The Economics and Ethics of Private Property

The Economics and Ethics of Private Property is a book by the German-American economist and philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe, first published in 1993 under the subtitle Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy. Hoppe conceived it as a set of studies linking the economics of the Austrian School with a philosophical reflection on the foundations of social order.

Its central claim is that the inviolability of private property is an indisputable ethical principle, an absolute human right. For Hoppe, this right is the only ethical foundation compatible with individual liberty, because it alone allows voluntary contractual relations between individuals, which in turn make possible a civilization of peace and economic progress. From this premise, the author takes up subjects such as employment, money, banking, business cycles, taxation, public goods, war, imperialism, and the rise and fall of civilizations.

The analysis starts from the collapse of actually existing socialism and the stagnation of the Western welfare state. As a remedy, Hoppe proposes the privatization of the entire public sector and the establishment of a contractual society, of anarcho-capitalist inspiration, grounded in the recognition of the right to private property.

The work first appeared in 1993 with Kluwer Academic Publishers and has since been reissued by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Its reception has been uneven: it is cited within libertarian and Austrian circles, while its views on social order have drawn debate and criticism in other academic settings, partly because of the author's later positions on democracy.