I’m never quite sure how to describe what it is that I do (my avocation, not my (former) vocation(s)). 1
Is it political theory? Political philosophy? Libertarian theory? Libertarian legal theory? Legal theory/jurisprudence? Moral theory? Ethics? Metaethics? 2 Philosophy? Isn’t all libertarian theory really libertarian legal theory, in the end, since our focus is on what institutional uses of force are just, that is, what laws are just? What property rights there are?
Am I an intellectual? A scholar? An academic?
A few Grok searches helped sort some of this out. Bottom line: [continue reading…]
As I mentioned in my recent post, Machan, A Brief on Left Libertarianism—Is it an Oxymoron? (unpublished, 2009), an odd gmail glitch recently placed an Aug. 12, 2009 email from Tibor Machan at the top of my gmail inbox, with this note: “Hi, Stephan: Perhaps you would like to use the attached discussion note, ‘A Brief on Left-Libertarianism,'” and containing this short article. This was sent to me around the time I started Libertarian Papers and was obviously meant as a submission to that journal.
I see now that he sent me another email Nov. 24, 2012: “Here is a fairly long collection of quotations I have assembled and thought would send you as a gift! If not interested, please simply delete.” Possibly he also intended it for Libertarian Papers. I ignored it at the time but it appears not to be published online so here it is, with no edits (since I cannot ask Tibor to approve). [continue reading…]
An odd gmail glitch just placed an Aug. 12, 2009 email from Tibor Machan at the top of my gmail inbox, with this note: “Hi, Stephan: Perhaps you would like to use the attached discussion note, ‘A Brief on Left-Libertarianism,'” and containing his short article. This was sent to me around the time I started Libertarian Papers and was obviously meant as a submission to that journal. I vaguely recall seeing it and dismissing it as too light or poorly written for the journal. In any case, it appears not to be published online so here it is, with no edits (since I cannot ask Tibor to approve).
I see two mistakes in your reasoning. First, you are accepting the relevance of the state’s arbitrary classifcation scheme–calling someone an “owner” or not, an employee or not. [continue reading…]
I am writing to you from Iran, where I closely follow your work on libertarian legal theory. I would deeply appreciate your insights on a unique digital dilemma here that highlights the messy collision between property rights, state coercion, and a captive market.
Amidst a total international internet blackout in Iran, a privately owned book-review platform has flourished. While it is 100% private property, it is the unintended beneficiary of a state-enforced captive market; because the regime has blocked all global competitors (like Goodreads), this platform enjoys a monopoly privilege it never sought. [continue reading…]
From The Editorial Board, “Old McDonald Had a Race Preference: A lawsuit settlement helps end discrimination at the USDA,” Wall Street Journal (May 22, 2026):
One of the worst sources of race preferences has been the federal government, so cheers to the news that some discriminatory programs have been sent out to pasture. The Agriculture Department recently settled a lawsuit and agreed to end race and sex preferences in federal farm programs.
Adam Faust is a Wisconsin dairy farmer who found his Holstein milking operation harmed by USDA programs that used race or sex preferences to allocate financial benefits. The Dairy Margin Coverage Program, which farmers use to cover fluctuations in milk prices, charged him a fee that wasn’t paid by farmers USDA designated as “socially disadvantaged.”
Note: I do not use Grok or AI to cheat or write for me, but only as a tool for research and assistance, summaries, and so on. Here is the summary of a Grok discussion I had trying to clarify some issues, so asked it to prepare the summary in the form of a blog post.
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A few days ago at the Libertarian National Committee event (LNC 2026) in https://www.lnc2026.com/, I was having a lively discussion with two fellow libertarian lawyers. The conversation started with a practical question: Could the Libertarian Party amend its bylaws to prohibit certain behaviors, and would applying those new prohibitions to past actions (or ongoing situations) potentially violate ex post facto principles?
That initial discussion about internal party rules and fairness quickly evolved into a much deeper exploration of U.S. constitutional law, common law crimes, the Ex Post Facto Clause, historical legal development, and broader libertarian theory about legislation, malum in se vs. malum prohibitum offenses, and anarcho-capitalist systems. One of my friends brought up the Ex Post Facto Clause and argued that it effectively requires all crimes (or prohibitions) to be created by clear, prospective legislation or rules. He believed allowing non-statutory or judge-made rules would violate constitutional protections against retroactive punishment. He thought pure common law crimes only really existed in pre-U.S. England, and that modern American law had moved past that. [continue reading…]
For some reason I gets lots of … ambitious and interesting … submissions sent to me … independent scholars. See e.g. Extreme Praxeology and some comments below. I’m sort of fascinated by these types. They are a bit like the ones who always have a new scheme for a new libertarian nation or persuasion gimmick or trick 1 —they seem so earnest and so determined to systematically deduce the entire universe from scratch, often in a totally amateur way that attempts to reinvent the wheel without knowing much about the first wheel.
This paper presents a formal solution to the AI alignment specification problem through two independent axiomatic frameworks — SINTESIS (philosophical) and Coherencia (physical) — that converge on the same result: coherence as the necessary condition for persistence. It derives five necessary conditions for artificial consciousness, proves that strong AGI requires consciousness, and demonstrates that the feared dangerous AGI cannot exist because the capabilities that would make it dangerous require the consciousness that would make it responsible. All seven recognized alignment sub-problems are resolved within this framework. The specification is derived from 5 performatively undeniable axioms through 568 explicit derivation steps.
I wrote the same to prof. Hoppe and I hope to hear your opinion as well.
My name is Augustin. In my research and pondering, I got stuck with a limit in the libertarian ethics that left the question of whether it truly permits the survival of mankind (as any ethic should be able to do in all conceivable scenarios) unsolved.
I observed the following dilemmas:
If everyone suddenly decides to commit suicide, the non-aggression principle has nothing to oppose it.
If everyone peacefully stops having children and goes on living for themselves — humanity goes extinct.
I’ve long been fascinated with scholarship and publishing, 1 and with the concept of a Festschrift ever since I came across Rothbard’s (see below). I became more interested in this when I helped produce Hans Hoppe’s first Festchrift in 2009. As I wrote recently in yet another such work (my Preface to the a recent Gedenkschrift for Rothbard (a Gedenkschrift is a type of Festchrift, as is a Liber Amicorum): [continue reading…]
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