December 14, 2024
During his interview with Gordo Dan on his streaming show, President Javier Milei analyzed points of his administration and referred to current issues, such as "deflation" in Argentina and the progress in the construction of Atucha 3. However, he also harshly crossed Hans-Hermann Hoppe, one of the president's inspirations, but from whom he has distanced himself recently.
During one part of the conversation, the head of state mentioned Hoppe, a German economic philosopher from the paleolibertarian and anarcho-capitalist branches, during an explanation. He was Milei's mentor, but a point of disagreement arose between the two two months ago, when the 75-year-old man gave a lecture at the Property and Freedom Society and, in an analysis of the Argentine president's management, launched many criticisms and questioned his attachment to the United States government.
The head of the Executive Branch spoke about the conference and said:"It was embarrassing. He may know a lot about philosophy and be a good anarcho-capitalist in philosophical terms, but when it comes to politics and monetary theory he is an idiot.He said it was just a matter of closing the Central Bank, but what this man, who says it was the easiest reform, did not realize is that the monetary issue is a liability. That debt was more than 90 days old and Sergio Massa, before leaving, made it go down to one, which meant we ran the risk of it being multiplied fivefold by the size of the monetary base."
He continued: "They thought we were not libertarian liberals, but 'liberated' liberals, like Hoppe. I'm not saying that his books are useless, but he is quite a jerk when it comes to talking about economics." Then he called him an "imbecile" and said that "he admitted not knowing a single fact about Argentina." "The guy made a whole analysis criticizing me as if I had all the public power, it's hilarious."
Hoppe, for his part, was one of Milei's inspirations precisely in the field of paleolibertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. He is a professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a distinguished fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He had studied sociology, politics and economics at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken and at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, until he obtained his doctorate in Philosophy at the Goethe University in 1974.
He has published several books on economic and political analysis, such as Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order (2021), Economics and Ethics of Private Property (1993), A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1988), and Correctly Understanding Libertarianism (2019), among many other publications.
He was also a distinguished student of Murray Rothbard, another of Milei's leading figures from the Austrian School, whom the President admires so much that he named one of his dogs after him. Hoppe began studying under the orthodox economist in 1986 in the United States and remained his close collaborator until his death in 1995. The German also wrote the prologue to the New Yorker's book The Ethics of Liberty.
What Hoppe had said about Milei
During the lecture, the philosopher said: "Milei declared himself a libertarian and anarcho-capitalist who sees the State as a gangster organisation that considers taxation as theft and wants to reduce it to nothing. That is his avowed programme. As his source of inspiration are, first of all, my teacher and mentor Rothbard, and, also me, so I feel entitled to make some comments about this guy, who is supposed to have been inspired by me as well."
"I obviously prefer Milei over other people. But from the point of view of an anarcho-capitalist, which he claims is his philosophical conviction, he is a disaster," he explained, adding: "I do not agree with those libertarian circles that want to make him a hero. He is not a hero."
Among other points, Hoppe criticized the Argentine president's alignment with the United States: "There is a kind of love affair between Milei and all the institutions responsible for evil in the world. He loves the American government, which is the most imperialist, and he aligns himself with it."
This originally appeared on The Nation.