Initiation as touching would not includepointing a gun at someone else: even the mugger doesnt, underBruenigs Actual Initiation standard, initiate force against his victim, at least notnecessarily. Pointing a gun at someone, with the desired goal of taking his money or possessions,doesnt require the mugger to touch the victim, to make any actual, physical contact.[5] Nor, for that matter, would pulling the trigger. But to be charitable,that conclusion should probably be chalked up to Bruenigs sloppy writing rather than his actualbeliefs; it is reasonable to think that he includes shooting and threatening people with guns,bows and arrows, and bombs as examples of the use of force as well as mere touching.

What seems less reasonable is to imagine the Grab World state of affairs obtaining in reality.Grab World would require a society of pacifists (as, by stipulation, nobody initiates forcedirectly against another persons body). But while difficult to conceive, it is not logicallyimpossible. As a youth I read a speculative fiction novel by Damon Knight, Rule Golden, in whichthe galactic overlords unleashed a gas upon earth which caused everyone who physically hurt another personto experience the victims pain; those who killed others would die.[8] Anyone with enoughimagination could probably think of other ways for Grab World to be instantiated.

So far, so good. But Bruenig makes assumptions about Grab World that do not look so reasonable.Among them:

(1) It is more or less communism, yes.[9] No, it is not. It may resemble the ultimate communistsociety that Karl Marx envisioned; but it rules out any chance to establish the dictatorship of theproletariat that Marx saw as being necessary to get there. In the dictatorship stage, which isall that every self-proclaimed Communist regime has ever reached, there is plenty of property; itjust all belongs to the state. Property rules against trespass, theft, and the like have alwaysbeen enforced by the states violence and bloodshed (as Bruenig likes to call it) under thoseregimes just as strongly as in states with private property; even more violently and bloodily, in many cases.

(2) there is a state that is preventing people from assaulting and battering and the like.[9]Wrong again. States require a division of labor society which in turn requires an exchangeeconomy: since those enforcing the Basic Rule are losing the opportunity to grab or produce goodsand resources or themselves, they must be supported by those who are doing the latter. ButBruenig forecasts that, on grab world, exchange would initially break down completely:

there is no such thing as a non-coercive trade. All trades rely upon violent coercion. I onlytrade with someone because they have a violence voucher that they will redeem [from the state] if I decide to actupon the piece of the world without doing so. They only trade with me for the same reason. If yougot rid of the coercion, which is to say you got rid of violence vouchers, no trading wouldoccur.[6]

Without the possibility of exchange, production of consumer goods would grind to a halt; whowould buy them, when one could just loot for them? But with nothing being produced, at a certainpoint people would start running out of stores to loot; then where would a state get its tools ofviolence, its guns, handcuffs, police cars, prisons, tanks, fighter planes, and all the rest?Given Grab Worlds universal pacifism, those are not things they could go around and grabfrom just anyone.

Even if the state did get manage to get supplied with its tools of violence, it could not usethem, as that would be acting on the bodies of others without their consent, just as it is today.No one could be physically detained, arrested, or held at gunpoint (much less shot) in Grab World. No one couldbe jailed or placed under house arrest awaiting trial, physically compelled to attend a trial(including witnesses or jurors as well as defendants), or punished physically, including byimprisonment, if convicted.

Since Bruenigs Basic Rule forbids anyone to act on the bodies of others, it forbids its ownenforcement. All a state could do to anyone violating Bruenigs Rule, without itself violating the Rule, would be to grab things from him; in other words, the Basic Rule would forbid anyone fromtreating those who violate it any differently from non-violators. That would mean the end of thestate as we know it, and as we have known it for all of recorded history.

(3) It is a propertyless society.[9] There is no reason to think so. As Bruenig admits, there is nothing in Grab World stopping people from developing their own rules and conventions, which could include rules against taking each others property, invading each others homes,killing each others pets, and the like. Those rules could of course include standard libertarianrules respecting property rights, as they would be consensual, and therefore could include allowing others to useforce in response to cases of theft and so on.[11]

Since in communities with such rules, and those communities only, people would be able to produce and tradegoods, it is reasonable to imagine them as coming into immediate being in actual communities;villages and small towns where people know and trust each other. Only such communities could givepeople the property security, and the division of labor, necessary to maintain a more-thanstarvation existence after the cities were looted. However, they could do so only byinstantiating property rights through voluntary community covenants.

It is easy to imagine these proprietary communities expanding to the size of whole counties,walled or fenced off and guarded against outsiders. It would be easy enough (and not necessarilyinvolve any touching) to restrict admission only to those who consented to the community rules onforce. One can even imagine a flood of refugees to them from the cities, all of whom were admitted would haveconsented to the standard libertarian view of defensive force.

Outsiders like Bruenig would still have the negative liberty to invade and loot communities, andsome might do just that; but there is no reason communities would have to merely let them do it.Non-consenters could climb fences, or cut holes in them, to get in to do their looting; but toget out again they would have to let go of their loot; at which point a community police or possecould simply grab it all back. Would-be looters could also tunnel under fences; but communitydefenders could simply destroy the tunnels. (Question for any Bruenig Bros reading: woulddestroying a tunnel with looters in it count as attacking them?)

I have written elsewhere on this evolution.[10] To sum up:rather than a propertyless society, Grab World looks like it would evolve into thestateless world of proprietary communities envisioned by Hoppe, where political power isstripped from the hands of the central government and reassigned to the states, provinces,cities, towns, villages, residential districts, and ultimately to private property owners andtheir voluntary associations.[1]

However, the vision of those libertarian communities imagined by Hoppe looks completely flawed,riddled with conceptual errors. Those errors in turn inspire Bruenig to adopt a similarly flawedaccount filled with the same errors. Documenting that assessment, though, must wait for now.

[1] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Demos, September 11, 2013. http://www.demos.org/blog/9/11/13/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-extraordinaire

[2] Oliver Hartwich, The Errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Open Republic Magazine (Dublin) 1:2 (October 2005). Web, June 9, 2017. https://oliverhartwich.com/2005/10/10/the-errors-of-hans-hermann-hoppe/

[3] Matt Bruenig, What a World Following the Non-Aggression Principle Looks Like, Demos, January 29, 2014. http://www.demos.org/blog/1/29/14/what-world-following-non-aggression-principle-looks

[4] Matt Bruenig, The Lesson of Grab What You Can, Demos, June 3, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140606193500/http://www.demos.org/blog/6/3/14/lesson-grab-what-you-can

[5] David S. Amato, Against Grab World, Libertarianism.org, October 15, 2015. https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/against-grab-world

[6] Matt Bruenig, Violence Vouchers: A descriptive account of property, Matt Bruenig Politics, March 28, 2014. http://mattbruenig.com/2014/03/28/violence-vouchers-a-descriptive-account-of-property/

[7] Matt Bruenig, Can you sustain an economic philosophy solely by begging the question?. Matt Bruenig Politics, October 7,2015. http://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/02/can-you-sustain-an-economic-philosophy-solely-by-begging-the-question/

[8] Damon Knight, Rule Golden, Three Novels. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Print.

[9] Matt Bruenig, Comment, June 23, 2014, to Bruenig, Pick-up basketball and grab what you can. Matt Bruenig Politics, June 22, 2014. http://mattbruenig.com/2014/06/22/pick-up-basketball-and-grab-what-you-can/

[10] George J. Dance, Grab World, Nolan Chart, May 26, 2017. https://www.nolanchart.com/grab-world

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When Worlds Collude: Hoppe, Bruenig, and their shared vision of the libertarian future (I) - Nolan Chart LLC