Hoppean Property Theory

= on the ideas of Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Discussion

Andrew Allison:

"Hoppe, as you might have guessed, is a proponent of the fourth solution; property. Hoppe’s property rules set out the rules for when and how men can use resources. The rules are as follows:

Everyone is the proper owner of his own physical body as well as of all places and nature-given goods that he occupies and puts to use by means of his body, provided only that no one else has already occupied or used the same places and goods before him. This ownership of “originally appropriated” places and goods by a person implies his right to use and transform these places and goods in any way he sees fit, provided only that he does not change thereby uninvitedly the physical integrity of places and goods originally appropriated by another person. In particular, once a place or good has been first appropriated by, in John Locke’s phrase, “mixing one’s labor” with it, ownership in such places and goods can be acquired only by means of a voluntary — contractual — transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner.

These rules set forth by Hoppe eliminate any possibility of interpersonal conflict. The first user of some resource could never conflict with someone else over the resource as no one else was using it prior to the first user’s appropriation of that resource. It is only second users or “latecomers” as Hoppe calls them who can cause conflict. That is, they can use force against the first user of a resource in order to use that resource for their differing purposes. However, this is not to say that second (or third or fourth or fifth, etc.) users can never come to use a resource without creating interpersonal conflict. Rather, by voluntary exchange and contract, second users can gain ownership of previously appropriated resources. It is only when these exchanges are voluntary that no conflict arises since both parties to the exchange will for the exchange to happen, i.e. it is in both of their plans for the exchange of resources to occur. Thus, there is no diversity in their plans regarding the use of the resource at the time of the exchange. According to Hoppe, it is only this principle of first appropriation and voluntary exchange that “makes it possible that conflict can be avoided throughout—from the very beginning of mankind until the end.”

(https://www.hoppean.org/article/pqz3dmun1esudp77e7iciftckcma0f)