This is the fourth installment of a six-part interview. For the previous parts, see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Red indicates exact quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s 2001 book “Democracy: The God That Failed.”
ANDREW: The GLOs in your future libertarian society will be continuations of GLOs that exist now – basically large corporations and high net worth individuals. And the modern GLOs are continuations of GLOs that existed in the past.
CODE NAME CAIN: True – GLOs have a long and proud history.
ANDREW: In our society and in the past, both GLOs and regular governments have certain legal rights.
CNC: That’s right. But the legal rights of the governments are all completely illegitimate, whereas the legal rights of GLOs are all completely legitimate. That’s why I act morally when I hide my assets from the U.S. government.
ANDREW: How did it come to happen that the GLOs split into two kinds – the good non-government kind and the bad government kind?
CNC: As the libertarian Robert Nozick says, “Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just.” When rights were first created, the non-government GLOs legitimately claimed them. Since then, they’ve handed them down to their heirs and traded them among themselves. All of these transactions were strictly voluntary, and so all of the rights of modern GLOs are legitimate. On the other hand, governments seized all of their rights unjustly, and nothing that has happened since can transform their illegitimate rights into legitimate ones.
ANDREW: Maybe you should tell us the whole story.
CNC: Prepare to be surprised – mainstream sources have mutilated this history almost beyond recognition.
A long time ago, everybody lived in a state of liberty. Now, in any society that is not entirely primitive, a few men acquire elite status. Owing to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, [or] bravery… some individuals come to possess “natural authority,” and their opinions and judgments enjoy widespread respect. Moreover, because of selective mating and marriage and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are more likely than not passed on within a few noble families.
…. it is these very leaders of the natural elite who typically act as judges and peacemakers, often free of charge, out of a sense of obligation required and expected of a person of authority or even out of a principled concern for civil justice, as a privately produced “public” good. [71]
ANDREW: So the first security GLOs were noblemen, and they got their power because other people recognized their superior leadership qualities. These nobles were basically like little governments, except better because they were non-coercive and respected natural rights.
CNC: Exactly. The great philosopher John Locke understood this principle well. Some bonehead living in Locke’s time had said that governments had much more authority than GLOs… because they sometimes led men into battle. Locke retorted,
A Planter in the West Indies has more [than three hundred slaves in his household], and might, if he pleased… Muster them up and lead them out against the Indians, to seek Reparation upon any Injury received from them, and all this without [being] a Monarch…
In other words, GLOs, such as planters in the West Indies, had the same rights that governments did as far as war-making was concerned.
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