The Economics and Ethics of Private Property

"The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe was first published in 1993 followed by a second edition in 2006.

Brief summary

From the back cover of the second edition:

The topics covered by Hans-Hermann Hoppe are wide-ranging—employment, interest, money, banking, trade cycles, taxes, public goods, war, imperialism, and the rise and fall of civilizations—but the core theoretical insight uniting the entire discussion is as consistently applied here as it is neglected by the economic mainstream: the absolute inviolability of private property as a human right as the basis of continuous economic progress.

The right to private property is an indisputably valid, absolute principle of ethics, argues Hoppe, and the basis for civilizational advance. Indeed, it is the very basis of social order itself. To rise from the ruins of socialism and overcome the stagnation of the Western welfare states, nothing will suffice but the uncompromising privatization of all socialized—that is, government—property and the establishment of a contractual society based on the recognition of private property rights.

Contents

* Preface to the Second Edition
* Preface to the First Edition

Part One – Economics

* 1 Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security
* 2 The Economics and Sociology of Taxation
* 3 Banking, Nation States, and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order
* 4 Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis
* 5 Theory of Employment, Money, Interest, and the Capitalist Process: The Misesian Case Against Keynes
* 6 How is Fiat Money Possible?—or, The Devolution of Money and Credit
* 7 Against Fiduciary Media
* 8 Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem?

Part Two – Philosophy

* 9 On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology
* 10 Is Research Based on Causal Scientific Principles Possible in the Social Sciences?
* 11 From the Economics of Laissez Faire to the Ethics of Libertarianism
* 12 The Justice of Economic Efficiency
* 13 On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property
* 14 Austrian Rationalism in the Age of the Decline of Positivism
* 15 Rothbardian Ethics

Appendix: Four Critical Replies

* Demonstrated Preference and Private Property
* Utilitarians and Randians versus Reason
* Intimidation by Argument
* On the Indefensibility of Welfare Rights

Dedication

Hoppe dedicated the original book to Murray N. Rothbard, who was Hoppe's mentor and colleague in the economics department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Publishing history

* Ludwig von Mises Institute. Auburn, Alabama. January 2006. ISBN 0-945466-40-4.

* Kluwer Academic Publishers (Springer). March 31, 1993. ISBN 0-7923-9328-7.

Excerpts

* [http://www.mises.org/story/2061 Chapter 2, Part I: The Economics of Taxation]
* [http://www.mises.org/story/2068#0 Chapter 2, Part II: The Sociology of Taxation]
* [http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-10.pdf Chapter 10 from the 1993 edition: On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property] (in PDF format) (Chapter 13 in the 2006 edition)
* [http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe7.html Chapter 15: Rothbardian Ethics] (slightly edited)
* [http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-appx.pdf Replies to four critics] in PDF format. (From the 1993 edition appendix)

External links

* [http://mises.org/story/2313 The Hoppeian Way] , a review of the 2006 edition by David Gordon.
* [http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3107 Review in The Freeman of the 1993 edition]
* [http://www.hanshoppe.com/reviews.php#econ-ethics List of links to other reviews]
* [http://propiedadprivada.blogspot.com/2006/02/la-economa-y-la-tica-de-la-propiedad.html Compilation of links to almost every excerpt of Hoppe's book] in the argentinian blog "Propiedad Privada"