The first, and perhaps biggest, treat of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s talk to Free Exchange on May 20 came in the opening part of his talk, which was also the most original. Hoppe, an economist who joined the faculty of the University of Nevada--Las Vegas along with Murray Rothbard, divided his talk into three parts: what’s wrong with the present system, what’s a better alternative, and how to get there. Surely all those in attendance would have considered themselves experts on the first of these; but Hoppe’s provocative approach to the topic was to contrast democracy unfavorably with monarchy.

The problem is essentially that democracy seduces us with the illusion of self-rule. We offer less resistance to tyranny when we are all potential rulers. The right of the British king to tax and to legislate was disputed by many 18th-century intellectuals, Hoppe contended; but the American Constitution, in contrast, unequivocally established the right of the government to tax and to legislate. Worse still, the king, as owner of the country, had an interest, like any other property owner, in preserving its value over the long term. Members of Congress, on the other hand, have a more custodial role, and a correspondingly shorter time preference. The incentive is for them to grab what they can. It was possible, moreover, for the king to be a decent person. In fact, bad kings were often killed by family members who feared the undermining of the dynasty. On the other hand, to become the leader in a democracy, as is well known, you have to be a demagogue, a liar, and a cheat. And the people are corrupted along with the rulers: Once brought up not to covet other people’s property, they are (see Hoppe, p. 2)

Here’s your chance to get out and do something for liberty, besides just sending in all those checks! We need marchers for the Gay Freedom Day Parade on Sunday, June 25. As a celebration of tolerance and diversity ("Come out, come out, whatever you are"), the parade finds people in their most receptive, welcoming mood. Thus as an opportunity for making friends and allies in liberal San Francisco, it is surely unsurpassed.

Not only that. This year, they’re playing our song: The theme of the celebration is "It’s About Freedom." Don’t you think we need people carrying some big signs saying, "THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY IS ALL ABOUT FREEDOM"? Or maybe you can think of some even better slogans for the occasion. We will not be permitted to throw things from the parade without special permission, but we can distribute leaflets to any bystanders who look the least bit excited by our ideas; and this year we will have two pamphlets devoted expressly to the libertarian view of gay rights.

Starchild’s wife Chikako Suzuki is making a banner for the parade, but we will need somebody marching behind it, and preferably more than one or two people, if the Libertarian Party isn’t going to look really pathetic. Libertarians are so famously introverted and reclusive that marching in a parade would be about as appealing to many of us as a tax audit. But there are mitigating considerations. Marching in the contingent, you will be somewhat insulated from the hoi-polloi. The people surrounding you will be other Libertarians, from whom you can easily keep a reasonable distance. As libertarians, they are practically guaranteed to be less friendly than the average person.

If you’ve ever harbored, on the other hand, a fantasy of being a fascist for a day, we have a special role for you. Like other contingents our (probable) size, we are required to have two monitors, or else we will not be permitted to march. The role of monitor is essentially to keep the crowd from interfering in the parade. In practice, action of any sort is rarely required, and your (see Parade, p. 2)

main job is simply to walk down the street looking official, and possibly fierce. Your behavior and dress are somewhat constrained by the role; you will not be able to carry a sign, and you will have to wear a special button to identify you as an official authority.

Monitors are required to attend one of seven 2-hour training sessions. The schedule is as follows:

• Saturday, June 10, 1 p.m.: Billy De Frank Center, 938 The Alameda, San Jose.

• Sunday, June 11, 1 p.m.: The Eagle, 398 12th Street at Harrison, San Francisco.

• Tuesday, June 13, 5:30 p.m.: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, Large Conference Room, San Francisco.

• Wednesday, June 14, 7 p.m.: White Horse Tavern, Telegraph and 66th Street, Oakland.

• Thursday, June 15, 7 p.m.: Fox Plaza, 1390 Market Street, 2nd floor, San Francisco.

• Saturday, June 17, 1 p.m.: Metropolitan Community Church, 150 Eureka Street, San Francisco.

• Sunday, June 18, 3 p.m.: Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, 290 Dolores at 16th Street, San Francisco.

If you would be willing to march, or to serve as a monitor--or even think you might--please let Mike Acree know at (415) 668-5794, so we will know whether we will be able to have a contingent after all. It wouldn’t hurt to have more than two people trained as monitors, as insurance in case somebody can’t make it at the last minute.

Assuming a sufficient response to make possible a contingent, we will meet at our assigned location on Beale Street between Harrison and Bryant between 11:15 and 1:30. The instructions say that the contingent should be in place by 11:15, but that we may not be moving--given our position near the end of the parade (#199.0--at least we got a whole number!)--until 1:30 or so.

That means that we will not be reaching Civic Center until midafternoon, and will consequently need people to staff our booth there from 9 a.m. until reinforcements arrive from the parade. We have one or two people who have volunteered to staff the booth, but they would certainly welcome some relief for bathroom and food breaks before midafternoon.

We have drawn a slightly better location for our booth this year, in terms of centrality and sunshine. We will be on the north side of McAllister between Larkin and Hyde. Hope to see you there!

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now bred for envy. Interestingly, anarchy is sometimes assumed, even by libertarians, to be practical only on a small scale, such that people generally know each other, and it wouldn’t be easy for criminals to skip from one community to another. But Hoppe argued, on the contrary, that democracy is practical, if at all, only on a small scale, where people wouldn’t want to loot their neighbors.

A minimalist government is inherently unstable, as historical experience suggests. Without competition for protective services, these services diminish and become more costly, and the tax burden increases. The natural providers of protection are those with a financial stake in your security, namely insurance companies. Insurance companies indemnify victims, whereas governments couldn’t care less. In fact, governments tax victims to imprison those who assaulted them, and they charge survivors inheritance taxes. Insurance companies often recover stolen property, because it is directly in their interest to do so; police rarely do. Insurance companies, being in competition, have incentives to reduce costs; police salaries are not dependent on success in crime prevention. The government currently prohibits insurance companies from discriminating between different risk groups, and forces them to insure some otherwise uninsurable risks. On a free market, risky persons would pay more, and self-protection would be encouraged; people who had guns and were good shots would get cheaper rates.

What insurance companies would not do is to make laws. Nor would they insure us against prostitution or drug use by other people. They would also not wage war, since the costs of aggression must generally be externalized through taxation. They would tend to retaliate very precisely against aggressors, lest they be held responsible for damage to innocent parties. Collateral damage, on the (see Hoppe, p. 3)

other hand, matters little to governments. The American government has no problem with killing thousands of civilians, but thinks it immoral to kill Saddam Hussein--perhaps, Hoppe cynically suggests, because it fears retaliation in kind.

Some members of the audience were uncertain about how disputes between protection agencies would be handled without a government. Hoppe explained that these would be handled by arbitration agencies, who would have an interest in preserving a reputation for fairness and would thus not be especially susceptible to being bought by powerful firms. Hoppe made the usual observation that on an international level we have never had anything but anarchy. While the record of relations between nations has been less than ideal, it is not clear that the situation would be improved by a single world government--especially a democracy which would redistribute American wealth to India and China. At present, if a dispute arises between an American and a German businessman, it is handled through arbitration, and there is no obvious reason why this arrangement wouldn’t work without a national government.

As for the question of how to get from here to there, Hoppe is pessimistic about the prospects for eliminating government by taking it over through political means. He argues that there are problems with both a top-down and a bottom-up approach in a democracy. Historically the former was the first one tried. Following the example of Turgot, Menger himself tutored Habsburg Crown Prince Rudolf on the free market; but Rudolf’s preoccupations evidently lay elsewhere: He committed suicide with his lover before the empire could be liberated. A top-down approach is a little trickier in a democracy, since a president can’t abdicate like a king. A bottom-up approach, on the other hand, would entail the majority abolishing democracy, and along with it their right to other people’s property; so that doesn’t look so likely, either.

Hoppe contends that the best prospects lie in secession, but in small-scale, conciliatory secessions rather than the large-scale, confrontive secession of 1861. Small-scale secessions will in the first place, he assumes, be less of a threat to the government. And they can be conciliatory in the sense that people in a given locality can announce that the federal government can keep its property and continue to enforce its laws, only the local people will no longer do it. If Hoppe is right in presuming that the government would not be unduly threatened by many small secessions, then these anarchic localities might grow rather rapidly, because there is a tendency for small political units to be more libertarian. If Monaco were to impose a protectionist trade policy, for example, it would starve.

Ultimately the smallest unit capable of secession is the individual, and at this level we reach the strategy advocated by Samuel E. Konkin III at previous Free Exchanges, of individuals simply withdrawing from the system and "flying below government radar." Hoppe seemed to have more confidence in collective action, however. He noted, in response to a question, that Indian reservations, with their ambiguous status with respect to sovereignty, offer a possible prototype for secessionist efforts.

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[Note: Dr. Edelstein submitted the following report on the March Free Exchange, a debate on animal rights between Tim Starr and Russell Tenofsky, for the April issue of Golden Gate Libertarian.]

One of the telling points for me against animal rights is that a rights system is a rules system. Private property rights, for example, are based on rules governing contracts, boundaries, trespass, homesteading, restitution, etc. However, because animals are incapable of collaboratively agreeing to and acting on rule systems, they cannot be included within them. As much as you explain to a wolf, for example, that eating a lamb is a violation of the lamb's property rights, the wolf will just not get it. And after dinner, the wolf will refuse to pay restitution to the deceased lamb's heirs!

Since animals wantonly violate the responsibilities that rights imply, it cannot meaningfully be asserted that animals have rights.

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David Molony

chair@lpsf.org

(415) 516-3151

Kelly Russell Simpson

KellySimpson@pacbell.net

(415) 487-9325

Vince Grubbs

vwg@sirius.com

(415) 682-9482

Mike Acree

macree@psg.ucsf.edu

(415) 668-5794

Jerry Cullen

gtcullen@slip.net

(415) 567-9642

Mike Denny

mfd@MichaelDenny.net

(415) 616-0643

Starchild

dreamer@ziplink.net

(415) 626-3036

Jerry Pico

picoman@mindspring.com

Opinions expressed in unsigned columns of the Golden Gate Libertarian do not necessarily represent those of anyone but the Editor.

Submissions are encouraged. The deadline (including agenda and calendar items) is the first Thursday of the month. Text sent by e-mail should be put in the body of the message (no attachments) and sent to Mike Acree at <macree@psg.ucsf.edu>. Photos and artwork should be mailed to Mike Acree, 859 45th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94121-3223. Please let us know if you want your item returned.

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Saturday, June 17: Prof. Joe Fuhrig speaking at Free Exchange on "The Traveling Capitalism Show: The Four Basic Questions of Economics." Opera Plaza Homeowners Community Room, 601 Van Ness, between Turk and Golden Gate (take elevator in front of movie theater to mezzanine floor). Potluck at 6:30 (tasty contributions needed; call Jeanie at 415-970-0400), talk at 8.

Saturday, June 17: San Francisco Late Night Coalition Rally at Piers 30-32. Daytime rally features bands, speakers. For more info, call (415) 820-3256 or visit <www.sflnc.org>.

Sunday, June 25: Gay Freedom Day Parade. Volunteers needed! Call Mike Acree, (415) 668-5794.

Direct Action Forum: Call Starchild, 626-3036, for the identity of the next Mystery Speaker.