The experience of teaching the Mises Academy classes was amazing and gratifying, as I noted in my article “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course.” This and similar technology and Internet-enabled models are obviously the wave of the educational future. The students received an in-depth, specialized and personalized treatment of topics of interest to them, with tests and teacher and fellow student interaction, for a very reasonable price, and judging by their comments and evaluations, they were very satisfied with the courses and this online model. For example, for the Hoppe course, as noted in A Happy Hoppean Student, student Cam Rea wrote, about the first lecture of the course:
Move over Chuck Norris, Hans-Hermann Hoppe is in town! The introduction to “The Social Theory of Hoppe” was extremely thorough. I, a relative newcomer to the Hoppean idea, was impressed by Stephan Kinsella’s introduction to the theory. Mr. Kinsella hit upon all of those who came before Hoppe, and how each built upon another over the past two centuries. In other words, as Isaac Newton stated, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Hoppe is the result thus far of those who came before him in the ideals of Austrian Economics and libertarian principles. Nevertheless, Hoppe takes it much further as in the Misesian concept of human action and the science of “praxeology”, from which all actions branch in life.
Overall, the class was extremely enjoyable, the questions concrete, and the answer provided by Mr. Kinsella clear and precise. Like many others in the class, I look forward to more. So tune in next Monday at 7pm EDT. Same Hoppe-time, same Hoppe-channel!
There were also rave reviews given by students of the other courses.
In our latest edition of Radio Free Market World Report, I talk to Roman Skaskiw about the global secession movement and particularly how this applies to the United States and the European Union. We examine why the world’s wealthiest countries, on a per capita basis, tend to be the smallest states, and why the major exception to this general rule, the United States, managed to avoid the trend.
We discuss whether the United States itself should be saved from secession, why European countries tend to be both socialist and independent, and whether the world will move towards a global government or a global constellation of micro-states.
Along the way we mention the Ukraine, Ron Paul, Texas, Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, and Iowa, and many other points in-between.
Roman is a former officer in the US Army who served two full tours in Iraq and Afghanistan who runs his own libertarian website which you can find below:
Professor Hoppe was the keynote speaker at the recent, very successful Australian Mises Seminar, 25-26th November, 2011, held in a private club in the Sydney CBD. Various posts about the event, and the videos released to date (which are in 1080p HD), are linked below.
Some more reports on the seminar and related posts:
The Seminar Guide at http://www.mises.org.au/programme.pdf, or here, a beautifully produced, 108-page programme, full of nice pictures and illustrations of Mises, Rothbard, and others, inspiring quotes, and an overview of the seminar. The main reason for its length is that it contains “Pre-Seminar Reading” (A Primer on Austrian Economics by Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan; the second chapter of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book Economic Science and the Austrian Method, on On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology; Anatomy of the State by Murray N. Rothbard; and What Libertarianism Is by Stephan Kinsella);
A podcast by some of the organizers discussing the Seminar may be found here;
The Mises Seminar, from Thoughts on Freedom, Australian Libertarian Society Blog;
Professor Hoppe spoke at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies on November 9, 2011. The four videos (two lectures with Q & A, one interview, and one seminar with discussion) are below:
The author Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the translator Emanuel-Mihail Socaciu, and the former president of the Mises Institute, Dan Cristian Com?nescu, comment on the significance and ideas of “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism”, and the legacy of the private Mises Seminar in Bucharest. The comments are followed by questions from the audience.
At the invitation of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Romania, on November 8-11, 2011, Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe visited Bucharest for a series of events celebrating 130 years since the birth of Ludwig von Mises and 10 years since the foundation of the Romanian Mises Institute.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe gives a speech on Entrepreneurship with Fiat Property and Fiat Money in the Aula Magna of the Romanian-American University in Bucharest, and answers questions from the audience.
At the invitation of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Romania, on November 8-11, 2011, Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe visited Bucharest for a series of events celebrating 130 years since the birth of Ludwig von Mises and 10 years since the foundation of the Romanian Mises Institute.
PFS member Roman Skaskiw has an interesting article up on Mises Daily today: Is the United States Too Big to Succeed?, full of interesting Hoppean insights comparing the situation in the US to that in Europe.
Roman’s previous Mises Daily article, The Military Mentality, was based on his speech “‘Fighting for Freedom’ in Afghanistan: Unintended Consquences and Military Mentality. A Combat Soldier’s Report,” delivered at the PFS 2011 Annual Meeting (video).
There is a very interesting five part interview (a sixth part is forthcoming), Journey into a Libertarian Future: Part V – Dark Realities (see Part 1, Part 2,Part 3, and Part 4). It’s by Andrew Dittmer, who recently finished his PhD in mathematics at Harvard. Dittmer extensively quotes Hoppe’s writing from his Democracy book in this interview.
As I noted in a previous post, the 3rd Adam Smith Forum was held earlier this month (Nov. 12, 2011) in Moscow. This event was organized by the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, the Libertarian Party of Russia, and others. The Chairman of the ASF Steering Committee was economist Pavel Usanov, head of the Hayek Institute for Economy and Law, and Andrey Shal’nev, head of the federal committee of the Libertarian Party of Russia, was its co-chairman. I was invited to speak but could not attend in person, so my 47-minute speech “Why Intellectual Property is not Genuine Property” was presented remotely, with Russian subtitles. It is below, along with the original version and the English transcript plus the Russian translation, which was prepared by Maxim Tulenin, head of the Moscow branch of the Libertarian Party of Russia.
Professor Hoppe’s article, “Entrepreneurship With Fiat Property and Fiat Money,” was published today on LewRockwell.com, and is based on a speech first delivered at the Edelweiss Holdings Symposion held in Zuerich, Switzerland, on September 17, 2011.
Professor Hoppe’s article, Why Mises (and not Hayek)?, was published in Mises Daily today. It is based on a speech delivered at the Mises Institute Supporters meeting, September 19-23, 2011, Vienna, Austria.
Professor Hoppe taught five classes at the Mises U 2011 in Auburn, Alabama, this past July, including his great speech The Science of Human Action, which kicked off Mises U (his other Mises U 2011 lectures are here). In this speech, Professor Hoppe discusses his intellectual biography and relationship with Rothbard, as well as the Austrian approach and methodology. While he was in town, Jeff Tucker conducted a fascinating interview with him (see video below). In this wide-ranging interview, Professor Hoppe discusses in more detail the history of his intellectual odyssey from leftist to Misesian-Rothbardian, his various books, various topics such as German reintegration, the centralizing effects of constitutions (including the US Constitution and EU), why states with more liberal economies are more imperialist, the interesting and heretofore undisclosed story of exactly how communist policies in East Germany led him to discover Mises, and more.
As announced on B.K. Marcus’s post at the Mises blog today (see below), the Hoppe festschrift that Guido Hülsmann and I edited, Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Mises Institute, 2009), which was already available in PDF and print, is now available in a free epub format as well. Kindle and other ebook formats should be available soon. The festschrift was presented to Professor Hoppe, just a month or so before his 60th birthday, at a private ceremony on July 29, 2009, in Auburn, AL during Mises University 2009 (see Hoppe Festschrift Published). Pictures from the ceremony are embedded below.
Property, Freedom, and Society: Marzipan in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Also, as I noted in Book Review of Hoppe Festschrift, David Howden wrote an excellent review (2) of the festschrift in New Perspectives on Political Economy. And, as I noted in that post, and in Bodrum Days and Nights: The Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society: A Partial Report, as a piece of Festschrift trivia: at the recent Property and Freedom Society conference in Bodrum, Turkey, a guest presented a festschrift-cake he had had made in Estonia, entitled “Property, Freedom, and Society: Marzipan in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe,” which was served as part of the dessert at the closing banquet.
In the magnificent Peter Sellers film, The Mouse That Roared, the strangely English-speaking Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a tiny nation between France and Switzerland, defeats the United States in a rather bizarre nuclear stand-off.
Will another such Duchy, the tiny Italian town of Filettino, similarly defeat the horrible coerced agglomeration known as Italy, inside the even more horrible coerced agglomeration known as the European Union?
We can but hope.
For Filettino has declared its independence from Rome, in a bid to emulate San Marino, Monaco, the Vatican City, and Andorra (and I suppose the Cantons of Switzerland itself, when they shook off the First Reich of the mass murderer Charlemagne, and his rotten Holy Roman Empire).
Obviously, we will see if Filettino’s independence lasts, or if it is just another political stunt, but it is an interesting event to witness nevertheless. For when in the future we look back from ‘Hoppe World’ and work out how we got there, historians will regard such incidents as being symptomatic of a wider terminal malaise of coerced collectivism:
As noted here, the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society was held from Thursday, September 18, 2025 to Tuesday, September 23, 2025, in Bodrum, Turkey, at the Hotel Karia Princess.
Those interested in attending future meetings should contact Mr. Thomas Jacob (jacob@pfs-zurich.ch) (Administrative Secretary/Membership), regarding conditions, availability, and requirements.
Speakers and topics for previous Annual Meetings may be found here.
To donate with BITCOIN please use the address below. If you would like us to credit your payment (for dues, conference fees, etc.) please email Stephan Kinsella (nskinsella@gmail.com) when you make the bitcoin payment.
17M9V6m5X5Da4vNM5wWLjzcHz9qF36FPk6
“Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.” — FrédéricBastiat
“Because the concept of property, for instance, is so basic that everyone seems to have some immediate understanding of it, most people never think about it carefully and can, as a consequence, produce at best a very vague definition. But starting from imprecisely stated or assumed definitions and building a complex network of thought upon them can lead only to intellectual disaster. For the original imprecisions and loopholes will then pervade and distort everything derived from them. To avoid this, the concept of property must first be clarified.” —Hans-Hermann Hoppe, TSC, ch. 2
The Property and Freedom Society (PFS; Facebook) stands for an uncompromising intellectual radicalism: for justly acquired private property, freedom of contract, freedom of association—which logically implies the right to not associate with, or to discriminate against—anyone in one's personal and business relations—and unconditional free trade. It condemns imperialism and militarism and their fomenters, and champions peace. It rejects positivism, relativism, and egalitarianism in any form, whether of "outcome" or "opportunity," and it has an outspoken distaste for politics and politicians. As such it seeks to avoid any association with the policies and proponents of interventionism, which Ludwig von Mises identified in 1946 as the fatal flaw in the plan of the many earlier and contemporary attempts by intellectuals alarmed by the rising tide of socialism and totalitarianism to found an anti-socialist ideological movement. Mises wrote: "What these frightened intellectuals did not comprehend was that all those measures of government interference with business which they advocated are abortive. ... There is no middle way. Either the consumers are supreme or the government."
(A more complete statement of our Principles can be found here.)
Last year I presented four Mises Academy Mises Academy courses:
In our latest edition of Radio Free Market World Report, I talk to Roman Skaskiw about the global secession movement and particularly how this applies to the United States and the European Union. We examine why the world’s wealthiest countries, on a per capita basis, tend to be the smallest states, and why the major exception to this general rule, the United States, managed to avoid the trend.
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