Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe (ˈhɒpə; ˈhɔpə; born 2 September 1949) is a German-American economist of the Austrian School, philosopher and political theorist. He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the founder and president of the Property and Freedom Society. Hoppe identifies as an austro-libertarian and anarcho-capitalist, and has written extensively in opposition to democracy and in support of voluntary association and disassociation in his book Democracy: The God That Failed. Hoppe was born in Peine, West Germany. He completed his undergraduate studies at Saarland University and received his MA and PhD degrees from Goethe University Frankfurt. He studied under Jürgen Habermas, a leading German intellectual of the post-WWII era, but gradually came to reject Habermas's ideas, and European leftism generally, regarding them as "intellectually barren and morally bankrupt." He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, from 1976 to 1978 and earned his habilitation in Foundations of Sociology and Economics from the University of Frankfurt in 1981. Afterward he taught in West Germany and Italy. From 1986 until his retirement in 2008, Hoppe was a professor in the School of Business at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank that is publisher of much of his work, and was editor of various Mises Institute periodicals. Hoppe has said that Murray Rothbard was his "principal teacher, mentor and master". Hoppe came to the United States through Rothbard on a scholarship from the Center for Libertarian Studies, and Rothbard also established Hoppe at UNLV. Hoppe said he was "working and living side-by-side with him, in constant and immediate personal contact," and said that from 1985 until Rothbard's 1995 death, he considered Rothbard his "dearest fatherly friend". Hoppe was also intimate friends with Ludwig von Mises.