The Monarcho-Libertariano-Anarchists Among Us
This is why higher education is the most interesting institution in modern America. According to this beautifully written piece by David Glenn in the indispensable Chronicle of Higher Education, a professor at UNLV, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, is demanding that the administration retract a disciplinary letter placed in his file after a student complained that the prof's economics lectures belittled gays. "In his lectures, Mr. Hoppe said that certain groups of people -- including small children, very old people, and homosexuals -- tend to prefer present-day consumption to long-term investment. Because homosexuals generally do not have children, Mr. Hoppe said, they feel less need to look toward the future."
Okay - quasi-homophobic, maybe. Somehow relevant to economic theorizing, maybe. Maybe not. (Was Alexander the Great not disposed toward the future?) And maybe the student is whining a little too loudly and unreflectively with sophomoric reasoning like this: "If it's speculation and it's an opinion, then it should not be inside the lecture. I'm there to get an education, and I'm paying for the course. If the professor is bringing in his opinion or bringing in speculation, then that's not true facts." That econ degree from UNLV didn't come with a side order of critical thinking, huh?
Anyhow, Hoppe is a far more than just an economic prof with an attitude. Or rather, his attitude goes further than just his ideas about gays and time preferences. Yes, it sure does. See, Hoppe's economics are those of the Austrian school, whose theoreticians, like Luwig von Mises, "were extremely skeptical toward all forms of taxation and state power." (See the article for a useful link to a Mises site.) Moreover, "Mr. Hoppe hastens to add that, while he prefers monarchy to democracy, he is not a monarchist. His ideal, he wrote in a 1995 essay, is a quasi-anarchistic system in which society is led by a 'voluntarily acknowledged "natural" elite' comprised of 'families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct.'" Wow. Talk about reactionary! Er, wait - talk about futuristic! Right this way, Jeb. Jenna, Barbara, can you stand just behind and to the right of your unka?
And where does this brave intellectual choose to work? In a country where a ruling family holds abolute power, like Saudi Arabia, Brunei, or Ruritania? Why, no, thanks for asking. He pulls down a salary at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, a publicly-funded state university ($165 million in FY 2003). Of course Herr Hoppe does. A crypto-monarchist toiling in the stacks at a state school... I think I just heard the last gasp of the myth of the liberal academy. Michael Bérubé, are you listening, too?
Okay - quasi-homophobic, maybe. Somehow relevant to economic theorizing, maybe. Maybe not. (Was Alexander the Great not disposed toward the future?) And maybe the student is whining a little too loudly and unreflectively with sophomoric reasoning like this: "If it's speculation and it's an opinion, then it should not be inside the lecture. I'm there to get an education, and I'm paying for the course. If the professor is bringing in his opinion or bringing in speculation, then that's not true facts." That econ degree from UNLV didn't come with a side order of critical thinking, huh?
Anyhow, Hoppe is a far more than just an economic prof with an attitude. Or rather, his attitude goes further than just his ideas about gays and time preferences. Yes, it sure does. See, Hoppe's economics are those of the Austrian school, whose theoreticians, like Luwig von Mises, "were extremely skeptical toward all forms of taxation and state power." (See the article for a useful link to a Mises site.) Moreover, "Mr. Hoppe hastens to add that, while he prefers monarchy to democracy, he is not a monarchist. His ideal, he wrote in a 1995 essay, is a quasi-anarchistic system in which society is led by a 'voluntarily acknowledged "natural" elite' comprised of 'families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct.'" Wow. Talk about reactionary! Er, wait - talk about futuristic! Right this way, Jeb. Jenna, Barbara, can you stand just behind and to the right of your unka?
And where does this brave intellectual choose to work? In a country where a ruling family holds abolute power, like Saudi Arabia, Brunei, or Ruritania? Why, no, thanks for asking. He pulls down a salary at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, a publicly-funded state university ($165 million in FY 2003). Of course Herr Hoppe does. A crypto-monarchist toiling in the stacks at a state school... I think I just heard the last gasp of the myth of the liberal academy. Michael Bérubé, are you listening, too?
posted by Christopher Tassava at Tuesday, February 15, 2005
1 Comments:
Yeah, the thing is, without knowing more than I do about Hoppe's work, I can't get too riled about his apparent inconsistencies. I mean, Plato also had this vision of a "voluntarily acknowledged 'natural' elite" who would rule in his Republic. And if you think about it, that WOULD be the best of all possible systems. Hence the attractiveness of the idea "if I (or I and my friends) ruled the world ..." The problem, of course, is deciding who gets to determine who the "natural elite" are. Even the staunchest advocates of democracy haven't typically seen it as the best of all POSSIBLE forms of rule. It just seems to be the best given the kind of folk we are. So to speak. So if Hoppe is like Plato, there's no real inconsistency in his being employed by an American public university: he's just a living example of the gulf between theory and practice.
But, like I say, that opinion is based solely on the article, so it may be that Hoppe is a total conservative wackjob. Any idea?
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