Hoppe - Economy, Society and History; transcription thread

[Nielsio]

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and senior fellow of the Mises Institute, presents a thorough reconstruction of the foundation of economics, social theory, and politics. Sweeping in scope and powerfully persuasive, these talks are the basis of a grand treatise in the Misesian-Rothbardian tradition.

http://www.mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=66
http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/hoppe/

1. The Nature of Man and the Human Condition: Language, Property, and Production
2. The Spread of Humans Around the World: The Extension and Intensification of the Division of Labor
3. Money and Monetary Integration: The Growth of Cities and the Globalization of Trade
4. Time Preference, Capital, Technology, and Economic Growth
5. The Wealth of Nations: Ideology, Religion, Biology, and Environment
6. The Production of Law and Order: Natural Order, Feudalism, and Federalism
7. Parasitism and the Origin of the State
8. From Monarchy to Democracy
9. State, War, and Imperialism
10. Strategy: Secession, Privatization, and the Prospects of Liberty


As far as I know Hoppe didn't publish a book where he wrote this all down, although many parts of it are contained in 'Democracy, the God that failed' and other publications.

The thing is though that this series is so good because it's all encompassing. It starts with the basis of society and human history, leading all the way to the conclusions for today. It's very 'On Capitalism' that way.

I think if we can get this series down to 10 pages or so it would be a great handout, maybe even shorter or different versions. It could (then) also function as the basis for a new misesmedia/zeitgeist style documentary.

[Nielsio]

1. The Human Condition and the Nature of Man
What I want to do is reconstruct human history; from the bottom up and gradually expand the picture. The first part will describe the human condition and the nature of man. Three elements are more or less unique to mankind: language, property, and production/technology.

1.1 Language
Why do people cooperate at all, some people might ask. But that debate is already taking place using language. They are already making use of tools that have evolved. Language evolved between around two hundred thousand and five hundred thousand years ago. So man is a social animal and the advantage of cooperation is already realized. The purpose of language and communication is to convey knowledge.

Language can be divided into four functions. The first is the expressive function: to express an emotion or personal state (I am hungry). The second is the signal function: to cause action in others (run away!). The third is the descriptive function: informing others about the state of something other than itself (the water is cold). The fourth is the argumentative function: trying to convince others of the truth-value of something (we won't see bears because they sleep in the winter) or to deliberate an action (we have to get more wood or else we will be cold tonight). The descriptive and argumentative functions are almost unique to humans. Describing something requires the use of concepts, and arguments are complex combinations of AND, OR, IF, and so on. Apart from the very basics, the animal kingdom is unfamiliar with this use of language. In the same way, the use of abstractions and concepts is not something most animals can think about. They might conclude something through trial and error but they cannot reason why it does or doesn't work.

Like us, animals have consciousness. They feel, they think, they make judgments, they can make mistakes. But their thoughts are tied to their perception. Humans however use imagination. They can think about things far away and in the future, or things that don't even exist. So their thoughts are freed up from perception.

Humans have self-consciousness; awareness of our own persona and the ability to reflect on it. There is evidence that a handful of animals have some of this capacity but humans excel in it. We can think about our own behavior: why were we successful or why weren't we, what values are important for us and which goals should we set? For this end we form norms and principles against which to judge our behavior.

1.2 Property
We are constantly pressed by various needs and have to act to satisfy these needs. Besides our consciousness and our body, there are things outside of our body. Certain things we can control directly. We can directly control our own body. Nobody else can do this. Through our body we can indirectly attempt to control others. This is why we have the concept of “I”, of “me”. From our person we will things and we cause things. This is a unique relationship that we have with our body.

The things that are out there and that we can control indirectly are means. Things also exist that we cannot control, this we conceptualize as the environment; that which is beyond our control. The line between the two is movable. Things we could not control become controllable.

Some of the things we can manipulate are goods and some are bads. Economic goods are those things that are suitable to satisfy some needs. Bads don't satisfy any needs and may harm us or even kill us. Some goods are immediately useful. Most things are only indirectly useful. They require transformation, using our intelligence. These are producer goods.

Our body is our property; we have a unique relationship with it. With economic means, a similar idea arises. Those people who appropriate a certain object, to bring it under their control, in order to satisfy certain desires, have thereby also established a unique relationship with those things that they have, for the first time, appropriated. Maybe not in the same direct way as with my body; but as an extension of my body. I used after all my body to appropriate these things, and in this way I have a unique relationship with these objects as well. And as such, appropriators consider it theirs.

With a second person conflicts over scarce goods become possible. It is not possible that conflicts can arise over things that are in superabundance. Whatever you do to the goods does not affect other people because it exists in superabundance. Things caused by the environment also cannot cause conflicts because we cannot influence it.

In case of a conflict, one can try to justify a claim by pointing out their objective, noticeable connection between them and the good, whereas another might not have any connection with the good. From a very primitive stage on, people have been willing to defend these objects from invasions by other people. If they did not, then they would indicate that they do not consider it their property. If I put up the slightest resistance, I show that I feel that I am the owner.

1.3 Production and Technology
Man is capable of producing things and of developing technology. Animals live a mostly consuming life. They eat something and diminish the amount of things that are available on earth, but they rarely set out to increase the future amount of things available to them. And where they do it is evolution and genetic information that determines their behavior. The smarter the animal, the more it allows for learned information.

Man has a distinctive lack of specialized organs and instincts that make them basically incapable unless they develop substitutes for this lack of natural equipment. Man needs culture to survive in nature. The two most important tools he has are his hands and his brain, but neither of these tools can be described as a specialized tool; except that they are specialized in not being specialized. They are useful for a wide variety of purposes. We have to learn what we can do with our hands and our brain has to learn what it can do.

In our technological development we try to substitute for the lack of organs that we do not have, strengthen the capabilities that we do possess or outright relieve us of certain efforts altogether. With a tool, the force and mental effort necessary still have to be done by the human subject itself, but it makes it easier for us. With a machine, we no longer need to provide the force, and the mental effort can be far reduced. Finally, with an automaton, the 'final purpose' of technology is reached, because things are done without our physical or mental contribution.

In the history of technological development there exists another tendency: the gradual substitution of organic materials and forces by inorganic materials and forces. We've moved from stones, wood and bones, to bronze made out of copper and tin, to iron and finally steel. We've used increasingly cement, coal instead of wood, steel ropes to replace leather and hemp ropes, synthetic colors, synthetic medicines, and we've made ourselves successively independent from the thus far available energy sources such as wood and oxen to oil, water power and nuclear energy.


(latest edit: March 25)

[Nielsio]

(first draft)

2. The Spread of Humans Around the World: The Extension and Intensification of the Division of Labor

Around 500,000 years ago, the size of the brain as we have today is first reached in the ancestors of man. Our own species is roughly 200,000 years old. With the advent of man, a fully developed language is also reached.

Man spread out from Africa 60 thousand to 70 thousands years ago to Asia, living alongside and replacing species from which it evolved, who had spread out of Africa earlier. The oldest findings of a human skeleton in China are 67 thousand years old. Man reached Australia roughly 55 thousand years ago. So the expansion from Africa to Australia took roughly 10 thousand years.

There have been four glacial periods in the last 900,000 years. Each lasted about 75 thousand years. The latest one lasted from 25 thousands to 13 thousands years ago. During these glacial periods the levels of the oceans dropped considerably due to more snow and ice covering the land, allowing travel by foot or by small boats between the Islands of South East Asia (Borneo, Indonesia, Australia, etc).

The Sahara Desert is 3 thousand years old. This region could be used for hunting and gathering and some agricultural purposes, before that time.

The next break-off is to Europe roughly 40 to 43 thousand years ago. The latest split off is to America through the Bering Straight (between Russia and Alaska), between 15 and 50 thousand years ago.

The spreading of the population over the American continent and South America is estimated to have taken about a thousand years; averaging some 8 miles per year. This occurred by foot or by boat, which was the fastest way of travelling until the domestication of horses, around 6 thousand years ago. Primitive horses lived on the American continent, but died out at the end of the last ice age around 10 to 12 thousand years ago. Horses then come to the Americas with the arrival of the Europeans. The early Americans also did not have wheels. Carrying and dragging was the means of transport.

12 to 10 thousand years ago, people remained hunters and gatherers, moving around at small speeds and in small bands, but with some connection (raising the effective group size) as complete isolation leads to genetic degeneration. The density of humans was very low: hunting and gathering allows to roughly 1 person per square mile. For larger populations, the earth did not produce enough food stuff to support them. Population growth was also very low and high mortality rates existed. The estimated population 100 thousand years ago was 50 thousand. The estimate for 10 thousand years ago is between 1 and 15 million. That is roughly a doubling of the population every 13 to 14 thousand years. From the 1950s, the population has doubled every 35 years.

During the hunting and gathering age, groups broke away from each other when not enough food stuff was available, and expanded to different areas, further and further along; sometimes by boat. For groups that have a distinguishable genetic distance, the explanation is that intermingling was minimized or sometimes stopped altogether for very long periods of time. A glacial period could make a mountainous area impassable (the Alps), or islands such as Borneo or Australia could not be reached or left.

The number of languages among humans is, similarly, a function of contact between groups. As hunters and gatherers they were essentially many small societies and so would have had each their own language. When groups have different goods and can trade them (division of labor) then wider communication has an economic advantage. Currently there are around 6,000 languages. Near a thousand of them are spoken in Papua New Guinea. Half of those have no more than 500 speakers. The level of specialization and trade has to be very low. Isolated groups do not adopt things learned elsewhere and may stand still in their development. Groups can even unlearn things that were previously accumulated.

10 to 12 thousand years ago, the Neolithic ("New Stone Age") revolution came about. The population had continually grown and it became harder to break off and find new land to hunt and gather. More people wanted to live in the same areas. Land was no longer a free good. Agriculture starts in the most suitable habitats, in terms of climate and available plants, and later, animals. So then areas were turned into productive use, fenced off and claimed as theirs.

Once humans became more permanently settled, they could start making things and storing things that they otherwise could not. The division of labor intensifies: the things that could now be specialized in became more diverse. There is also a certain amount of inter regional trade developing where previously there was almost no trading whatsoever. Innovations and knowledge spreads in a regular and permanent way. The direction of spreading is always from the center of civilization.

As agricultural societies were more productive, they grew in numbers, in capital and started to use more and more land. It takes about 5,000 years for agriculture to reach a place like England; approximately 1 kilometer per year. The remaining hunters and gatherers become outnumbered, outcompeted, absorbed, or moved to the fringes. Today, hunting and gathering is almost non-existent.

After the Neolithic revolution, the population doubles in under every 1300 years, compared to 13 thousand years prior to it. 10 thousand years ago there were roughly 5 million people, 2 thousand years ago there were between 170 and 400 million people.

The development of society can be described by the enlargement of its membership and by the enlargement of the aims of its activities. Originally confined to the narrowest circles of people, the division of labor gradually becomes more general until eventually it includes all mankind. This process is far from complete and never at any point in history completed. The area in which the individual provides for his own consumption becomes constantly narrower, and the individual and the group become ever more prosperous.

(latest edit: June 12)

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