“Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Anti-Intellectual Intellectual” (pdf), English translation of Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Potret Intelektual Anti-Intelektual (local version), interview (in Indonesian) by Sukasah Syahdan in Akal dan Kehendak (“Reason and Will,” an online weekly Journal on Liberty, Indonesia), Apr. 28, 2008. The English translation is below.
For other biographical material, see Hoppe Biography.
Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Anti-Intellectual Intellectual
Sukasah Syahdan*
As is sometimes the case even today, Hans-Hermann Hoppe as a young man was also a left-winger. Yet a reading of Böhm-Bawerk’s critiques of Marxism quickly planted a first seed of disbelief in the system, making him aware of the illusion overwhelming the Zeitgeist. For some time, he became a mild Popperian and social democrat. This precursored his determination to examine further the economic science and sociology.
By this time young Hoppe seemed to have arrived at a crucial conclusion: on the existence of sciences whose theorems are ‘empirically’ irrefutable or non-falsifiable, even in social realms. His exploration led him to believe that economic laws are a priori, traceable by use of deductive syllogism. However, it was his exposure to the thoughts of Ludwig von Mises, the eminent scholar of the tradition that later bears his very name, that he came to understand his place amidst the sometimes hostile competing thoughts. He learned that he, a native German, was in fact an “Austrian.”
Follow Us!