StephanKinsella.com

Dear Mr. Kinsella,

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:

1. If everyone suddenly decides to commit suicide, the non-aggression principle has nothing to oppose it.
2. If everyone peacefully stops having children and goes on living for themselves — humanity goes extinct.

[continue reading…]

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…]

1. New Publisher, Co-Editor for my Legal Treatise, and how I got started with legal publishing; All footnotes!; On the Role of Commentators and Codes and the Oracles of the Law; Some favorite law review papers; Watson, The Importance of “Nutshells”; Reading Suggestions for Prospective/New Law Students (Roman/Civil law focus); Book Recommendations: Private, International, and Common Law; Legal Theory; Gender-Neutral Language, Reverse Racism, and Law Review Strategies. [↩]

Q (lightly edited):

Hi Stephan,

This is [], teaching economics at a university in [China]. I love reading Hoppe’s and your articles and books. I am currently reading your great book Legal Foundations of a Free Society.

The book From Partisan Banking to Open Access: The Emergence of Free Banking in Early Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts ¹ tells exactly how bankers and politicians form cronyism relations after the Independence. The book collects data and shows that 70% of bank directors were legislators. I attach the book with this email and hope you would enjoy it. [continue reading…]

1. Qian Lu, From Partisan Banking to Open Access: The Emergence of Free Banking in Early Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts (Palgrave, 2018); see also Qian Lu and John Joseph Wallis, “Banks, Politics, and Political Parties: From Partisan Banking to Open Access in Early Massachusetts,” NBER Working Paper 21572 (2015); revised version, “Banks, Politics, and Political Parties: From Partisan Banking to Open Access in Early Massachusetts,” in Naomi R. Lamoreaux & John Joseph Wallis, Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development (2017); Qian Lu, “From Partisan Banking to Open Access – A Study on the Emergence of Free Banking in Early Nineteenth Century Massachusetts,” University of Maryland Dissertation (2014). [↩]

Related

• KOL337 | Join the Wasabikas Ep. 15.0: You Don’t Own Bitcoin—Property Rights, Praxeology and the Foundations of Private Law, with Max Hillebrand
• KOL249 | WCN’s Max Hillebrand: Intellectual Property and Who Owns Bitcoin
• Extreme Praxeology

Max Hillebrand, The Praxeology of Privacy: Economic Logic in Cypherpunk Implementation (2026)

Amazon description: [continue reading…]

[Cross-posted at PFS and HansHoppe.com]

Libertarians around the world are this year celebrating Murray Rothbard’s 100^th birthday. At the PFS we published a book in his honor, Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) on his 100^th birthday, March 2, 2026.

And next month, on June 27, 2026, comes the event “100 Years with Rothbard” (permalink) in Porto, Portugal.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Philosopher and Economist | Author of “Democracy: The God That Failed” and “The Great Fiction”

Stephan Kinsella Austro-Anarchist Libertarian Legal Theory | Author of “Legal Foundations of a Free Society”

Anxo Bastos Professor of Political Science | Author of “I Grew Up Without the State” and “Small Is Possible”

Saifedean Ammous Economist and educator | Author of “The Bitcoin Standard” and “Principles of Economics”

This event, organized by Manuel Ogando, is sponsored by several Portuguese libertarian groups: Mises Portugal, Catalaxia, Don’t Trust Verify (bitcoin podcast), ZugaTV (libertarian podcast), and Golpe de Estado Podcast (ancap podcasters), and features a number of speakers including, most prominently, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Rothbard’s most intimate associate, partner, friend, and student for the last decade of his life. Other speakers include Stephan Kinsella, Anxo Bastos, Saifedean Ammous, and others. Possible topics: Hoppe: “What did I have to un-learn on the way to become an anarcho-capitalist”; Kinsella: “Rothbard’s Greatest Hits.”

The event will also feature the presentation of the European Portuguese translation of Kinsella’s Legal Foundations of a Free Society and, possibly, the Spanish translation as well, and also the hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment.

I am very much looking forward to this event.

Q: Hello. As Ludwig von Mises wrote in his book “Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis:

the anarchist/communist who claims that property is theft is not wrong in principle. To take any piece of land on this planet and trace its ownership history, you will have to come to some point in history when it was forcibly taken or plundered from someone. And before that, the previous owner did it to the one before him.

Do you maybe know why did Mises—who otherwise had healthy views – have this particular view? Why did he not recognize homesteading? Thank you.

***

Note: The sender did not provide a link or page number so I am doubtful this is an accurate quote. A search of the text does not find it. However, I found a couple passages that the sender, or his confused AI, may have had in mind:

From Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, Part I, ch. 1, §2, p. 32:

All ownership derives from occupation and violence. When we consider the natural components of goods, apart from the labor components they contain, and when we follow the legal title back, we must necessarily arrive at a point where this title originated in the appropriation of goods accessible to all. Before that we may encounter a forcible expropriation from a predecessor whose ownership we can in its turn trace to earlier appropriation or robbery. That all rights derive from violence, all ownership from appropriation or robbery, we may freely admit to those who oppose ownership on considerations of natural law. But this offers not the slightest proof that the abolition of ownership is necessary, advisable. or morally justified.

Natural ownership need not count upon recognition by the owners’ fellow men. It is tolerated, in fact, only as long as there is no power to upset it and it does not survive the moment when a stronger man seizes it for himself. Created by arbitrary force it must always fear a more powerful force. This the doctrine of natural law has called the war of all against all. The war ends when the actual relation is recognized as one worthy to be maintained. Out of violence emerges law.

From Human Action, ch. XXIV, §4:

Private property is a human device. It is not sacred. It came into existence in early ages of history, when people with their own power and by their own authority appropriated to themselves what had previously not been anybody’s property. Again and again proprietors were robbed of their property by expropriation. The history of private property can be traced back to a point at which it originated out of acts which were certainly not legal. Virtually every owner is the direct or indirect legal successor of people who acquired ownership either by arbitrary appropriation of ownerless things or by violent spoilation of their predecessor.

However, the fact that legal formalism can trace back every title either to arbitrary appropriation or to violent expropriation has no significance whatever for the conditions of a market society. Ownership in the market economy is no longer linked up with the remote origin of private property. Those events in a far-distant past, hidden in the darkness of primitive mankind’s history, are no longer of any concern for our day. For in an unhampered market society the consumers daily decide anew who should own and how much he should own. The consumers allot control of the means of production to those who know how to use them best for the satisfaction of the most urgent wants of the consumers. Only in a legal and formalistic sense can the owners be considered the successors of appropriators and expropriators. In fact, they are mandataries of the consumers, bound by the operation of the market to serve the consumers best. Under capitalism, private property is the consummation of the self-determination of the consumers.

A: All this means is there is some taint in ownership chains but this does not invalidate property rights at all. [continue reading…]

Related

• Stephan Kinsella, “How We Come To Own Ourselves,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) [LFFS]
• Kinsella, “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” in LFFS, n. 27
• Kinsella, “Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan,” in LFFS, n31
• KOL468 | Is Group Ownership and Co-ownership Communism?
• KOL443 | Abortion: A Radically Decentralist Approach (PFS 2024)
• Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023), chs. 2, 4, 23; “Objectivists on Positive Parental Obligations and Abortion,” The Libertarian Standard (Jan. 14, 2011)
• Egads, I hate Georgism
• What Libertarianism Is, App. II: Mutualist Occupancy, in LFFS
• A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy

Query:

Dear Mr. Kinsella,

I hope you are doing well.

I consider the homesteading principle to be one of the most consistent and justified foundations for property rights. However, I have recently encountered a concern that I am struggling to resolve. [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 489.

“The Problem with Intellectual Property,” audio. Thanks to Jorge Besada, using AI. I think this is my best comprehensive, recent, yet concise take on IP.

From Stephan Kinsella, “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” Papinian Press Working Paper #2 (May 15, 2025), forthcoming in Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics, 2nd ed., Christoph Lütge & Marianne Thejls Ziegler, eds. (Springer, forthcoming 2026; Robert McGee, section ed.).

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:21 — 20.0MB)

[From my Webnote series]

Related:

• On Bankruptcy in a Free Society
• Kinsella, The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract
• Libertarian Answer Man: Restrictive Covenants and Homeowners Associations (HOAs)
• Libertarian Answer Man: Restrictive Covenants, Reserved Rights, and Copyright
• KOL479 | Co-Ownership Revisited: Property Rights, Exclusion, Contracts, and Edge Cases, with Nick Sinard
• KOL354 | CDA §230, Being “Part of the State,” Co-ownership, Causation, Defamation, with Nick Sinard
• Libertarian Answer Man: Corporations, Trusts, HOAs, and Private Law Codes in a Private Law Society

From some tweets on Twitter. My original tweet below, and reprinted with a few modifications followed by a few followup tweets. [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 488.

Audio version of Stephan Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026). Audio prepared with AI by Jorge Besada.

Related:

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?: Postscript,” Property and Freedom Journal (April 17, 2026)
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026)

From the article: [continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:11:37 — 45.2MB)

Stephan Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026)

Related:

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?: Postscript,” Property and Freedom Journal (April 17, 2026)
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026)
• Audio: KOL488 | My Years with the Mises Institute

Introduction

Hans Hoppe recently published “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, which contains various criticisms of the Mises Institute (MI) as it is currently organized.¹ He has since been removed as Distinguished Senior Fellow by MI.² I fully support Hans and do not disagree with anything he wrote.³

Here I would like to mention my own experience with MI, with which I have been associated, on and off, for over thirty years, since 1994. I have discussed some of this history previously,⁴ but as my experience has certain parallels to that of Hans I will go into more detail here than I have in the past.

Despite my critical remarks here I, too, share Hans’s admiration for Lew Rockwell (discussed below) and what he achieved with the Mises Institute. I love the mission of the MI and the role it has played for the last 44 years. It is due to my concern over the decline of MI, and its treatment of Hans, that I publish these remarks. Pursuit of liberty is always a quest for truth. But truth is fragile and seems easily cast aside by those with more base motives. With that in mind, I offer some of my own thoughts on these matters—entreating the reader to judge the reasonableness of my position (and that of Hoppe).

Read more>>