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Slenzok: Libertarians Against the American World

Interesting recent paper, Norbert Slenzok, “Libertarians Against the American World. A Critical Analysis,” Athenæum: Polish Political Science Studies 84, no. 4 (2024): pp. 7–27 (pdf).

Abstract:

The paper deals with the view of contemporary world politics presented by American libertarians. Specifically, it examines the claims of Murray N. Rothbard and his successors with regard to the role of the United States of America in the international arena. The article argues that since the Cold War, the libertarian account of international relations has been staunchly critical of the US, while exhibiting a soft spot for competing powers, particularly the USSR and the Russian Federation. As the article submits, this asymmetry is supported by two flawed theoretical contentions: the liberal imperialism thesis (LIT) and the American hegemony thesis (AHT). Moreover, the article shows how anti-Americanism impinges on libertarian analyses of contemporary Central- Eastern European politics, in particular the war in Ukraine.

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Legal Foundations of a Free Society in Chinese

Here is a first draft of a translation of Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) into Chinese, translated by Li San (李三). The following is not yet proofread, according to the translator.

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Randy Barnett, “What’s Next for Libertarianism?”

I’ve learned and profited a great deal from libertarian legal scholar Randy Barnett’s work—on contract theory, punishment, constitutional and ninth amendment issues, originalism, and more. 1

In his really unique and excellent new book, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (2024), which I read cover to cover, he has an intriguing section near the end on “What’s Next for Libertarianism” where he hints a possible future book extending his previous thought on liberty and libertarianism. He suggests several extensions to or possibly modifications to libertarianism that might try to address. For example: “If we are to be libertarians and not propertarians, … libertarians need also to be concerned about threats to individual liberty now posed by privately owned companies. … A good theoretical start would be to separate the “public-private” binary from the “government-nongovernment” binary.” I have concerns about conservatives and libertarians who try to blur the distinction between between private and state actors—for example in attempts to subject big tech platforms to defamation liability out of spite or because they just don’t like them 2, or in arguments that private actors (banks, big tech, New York Times) are really “part of the state” and thus it’s fine to subject them to otherwise unjust and unlibertarian laws, such as libel law, or even to justify having the state regulate these corporations, since they are after all effectively state organs 3—but it would be interesting to see Barnett grapple with these matters. [continue reading…]

  1. See my review of his book, The Structure of Liberty, “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), and many other references to Barnett’s work in this book. []
  2. No, Libertarians, We Should NOT Abolish the CDA §230 and DMCA Safe Harbors! []
  3. KOL354 | CDA §230, Being “Part of the State,” Co-ownership, Causation, Defamation, with Nick Sinard; Van Dun, Barnett on Freedom vs. Property; Is Macy’s Part of the State? A Critique of Left Deviationists; on Block’s defamation suit against the New York Times, see Walter Block Defends His Libel Suit Against The New York Times; A Libertarian Analysis of Suing for Libel (“How … can I justify suing the New York Times for libel? It is simple. The libertarian case against suing for libel applies only to innocent people, and this newspaper does not at all qualify. Rather, this organization is a member in good standing of the ruling class, and all bets are off for criminals of that ilk.”), and others here. []
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KOL452 | Ethics, Politics, and IP for Engineering Students

Play

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 452.

I was asked recently to guest lecture for a course taught to some mechanical engineering students at Colorado University Boulder (EMEN 4100: Engineering Economics) by the lecturer, David Assad. Assad covers some ethics related matters in the latter part of the course and asked me to talk generally about ethics and related matters. I discussed ethics, morality, politics, and science. I discussed ethics and its relationship to science and politics, and discussed about what science is, the types of sciences, ethics and ethical theories and the relationship to specialized ethics and morality in general, and its relationship to political ethics and political philosophy. I then discussed libertarianism in general, the nature and function of property rights, and then explained how the intellectual property issue can be addressed based on the libertarian and private law perspective. The references and notes I gave the class are embedded in the slides and reproduced below.

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Dear Mr. Kinsella:

If you have the time I wanted to ask for some clarification regarding your views on positive obligations and their relationship with aggression and bringing children into the world.

In your article “How we come to own ourselves” you argue libertarianism is not inherently against positive obligations just unchosen obligations. You say one can incur positive obligations by commiting aggression. You use the analogy of pushing a person into a lake (aggressing against them) that creates a positive obligation to rescue them. You then say bringing an infant into the world with certain needs is akin to pushing a person into a lake.

My question is, does this mean bringing an infant into the world is aggression which then creates a chosen obligation to feed the infant (rescue them from the situation you’ve put them in)? Is this an accurate reading of your argument? [continue reading…]

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The Common Law and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

Interesting new article: Stephen Crosswell, “The Common Law and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations,” Journal of Global Trade, Ethics and Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2024): 1–33.

Adam Smith developed a theory of the ‘four-stage’ advancement of society as England was entering the Industrial Revolution (the fourth stage) and becoming the leading commercial centre in the world. That transition was raising new and novel legal issues that required legal solutions more complex than the earlier three stages in human advancement, as innovation gave rise to new technologies and ways of working. He and other juridical thinkers saw the debate about whether legislation could effectively drive that transition as the central question of their time, the answer to which would, in the long run, affect the fate of nations and Empire. They had a clear view on this, informed by the study of thousands of years of human history. For them, the common law was vastly superior.

This article examines the debate that took place on these issues, the Benthamite revolution that followed and the modern basket of rights that obfuscate the key question that policy-makers should be asking in our generation: if the common law was so successful in driving the Industrial Revolution, what confidence can we have in a legislated approach as we move into the fifth stage, the Technology Revolution? This is one of the most important issues facing the world as societies decide what legal framework(s) will regulate humanity’s move into a digital society and the efforts to discover and invent the technologies that will support us on that journey.

Related:

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Rand on the Injuns and Property Rights

In a recent Tweet, I wrote:

Rand on the Injuns

“Now, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you’re a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn’t know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights—they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures”—they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. [continue reading…]

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Labor, Value, Metaphors, Locke, Intellectual Property

From a facebook post by David Veksler:

There is no such thing as “intrinsic value” in economics. Value exists only in the eyes of the beholder. The concept of “value” is made possible by being valuable to a specific person, for a particular purpose. The only thing in the universe that is intrinsically valuable is human beings.

TLDR: Stop with nonsense like “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value”

My comment (lightly edited here): [continue reading…]

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