Hans-Hermann Hoppe

336. Rothbard at 100 Conference: Talks by Ammous, Hoppe, Kinsella & de Mombynes

- Rothbard on Palestine and property rights: Saifeddin Ammous examined Rothbard's dissection of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, showing how Austrian economics—anchored in property rights—naturally leads to conclusions about land dispossession and the impossibility of displacing an existing population without violent conflict. - Rothbard's prescience on fixed-supply money: Ammous highlighted that Rothbard advocated for a fixed money supply in the 1960s–80s when it seemed heretical, laying intellectual groundwork that later enabled understanding of Bitcoin. - War and empire: Hans Hoppe discussed how internally liberal states—paradoxically—tend to pursue the most aggressive foreign policies, using externalized costs (taxation, conscription) to fund imperial expansion abroad. - Intellectual property critique: Stephen Kinsella presented Rothbard's "greatest hits," emphasizing his defense of argumentation ethics, title-transfer theory of contract, and early opposition to intellectual property and defamation law—areas where Rothbard came close to rejecting IP entirely. - Obstacles to becoming Rothbardian: Hoppe recounted how his generation in post-WWII Germany absorbed official narratives about guilt and democracy, later rejecting them through reading Rothbard on monetary policy, state monopolies, central banking, and affirmative action perversions of justice. - Bitcoin as digital sound money: Opening remarks and closing segments explored whether Rothbard would recognize Bitcoin as fulfilling his vision of money separated from state control, even if he initially preferred gold remonetization.