This quotation from Hoppe’s “The Economics and Ethics of Private Property” p71, should do something to underscore that Hoppe’s views on immigration are often misunderstood.

“Each new period of peace means a higher level of governmental interference as compared with the previous one: internally in the form of increased restrictions on the range of choices that private property owners are allowed to make regarding their own property; and externally, as regards foreign relations, in the form of higher trade barriers and of increasingly severe restrictions on population movements (most notably on immigration and emigration). Not the least because it is based on increased discrimination against foreigners and foreign trade, any such peace contains the increased risk of the next international conflict, or pressures the affected governments into negotiating bi- or multilateral interstate-agreements aimed at cartelizing their respective power structures and thereby jointly exploiting and expropriating each other’s populations.*

* FN:
“The most vicious of such agreements is very likely that of restricting entry for non-criminal persons wanting to immigrate into a given territory — and the chance for those living in this territory to offer employment to them — and of extraditing them back to their home countries.”

The arguer, especially the arguer who argues about normative issues and property rights issues, must at the very least presuppose a right to engage in such discourse. It makes no logical sense to presume to put forward arguments about what one is right and not right in doing, without at the very least implying a right to put forward such arguments. This applies to all who participate in argumentation.

But this also implies further rights: a presumed right to be alive, a right to exclusive control over one’s body, a right to appropriate for consumption what one can without violating another’s rights. Each arguer, to participate in argumentation, must logically suppose these rights.

“The slave can argue but he is still a slave. Legitimate ownership is a normative matter.”

But there are logical norms of argumentation independent of other facts of life. While engaged in truth seeking argumentation, even the slave must presuppose self-ownership – logically. The question of his status wrt to society and the “law”, is not relevant. The issue is logic. What must logically be presumed for the argument to take place? The answer is summed up in the libertarian ethic.

“Also, the fact that one argues simply entails that he owns his voice, his body – but you cannot derive, by the laws of logic, ownership of land and external factors, all that the homesteading principle implies.”

But there is more implied in argumentation than cooperative truth seeking between two independent actors. There is the question of survival, and the fact that scarce resources are required for this and that they must be exclusively controlled and consumed by particular actors. And furthermore, argumentation implies a right to this. And yet argumentation implies all of this done in a conflict free manner.

Therefore, it is simply a fact that ownership, not only of one’s own person, but of other scarce resources, is implied in argumentation. And the only conflict free methods of obtaining ownership in such property is appropriation via homesteading and cooperative contracting with other homesteading property owners.

“The jump is from statement A (I argue, therefore I own my body) to statement B (because I own my body, I have a right to homestead property)is, tough common sense, logically fallacious if considered from a purely formal logic point of view.”

So to sum up, the jumps are:
1. I argue. therefore
2. i presume the right to argue. therefore
3. i presume the right to exclusive control of myself but also
4. i presume the right to be alive and also
5. i presume a conflict free cooperative existence (during argumentation)
6. i can propose no actions contrary to the presuppositions, therefore
7. i must presume a right to homestead and own property and
8. i must presume a right to voluntarily contract with other homesteading and contracting property owners.
9. all propositions in contradiction to the above must logically be ruled out.

Actually, the non sequitur jump is from “I argue” to “therefore I own my body.” That doesn’t follow. What would follow from “I argue” is “I control my body.” You can’t deduce an ought (“I own my body.”) from that is without a teleological ethics and some additional premises.

Regarding Kotarbinski, a while back I looked over some of his work that is in English, including one chapter on the praxeology of war, and didn’t find his brand of praxeology similar to the Austrian type. It looked more like ontology, describing phenomenalogically the concepts and strategies, etc., but not really uncovering any causal laws. I don’t think his main work on the praxeology of war, cited by Mises, is in English though, so I can’t speak to that.

Hoppe does not – and cannot – resolve the is-ought dichotomy. Control over one’s body, voice included, does not entail legitimate property. The slave can argue but he is still a slave. Legitimate ownership is a normative matter.

Also, the fact that one argues simply entails that he owns his voice, his body – but you cannot derive, by the laws of logic, ownership of land and external factors, all that the homesteading principle implies. The jump is from statement A (I argue, therefore I own my body) to statement B (because I own my body, I have a right to homestead property)is, tough common sense, logically fallacious if considered from a purely formal logic point of view.

P.S. Hoppe is dead wrong when he thinks government restrictions on immigration is legitimate or beneficial and Block’s critic is spot-on. I may be a cultural conservative, but as a libertarian I don’t care about any conservative-statist agenda, even if it comes from Hoppe or Lew Rockwell.

1 – I control my body (unarguable)
2 – I can act (unarguable)
3 – Others have the same characteristics (unarguable)
4 – I am can act but cannot pass the point where I infringe on the non-consentual control of another’s body

Hmmm. I see communism fall right out of this … not to mention #4 doesn’t follow from #3.

I wrote a small answer to Friedman’s argument here a while ago:

http://blog.mises.org/archives/004745.asp

which you can find if you search on this string: “If belief in a proposition is inconsistent”.

However, I think it would be more productive and interesting to you to read Hoppe’s many explications of his thesis and also Stephan Kinsella’s response “Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan” at

http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=312

to get a better fundamental understanding of Hoppe’s argument. From my perspective, the root of the issue seems to be this: what is the essence of the argument? What is the purpose of the argument, and given this purpose, what are the necessary and essential presuppositions of argumentation? The purpose of argumentation, especially in proposing ethical norms, is to arrive at universalizable “golden rule” conclusions of which any person can in principle agree with based on the soundness of the argument alone: that is without the need for the threat of force to extract agreement. Secondly, or further, or therefore, it presupposes the conflict free use of scarce resources in one’s own body to make the argument and to evaluate the other person’s counterargument without physical conflict. It therefore presupposes self-ownership and homesteading of scarce resources because all those who use their own bodies to make argument presume to have the right to exclusive use and control of their body and homesteaded resources as only the principles of self ownership and homesteading allows for the conflict free, civilized cooperation presupposed in the act of argumentation.

Presupposing conflict free use of scarce resources in argument, such as one’s self and other homesteaded resources and contractually acquired resources, is another way to say such assumptions are a logical necessity to render the argument meaningful. However, it does not mean that meaningless, or incoherent or self contradictory or internally inconsistent, or unjustifiable arguments, situations and states of affairs cannot arise in reality. It merely means that such situations, if they do arise, are not justifiable. So for instance, Hoppe does not set out to prove that a slave cannot argue. He sets out to show that the praxeological implication of argumentation is that participants in the argument must and do presuppose conflict free interaction, and therefore a right to exclusive control over their own bodies and also over the resources that they homestead and acquire contractually.

Those who object to Hoppe’s thesis tend to think he is saying what we all know to be untrue: that liberty must emerge from the fact that we can argue. He is not saying this. What he is saying is that the argument merely presupposes liberty and the argument justifies only liberty. It does not make it the default state of affairs obviously.

Why does argumentation imply the employment of scarce means? What is the essential difference between “Intellectual Property”, which we contend as an idea, is neither scarce nor property, and argumentation, which we contend is scarce and is property?

But how did Friedman mis-state Hoppe’s argument? That is exactly how I would have frammed the debate, given my understanding (or misunderstanding?) of Hoppe.

Help set Freidman and I straight. How would you state Hoppe’s argument?

It seems as if you almost see it this way, but not quite, but if not quite, what am I missing?”

I tend to think you are right. I think it’s sort of a semantic issue, plus a classification issue. As far as I can tell, you are right. But I think a more precise investigation into the proper definition for, and understanding of, praxeology, would be helpful; plus an understanding of its place within philosophy.

For example, how do you classify the endeavor of studying praxeology itself–of knowing whether a given field *is* praxeology? is this meta-praxeology? Etc.

What i find very interesting about all criticisms of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics including Friedman’s, is that they carry with them a single consistent theme: an inability to accurately articulate Hoppe’s thesis as a starting point from which to launch their criticism.

This just strikes me as very odd. What i would like to see is someone who can state the argument up front, without butchering the argument, and then proceed to defeat it fair and square. So far, all i can see are arguments that defeat pretty obvious misunderstandings of it.

The thing that compounds the strangeness of this is that it is also sometimes libertarians and Austrians doing this. I could understand this situation for non-libertarians and non-Austrians such as Friedman, as they are not used to dealing with the rigor of praxeological arguments. But Austrians should be able to keep up with the argument at least long enough to be able to re-state it properly.

What did Friedman misunderstand? Given Hoppe’s restatement at the end of the argument, Friedman seems dead on.

The only point Hoppe halfway addresses is Friedman’s last and smallest point (that Hoppe’s argument seems to imply that no one has ever ben able to argue philosophy since there’s never been a libertarian society).

Hoppe, totally ignores Friedman’s more imporant argument–that Hoppe’s argument rests on n two false premices. What did Friedman not get?

“the logical-deductive approach of Hoppe that is compatible with, if not a type of, praxeology.”

Hoppe’s argumentation ethics always struck me from the start to be a completely praxeologically based thesis. Argumentation is an action, and the entire argument seems to me to be founded in the necessary and praxeological implications of the act of arguing. It seems to me that ethics sits right beside economics as another field of praxeology. Ethics, the moral justification of assigning scarce resources, and economics, the science of understanding how men utilize scarce resources to maximize wealth production both seem to me to fall under the umbrella of praxeology.

It seems as if you almost see it this way, but not quite, but if not quite, what am I missing?