For Me Too Be Free, You Too Must Be Free

Much has been said about freedom, over the many generations.  Many have theorized and speculated on how greater levels of freedom can be achieved and how not to achieve greater levels of freedom.

I have found one aspect to be true in all of the well constructed ideas.  Freedom comes from within; but it also comes from without.  It’s a feedback loop that builds up momentum as it changes.

We can attempt to be free internally; but there will always be limitations from the world around us, based on where the people in your life are, in their own journey.

So it is not an entirely internal creation, nor is it an entirely external creation.  We can’t expect to meditate in the corner to become free, nor can we expect that ignoring self cultivation and focusing purely on the outside world will free us. We have to combine these efforts, in the proper balance, to become free.

I will unlock the doors on my cage and I hope that you will too; because the doors of your cage are immediately adjacent to the doors on my cage and I can’t get very far without you.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian economist and libertarian anarcho-capitalist philosopher who is known for his private law society, which advocates a radical transformation of the legal system where all parties are subject to the same rules and nobody is exempt from the same kinds of rules that govern everyone else.

He is a Professor Emeritus of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Hoppe is the author of several widely discussed books and his work has been translated to 22 languages. He is currently living with his wife in Istanbul, Turkey.

Analysis of Democracy

In Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe compares monarchies with democratic states. Hoppe claims that the structural perverse incentives inherent in democracy make it more prone to destroy wealth than comparable monarchical regimes. A monarch, being a long term ruler and able to further bequeath his position, has interest in the long term well being of the economy, would often be hesitant to excessively accumulate debt, or otherwise engage in large-scale short-term capital consumption compared to a similar democratically elected ruler, who is more akin to a renter, or temporary custodian of the state due to the shorter time he has to use his power for his benefit. Hoppe further notes that the theoretical possibility of entrance into government also doles the citizenship resistance to excessive abuse of government power, as compared to monarchies, in which abusive monarchs where often overthrown and killed. Read the rest of this entry »