Hans-Hermann Hoppe and the Schism in the Alt-Right Movement

For several years I haven't written anything about Hans-Hermann Hoppe - the former student of Jürgen Habermas who became the leading "philosopher"  of anarch0-libertarianism.  I thought I'd check in with him, since many of his ideas have been embraced by Trumpists and followers of the Alt-Right movement. I recently came across a speech he delivered earlier this fall that directly address the Alt-Right and some of the problems he sees with it. 

There is much Hoppe likes about the Alt-Right movement: the hatred of minorities, the contempt for egalitarianism, the rejection of "social justice".  Like the Alt-Right, Hoppe sees the idea of liberty reserved for white, Western European culture:

We must further recognize that there exist plenty of enemies of liberty as defined by libertarianism and that they, not we, are in charge of worldly affairs; that in many parts of the contemporary world their control of the populace is so complete that the ideas of liberty and of a libertarian social order are practically unheard of or considered unthinkable (except as some idle intellectual play or mental gymnastics by a few “exotic” individuals); and that it is essentially only in the West, in the countries of Western and Central Europe and the lands settled by its people, that the idea of liberty is so deeply rooted that these enemies still can be openly challenged.

And it is these white people of European descent - especially white men - who are victimized by the the enemies of liberty: immigrants, people of color, intellectuals, educators, representatives of "the State".

"Accordingly, given the present constellation of affairs, then, any promising libertarian strategy must, very much as the Alt-Right has recognized, first and foremost be tailored and addressed to this group of the most severely victimized people. White married Christian couples with children, in particular if they belong also to the class of tax-payers (rather than tax-consumers), and everyone most closely resembling or aspiring to this standard form of social order and organization can be realistically expected to be the most receptive audience of the libertarian message (whereas the least support should be expected to come from the legally most “protected” groups such as, for instance, single Black Muslim mothers on welfare)."

So Hoppe agrees with the Alt-Right movement that "white, European culture" is under attack.  Hoppe's problem with the Alt-Right is their advocacy of a white Volksgemeinschaft under some sort of national-socialist order - the antithesis of a libertarian order:

"When (Alt-Right leader Richard) Spencer appeared here, several years ago, he still exhibited strong libertarian leanings. Unfortunately, however, this has changed and Spencer now denounces, without any qualification whatsoever, all libertarians and everything libertarian and has gone so far as to even put up with socialism, as long as it is socialism of and for only white people. What horrifying disappointment!"

For Hoppe, racial purity ("whiteness") doesn't nearly go far enough to achieve a libertarian order.  After all, the enemies of liberty (women, Muslims, African Americans, Hispanics, etc) have all been enabled by white men. Further, the racial "minorities" are genetically ill-equipped and lack the intelligence to carry out their attack on liberty on their own:

"I believe it to be a serious strategic error to make “whiteness” the exclusive criterion on which to base one’s strategic decisions, as some strands of the Alt-Right have suggested to do. After all, it is above all white men that make up the ruling elite and that have foisted the current mess upon us. True enough, the various protected “minorities” mentioned before take full advantage of the legal privileges they have been accorded and they have become increasingly emboldened to ask for ever more “protection,” but none of them and all of them together did not and do not possess the intellectual prowess that would have made this outcome possible, if it were not for the instrumental help that they received and are receiving from white men."

So the true libertarian order can only be achieved by white Christian males who reject the State and are willing to act on their libertarian principles.  Here Hoppe repeats his "solution" that he first put forward in his book Democracy - The God That Failed: the violent removal of any persons or groups that are ethnically and intellectually unfit:

"Just as a libertarian order must always be on guard against “bad” (even if non-aggressive) neighbors by means of social ostracism, i.e., by a common “you are not welcome here” culture, so, and indeed even more vigilantly so, must it be guarded against neighbors who openly advocate communism, socialism, syndicalism or democracy in any shape or form. They, in thereby posing an open threat to all private property and property owners, must not only be shunned, but they must, to use a by now somewhat famous Hoppe-meme, be “physically removed,” if need be by violence, and forced to leave for other pastures. Not to do so inevitably leads to – well, communism, socialism, syndicalism or democracy and hence, the very opposite of a libertarian social order."

Hoppe doesn't say where the "greener pastures" are where the democrats and other enemies will be deported to.  Sobibor and Theresienstadt come to mind. 

So, while Hoppe has major reservations about Trumpism and the Alt-Right movement, he does see some progress towards the realization of his anarch0-fascist utopia. 

See also my blog post: The (Sick) Mind of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

 

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[Leonardo Tolstoyo]

Oh yeah.
It's big brain time.