Hoppe can only be right as far as he goes

Daniel M. Ryan summarizes...

...Hans-Herman [sic] Hoppe’s ultimate justification of the private property ethic (PDF file.)  [Hoppe] concludes, after proving that argumentation logically presupposes self-ownership, that any denial of property rights is impugned by a "performative contradiction," in which one’s actions contradict one’s case.

I believe this is an overstatement of the applicability of Hoppe's argument.  Hoppe writes (emphasis mine):

I want to demonstrate that only the libertarian private property ethic can be argumentatively justified, because it is the praxeological presupposition of argumentation as such; and that any deviating, non-libertarian ethical proposal can hence be shown to be in violation of demonstrated preference.

So, Hoppe says (and I think his argument is a pretty good one so far as it goes) that any non-libertarian ethical proposal can be shown to be self-contradictory.  However, this (correctly, I believe) leaves open the possibility for a consistent non-ethical proposal, e.g., a proposal that the concept of property rights is ontologically invalid.  In this sense, one can deny "property rights" without making a performative contradiction. 

And, I personally am in fact willing to put forth such a claim; I argue that there is no basis in reality for the category of "ownership"; there is simply control.  "Property rights", as spoken of by Hoppe and Ryan (i.e., as natural rights), are abrograted every day with no automatic consequence; whether or not the abrogation is thought "wrong" only has significance on this earth to the extent that this is a factor in someone's subsequent decision to act.  Thus I would claim that "ownership" is a purely ethical construct that is on no objectively distinguishable plane from, say, the teachings of any major religion.  Libertarians say "thou shalt not violate property rights"; if pressed for my own ethical principles, I might say something like "thou shalt not live randomly" or "thou shalt strive for consistency" or "thou shalt strive to understand the context of your life"; every day, someone else comes up with something else.  But as Mises, teacher of Rothbard, teacher of Hoppe, knew well:  there is no objective science of "meta-ethics" to pinpoint which of these is "correct".