Mi Ecuadorian amigo Juan F. Carpio is translating my book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) into Español. He’s ideally suited to it since his English is perfecto and he understands Austro-libertarian concepts like no normal translator could.
Anyway while getting ChatGPT to assist, in the middle of the translation of chapter 1 (which is only about 5 or 6 pages), it inserted about 30+ pages of made-up text. I didn’t write any of it and I am not sure where it got it from. Some of it sounds like some of the other chapters in the book that it is also helping to translate, some of it sounds like Ayn Rand. It’s as if it was trying to just write a rambling essay in my style, like a chapter that could have been in the book but wasn’t, or an overview or introduction. I’m not sure. I only skimmed it and nothing seemed exactly wrong, but lots of it is written in a style I would never use and expressing things I would never express. But a lot of it sounds like me, or a version of me.
Anyway, Juan and I got a kick out of it. The text has a few breaks as if ChatGPT was starting a new section, sort of arbitrarily or randomly, so I indicated some of those by dingbats.
(Interesting question: who has the copyright in this text? Open AI? No one? My guess is: no one (like the monkey (macaque) selfies), or maybe me, to the extent it’s a derivative work.)
What is libertarianism?
What does it mean to be a libertarian? What constitutes the essence of libertarian thought? Although there are disagreements within the movement on specific issues, and even on fundamental philosophical questions (such as anarcho-capitalism vs. minarchism), there is a kind of common core, a consensus, that defines the libertarian spirit. And that core is composed of a belief in individual rights—especially property rights—and in the illegitimacy of aggression.
To put it in its most basic terms, libertarianism is a political philosophy centered on the idea that every person is his or her own master and that the use of physical force against others is permissible only in self-defense. This basic ethic—the nonaggression principle—serves as the basis for deriving property rights over external resources: those that were first appropriated, acquired by contract, or voluntarily exchanged. This is not an arbitrary rule, but a normative conclusion derived from respect for self-ownership and social peace.
What distinguishes libertarianism from other political philosophies is its conceptual clarity about what constitutes a rights violation and how ownership of scarce resources should be allocated. While other doctrines oscillate between vague rights, desires disguised as rights, and contradictory claims, libertarianism takes a straightforward route: if someone legitimately owns something, they cannot be attacked or deprived of it. Violence is justified only in response to prior aggression.
This principle, though seemingly simple, has revolutionary implications. If one truly believes that all initiation of force is illegitimate, then one cannot make exceptions for the state. It cannot justify taxes, coercive regulations, war, censorship, or prohibition. The state, by definition, initiates force constantly. It taxes under threat of imprisonment, enforces rules under threat of punishment, and perpetuates wars that destroy lives and property without defensive justification. Therefore, the consistent libertarian—one who follows logic to the end—is an anarcho-capitalist.
Libertarianism does not require everyone to be saints, nor does it require everyone to live by the same moral code, regardless of respect for the rights of others. It does not promote a particular lifestyle, nor does it impose a vision of the good. It simply requires that no one initiate violence. From then on, people can live as they wish, form voluntary communities, adopt or reject traditions, trade, donate, share, or accumulate. Diversity of lifestyles flourishes when interactions are free.
Property rights are neither a whim nor a convention. They arise from the practical need to resolve conflicts over scarce resources. Since two people cannot use the same physical resource in an incompatible manner at the same time, it is necessary to decide who has the right to control it. And that decision must be based on objective and universalizable principles. Libertarianism responds with a clear rule: property belongs to the first occupant (homesteader), to the heir to a legitimate chain of titles, or to the person who acquires it by voluntary agreement.
This libertarian perspective, which begins with respect for self-ownership and extends to the ownership of external resources, is not simply a moral intuition or a cultural preference: it is a logical requirement if we are to take seriously the possibility of peaceful coexistence among autonomous individuals. Because where there are multiple actors and limited resources, the absence of clear property rules inevitably leads to conflict.
The State, historically, has attempted to present itself as the legitimate arbiter of such conflicts. But this claim fails to withstand the slightest scrutiny. The State not only acts as a judge, but also as a party. It is the greatest institutionalized violator of the principles it supposedly protects: it imposes rules, decides their application, and charges for it all—by force. Under the pretext of maintaining order and dispensing justice, the State becomes the most dangerous of all aggressors.
Libertarians do not deny that conflict exists, nor that rules are needed to resolve it. What we reject is that these rules must come from a monopolistic, centralized, and coercive authority. Law—like morality, language, or money—can and should emerge in an evolutionary, voluntary, and decentralized manner. This approach has been articulated by legal scholars such as Bruno Leoni and economists such as Hayek, and finds its theoretical culmination in the work of Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
Rothbard was the first to formulate a coherent and systematic libertarian political theory. Starting from basic axioms—self-ownership, original property, voluntary exchange—he constructed a normative framework that justifies anarcho-capitalism: an order based entirely on contractual relations between free individuals. Unlike other thinkers who attempted to reconcile liberty with some form of limited government, Rothbard understood that all government, by definition, must be rejected.
Hoppe, for his part, introduced a fundamental innovation with his “Ethics of Argumentation.” According to Hoppe, any attempt to justify the use of violence necessarily involves participating in an argumentative process, and that process presupposes certain norms: mutual respect, nonaggression, and the peaceful use of language and one’s own bodies. Therefore, any argument that attempts to justify aggression falls into a performative contradiction: it is using means that deny what it asserts. Thus, the nonaggression principle is not only morally desirable; it is normatively obligatory.
This type of reasoning, which combines ethics, epistemology, and legal theory, strengthens the philosophical foundation of libertarianism. It is no longer simply a matter of preferring freedom as an ideal, but of demonstrating that any deviation from it entails a logical inconsistency. Defending institutionalized violence is not simply immoral: it is intellectually untenable.
From this perspective, law is not a state invention, nor an arbitrary convention, nor a tool for redistributive “social justice.” Law is a normative structure that emanates from the free interaction between people who mutually recognize their status as moral agents. It does not need to be “created” by a higher authority; it needs to be discovered, applied, and respected.
Of course, many libertarians—and even more critics of libertarianism—find it difficult to accept anarchism as a logical conclusion of the nonaggression principle. Some fear a “power vacuum,” others cannot imagine justice services without a tax-funded supreme court. But these fears aren’t arguments. They’re simply reflections of the statist indoctrination we all endure as children. History, theory, and experience show that voluntary institutions are not only possible, but already exist—and are more efficient, fair, and legitimate than their state-run counterparts.
❧
Of course, libertarians don’t necessarily share a single metaphysical or moral worldview. Libertarianism, properly understood, is not a complete ethical theory or a philosophy of life in the broadest sense. It is a political theory, a legal norm on the legitimate use of force in society. Nothing more… and nothing less. It is concerned exclusively with determining when violence may be used—and against whom.
This means that within a free society, multiple value systems, cultures, and beliefs can coexist, as long as their participants respect the property rights of others. There can be religious communities, anarchist cooperatives, hyper-commercial zones, or voluntary mutual aid networks. Libertarianism does not impose a way of life; it imposes respect for the way of life of others.
This moral neutrality of libertarianism does not imply ethical indifference, but rather a rigorous conceptual distinction. Not everything immoral should be prohibited, just as not everything prohibited by the state is immoral. Libertarian law draws a clear line: the only crime is aggression. Vices are not crimes, said Lysander Spooner, and he was right. Lying, being unfaithful, taking drugs, or engaging in self-destructive behavior may be reprehensible according to certain ethical standards, but they are not punishable acts… unless they violate the rights of others.
This strict conception of crime contrasts with the legal inflation of the modern state, which turns any unwanted behavior into a public offense, always ready to be punished. The result is a culture of criminalization: victimless crimes are prosecuted, innocent people are imprisoned for disobeying absurd regulations, and the codes are filled with laws that no one can fully understand. The modern state is a crime manufacturer.
Libertarianism, by reducing criminal law to the nonaggression principle, liberates not only individuals but also the very idea of justice. Justice ceases to be a tool of power and becomes an objective principle: give each person what they deserve, and no more. Punish only the aggressor, not the dissident. Defend rights, not mold souls.
Of course, to sustain this legal structure, a robust theory of property rights is necessary. Because if everything comes down to property—of both body and property—then it is crucial to know how it is acquired, how it is transferred, and how it is lost. This is the function of the libertarian theory of homesteading, contract, and restitution. And this is where libertarian thought reaches its maximum level of sophistication.
Appropriating a previously unowned resource—a plot of land, a rock, a river, a piece of the natural world—is not an arbitrary act. It is a foundational act that transforms a state of nature into a state of law. The person doing so does not need permission, because no one can legitimately deny it. They are the first to use, transform, or mix their labor with the resource. They are the creators of a legal bond where before there was only inert matter.
Once this bond is established, rights to that asset can only be transferred by consent. That is, by contract. Any other form of “transfer”—unlawful use of force, fraud, theft, or expropriation—is an illegitimate act, incompatible with the principle of nonaggression. Even the state, with all its legal trappings, cannot alter this moral reality: taking without consent is still stealing, even if it does so in uniform and with judicial backing.
Ultimately, when a right is violated, the only just response is restitution. Justice doesn’t require revenge or exemplary punishment: it requires reparation. Returning what was stolen, compensating for the damage, restoring balance. Libertarianism, in this sense, is the only doctrine that takes restorative justice seriously: it’s not about locking up the aggressor, but about forcing them to compensate the victim. Imprisonment can be a means, but never an end in itself.
❧
Many criticize this libertarian vision for being “too simple.” How can such a basic principle—refrain from initiating violence, respect for property—solve all the complex problems of the modern world? The answer is twofold: first, because it does; second, because it doesn’t aim to solve everything, but rather to leave room for people to resolve things for themselves, in freedom.
The libertarian principle doesn’t need to anticipate every case, every future technology, or every ethical dilemma. It’s not a central plan, it’s a rule of structure. It’s like grammar: it doesn’t tell you what to write, but it allows for infinite novels to be written. By establishing the minimum conditions of mutual respect—property and nonaggression—libertarianism opens up a universe of peaceful, creative, spontaneous possibilities. Order emerges not from imposition, but from voluntary cooperation under just rules.
This is one of the great contributions of Austrian economists and spontaneous order thinkers: showing that chaos is not the result of freedom, but of coercive planning. Freedom does not generate disorder; on the contrary, it allows for the emergence of an order more complex, more adaptive, and more efficient than any central design. A dictator is not needed for language to work, nor a committee for the market to emerge.
The same is true of law. Norms don’t need to be imposed from above by a caste of omniscient legislators. They can emerge from below, through practice, precedent, and accumulated experience. This is how common law worked for centuries, and this is how libertarian law can work: as an evolving, flexible, principle-based body of law adapted to specific contexts.
However, none of this implies that libertarianism is ultimately morally neutral. Its respect for individual liberty presupposes a vision of the human being as a rational agent, responsible for his or her actions, capable of coexisting without resorting to violence. This vision is profoundly ethical, even if it does not seek to impose a total ethic. Freedom is not an instrumental value: it is a requirement for any genuine moral life.
Coercion, on the other hand, destroys responsibility. When someone acts under threat, they don’t choose: they obey. And a society of obedient people is not a civilized society, but a domesticated mass. Libertarianism, by rejecting all forceful initiation, defends the only environment in which virtue, creativity, and human dignity can flourish.
That’s why libertarianism is not just a legal or political theory: it is, ultimately, a civilizing stance. It’s not enough to tolerate freedom as a pragmatic concession; it must be recognized as a founding principle of any just society. And that means delegitimizing state violence, not only in its crudest forms (war, mass incarceration, confiscation), but also in its most subtle forms: subsidies, regulations, licensing, monetary manipulation.
Every state intervention, however benign it may seem, is based on the same premise: you cannot decide for yourself. You are not the master of your body, your mind, your labor, or your property. The state is. You serve. It commands. It doesn’t matter if the end is noble, if the intention is good, if the majority agrees. The means is violence. And no end can justify it.
To this, libertarianism responds with a phrase as simple as it is radical: no. You do not have the right to use force against others. You cannot steal, regulate, censor, coerce, prohibit… not even if you win an election. Morality does not change with votes. Truth does not depend on polls. Justice is not determined by decree.
❧
This conceptual clarity is what makes libertarianism so powerful… and so feared. Because it admits no gray areas when it comes to the legitimate use of force. There are no collective excuses, no “general interest” that justifies theft, no “social emergencies” that allow anyone to be enslaved, even for a few hours a year via taxes. Libertarianism looks power in the eye and says: you have no rights.
And this is where most ideologies fail. Because even if they speak of freedom, equality, and justice, all of them—sooner or later—justify institutional violence. The classical liberal wants a minimal state that protects rights, but finances it with taxes. The socialist claims to defend the poor, but imposes his program through the illegitimate use of force. The conservative wants order, but imposes it from above. Only the consistent libertarian rejects any non-defensive use of force.
This coherence makes libertarianism not only more just but also more effective. Because when property rights are respected, cooperation flourishes, production increases, and conflicts are reduced. Order doesn’t need police on every corner if no one has the power to impose their will on others. Prosperity doesn’t require five-year plans if each individual can freely undertake their own course of action. Peace doesn’t need treaties signed by bureaucrats if no one has the authority to declare war.
But freedom is not automatic. It requires institutions that sustain it, values that cultivate it, and theories that defend it. Hence the importance of building a solid libertarian legal theory, one that does not depend on vague moral intuitions or academic fads, but on clear and universalizable principles. We need to know what “law” means, how property originates, what a valid contract is, when an aggression can be responded to, and with what means. And all of this without appealing to collective fictions or state prerogatives.
Libertarian law isn’t utopian. It doesn’t promise to eliminate all of humanity’s ills. It promises something much more modest—and much more realistic: avoiding violence between people. It doesn’t tell us how to live, but it does tell us how not to kill each other. And that, in a world of scarce resources, is enough. It is the basis for everything else.
Hence, the axis of libertarian legal theory is not equality or well-being, but justice. And justice, for the libertarian, means: allocating to each person what belongs to them, according to legitimate principles of appropriation and transfer. There is no forced redistribution, no “historical compensation,” no state paternalism. There is restitution, contract, and individual responsibility.
This view of law may seem arid to those who seek excitement in politics. But it is precisely its aridity that makes it fertile. Because by limiting itself to drawing the boundaries of the legitimate use of force, it leaves everything else—morality, culture, religion, aesthetics, education, solidarity—in the hands of the people, where it should always have been.
Libertarianism, then, is not just another ideology. It is a de-ideologization of politics. It does not seek to redeem the world from power, but to liberate the world from power. It does not want to govern better: it wants no one to govern by force. It does not want an enlightened elite in the State: it wants the State not to exist.
And if that sounds radical, that’s because it is. But so was the idea that kings didn’t have divine right. Or that slaves were people. Or that women could vote. Liberty was always a heresy. And libertarianism is its purest expression.
The radical nature of libertarianism stems not from a desire to provoke, but from its implacable consistency. Once it is accepted that individuals are masters of themselves, everything else follows as a logical consequence: if no one has legitimate title to another’s body, then neither does one have title to their labor, their property, or their peaceful decisions. There is no turning back. One cannot be half-free. One cannot be partially unenslaved.
This is what so many find intolerable about libertarianism: that it leaves no room for the petty tyrannies each group wants to exercise over the others. Progressives want to impose equality of outcome; conservatives, moral order; technocrats, efficiency; nationalists, unity; populists, “the good of the people.” They all need one tool: the state. Libertarianism responds: that tool is illegitimate. It doesn’t matter who uses it, or for what purpose.
In the face of this accusation of “negative utopia,” libertarianism needs no apology. It does not propose perfection, but justice. It does not promise that no one will suffer, but that no one will be attacked without justification. It does not deny conflict, but frames it within clear and peaceful rules. It does not propose an ideal society, but a free society: one where the ideals of each individual can coexist without mutually canceling each other out.
Therefore, the libertarian project is not technical, philanthropic, or even political in the usual sense. It is a legal and ethical project. Its purpose is not to improve public administration, nor to make it more transparent, nor to replace the corrupt with the competent. Its purpose is to abolish systematic domination. That is, to end the fiction that there exists a class of people—those in power—who have more rights than others.
This idea, when formulated with all its clarity, dismantles the moral scaffolding of statism. Because it forces us to ask questions that are rarely allowed: What is the state really? Where does it derive its legitimacy? Why can it do things that would be crimes if done by anyone else? Why is its violence called “law”? Why is its theft called “taxation”? Why is its murder called “just war”?
The libertarian answer is simple: it can’t. It doesn’t have to. It shouldn’t. The state has no moral legitimacy because it is, in essence, an organization that thrives on institutionalized plunder. Its origin is not the social contract, but conquest. Its method is not cooperation, but imposition. Its logic is not that of the market, but that of armed monopoly. And its existence perpetuates conflict rather than resolving it.
In contrast, libertarianism proposes a society based on voluntary contracts, free associations, and spontaneous order. A society without rulers or ruled. A society of equals before the law—not before the state, because there is no state. A society where the law is not imposed by decree, but is discovered through universal principles of justice.
This society is not an abstract dream or a utopian model. It is the natural consequence of applying the principle of nonaggression to all human relationships. If no one can initiate violence against another, then no one can levy taxes, issue coercive regulations, censor opinions, compel war, expropriate property, or imprison people for victimless crimes. And if that means the disappearance of the state, so be it.
❧
Many, when faced with this implacable logic, ask with a certain disdain: “And who will build the roads?” It’s almost a caricature, but it nonetheless reflects something deeper: the fear of a world without masters. The idea that the services we value—justice, security, infrastructure, health, education—can be provided without state aggression is unthinkable to them. Not because there is no historical or theoretical evidence that this is possible, but because they have been educated to believe that order can only be born from power.
But political power creates nothing. It doesn’t produce, it doesn’t invent, it’s useless. It only redistributes what others produce, and it does so at a high cost: that of institutionalizing violence. Roads don’t magically emerge from the “general will.” They are built by workers, engineers, contractors—real people who could offer those same services within a framework of competition and respect for property. The same goes for justice, security, and everything else.
The problem isn’t the existence of public services, but the enforced monopoly on their provision. The problem isn’t that there are rules, but that they are imposed only by a group that brooks no competition. The problem isn’t that we live in a society, but that one part of that society arrogates to itself the right to decide for everyone else. The problem isn’t cooperation, but its replacement by the illegitimate use of force.
That’s why libertarianism insists on depoliticizing social life. Not because it despises the public sphere, but because it rejects the idea that the public sphere should be state-owned. A plaza can be private. A university can be voluntary. A justice system can operate without judges appointed by the president. An entire city can function without mayors, councils, or planning departments. What cannot exist in a free society is institutionalized violence legitimized by legal myths.
And one of the most persistent myths is that of “popular sovereignty.” According to this narrative, the state is not a band of plunderers, but an embodiment of the collective will. But this will is never expressed as a real contract, signed by individuals on equal terms, but rather as an abstract fiction that always ends up benefiting the same people: those in power.
The “sovereignty of the people” is, in practice, the sovereignty of the state over the people. Because the people don’t directly decide anything. They vote, yes, but within a system already designed to preserve state control. They vote on preselected options, with imposed rules, and with a propaganda apparatus—public education, subsidized media, funded parties—that profoundly influences their perception of what is possible or desirable.
In the face of this farce, libertarianism proposes true individual sovereignty. Not the illusion of choosing rulers, but the right not to be governed. Not the promise of “participating” in power, but the demand that no one exercise it over one without consent. Not the privilege of being within the system, but the freedom to leave it.
This individual sovereignty does not imply isolation or selfishness. It implies responsibility and genuine cooperation. It implies saying: I am my own master, and therefore I cannot enslave or allow myself to be enslaved. I cannot use force to impose my vision, nor allow others to do so in my name. I can persuade, trade, associate, help… but I cannot command. And no one can command me.
That’s the libertarian revolution: not to seize power, but to abolish it. Not to reform the state, but to replace it with voluntary networks. Not to redistribute violence, but to eradicate it as the organizing principle of society.
❧
It’s important to emphasize that this proposal is not based on idealizations about human nature. Libertarians do not believe that people are angels, nor that they will always act virtuously. Precisely for this reason, we reject giving them coercive power over others. This is not because we blindly trust individual goodness, but because we rightly distrust institutionalized authority. Power corrupts not because it transforms the human essence, but because it amplifies and protects its worst impulses.
History is an undeniable witness: every time a monopolistic structure is created to “serve the common good,” it becomes a vehicle for privilege, corruption, and violence. The police become oppressive. The courts become tools of persecution. The army becomes an apparatus of conquest. The treasury becomes a machine of plunder. And state education becomes a factory of obedience. This is not a flaw in the system: it is its inherent logic.
In the face of this, libertarianism does not offer a “better state alternative,” but rather an epistemological break: the understanding that the state is neither necessary, nor just, nor inevitable. It can be dismantled and replaced by voluntary institutions based on respect for property, contractual cooperation, and decentralized conflict resolution. Not because it is a utopia, but because it is the only coherent path to sustainable peace and prosperity.
A common objection is that this voluntary order could not defend itself against external or internal threats. That without a centralized state, we would be easy prey for invaders, mafias, or general chaos. But this objection confuses order with authority, defense with monopoly, security with submission. Defense systems can be organized without central coercion. Security can be a service, not an excuse for domination. And private contracts, reinforced by reputation, arbitration, and competition, can generate more justice than any state court.
In fact, states have not proven to be reliable guarantors of peace. They have been primarily responsible for the most destructive wars, the most atrocious genocides, and the most brutal repressions. Mafias are not proof of the failure of anarchism, but miniature imitations of the state. And where state power collapses, what emerges is not natural chaos, but the vacuum left by decades of centralized planning. Disorder is not the result of too much freedom, but of too much prior repression.
A free order does not mean the absence of rules, but rather the absence of arbitrary impositions. It means that rules emerge from consent, not decree. That law is based on principles, not privileges. That authority is earned, not imposed. That justice is not administered from above, but exercised among peers.
This order can take many forms: arbitration agencies, mutual protection associations, dispute resolution protocols, reputational systems, contractual insurance. There is no single model, because there is no single path to peaceful cooperation. What matters is not the specific design, but the guiding principle: no service is legitimate if it is financed by force.
At this point, some object that this would make it impossible to care for the poorest, the weakest, the vulnerable. But this criticism is based on a false dichotomy: either there is a state, or there is neglect. As if the only way to help others is through fiscal threats. As if charity, solidarity, family, community, the market, and technology didn’t exist. As if the same people who don’t trust their neighbors to help would trust distant, armed bureaucrats to do it “for them.”
Libertarianism doesn’t prohibit aid: it prevents it from being compulsory. It doesn’t prohibit compassion: it prohibits disguising violence as compassion. It doesn’t deny the existence of need: it denies that this is an excuse for dispossession. And it does so because it knows that forced aid degrades both the giver and the recipient. Because it knows that only what is voluntary is truly human.
❧
Authentic morality—that which has real ethical value—cannot be imposed. It can only arise from voluntary choice. Forced good is not good: it is blind obedience, submission, fear. And a society based on fear is not civilized, even if it cloaks itself in legality. Libertarianism, by prohibiting the illegitimate use of force, not only protects the external freedom of the individual: it creates the space where genuine virtue can emerge.
This is what those who accuse libertarianism of “extreme individualism” or “antisocial egoism” don’t understand—or don’t want to understand. Because they confuse the absence of coercion with the absence of human ties. They assume that if the state doesn’t force people to help others, then no one will. They project their own moral cynicism onto others. But the truth is that cooperation, empathy, and mutual aid flourish most when they are free, not when they are forced by the threat of imprisonment.
History and experience prove it. The strongest communities are not the most regulated, but the freest. Charity flourishes where there is wealth, and wealth flourishes where there is freedom. Innovation in social services is not born in ministry, but in open competition. Authentic support networks don’t need licenses or regulations: they need freedom to operate.
The paradox is that statism—by monopolizing social functions and killing individual responsibility—destroys the very bonds it claims to protect. Social security destroys solidarity. State education destroys free learning. Public health care destroys personal responsibility. And so on. The state not only assaults bodies and confiscates property: it corrodes souls.
Libertarianism, on the other hand, gives back to each person what is theirs. Not just in the material sense, but in the moral sense. It gives you back your life, your responsibility, your power to act, your right to fail and learn. It doesn’t promise you security, but it guarantees you freedom. It doesn’t give you certainties, but it gives you dignity. It doesn’t protect you from the risks of life, but it does protect you from institutionalized slavery.
This dignity implies accepting that freedom has costs. That there will be mistakes, inequalities, failures. That not everyone will choose well, that some will suffer harsh consequences, that there are no cosmic guarantees of happiness. But it also implies recognizing that there is no morally superior alternative. Because all attempts to eliminate these costs through political power only generate greater costs, and immoral ones at that.
Every time the state is invoked to “correct” a market injustice, a greater injustice is committed. Because some are forced to pay for the mistakes—real or perceived—of others. They are forced to surrender property without consent. A dynamic is established in which failure is rewarded, success punished, and moral criteria are replaced by bureaucratic rules. Thus, not only freedom, but also justice, is destroyed.
True justice is blind, not because it ignores circumstances, but because it is governed by principles, not results. Libertarianism defends this basic justice: one that does not redistribute, but respects. One that does not level, but delimits. One that does not compensate, but prevents aggression. A justice that is harsh but clean, demanding but impartial, dry but fertile.
From this perspective, what libertarianism proposes is not a “society without rules,” but rather a society of simple, fair, and universal rules. A society without legal privileges. A society where law is not a tool of social engineering, but a framework of mutual respect. A society where everyone can pursue their own idea of the good—individual or communal—without having to impose it on others.
And if that’s “utopia,” then welcome it. Because there’s no greater utopia than believing that justice can be achieved through violence, equality through theft, or peace through the monopoly of aggression. Libertarianism doesn’t promise paradise, but it does deny the hell that others call civilization.
❧
A common objection to libertarianism is that it “fails to take into account the reality of power.” That it is an idealist theory, incapable of dealing with the fact that the world is—and always has been—governed by elites, by coercive structures, by relations of domination. But this criticism confuses diagnosis with justification. That power exists does not mean it is legitimate. That it has been a historical constant does not mean it is moral.
Libertarianism doesn’t deny the existence of power. It denounces it. And it unmasks it. It reveals its coercive roots, its parasitic essence, its ideological facade. It doesn’t propose ignoring power, but rather delegitimizing it. It doesn’t seek to replace one dominant caste with another, but rather to end all institutionalized forms of domination. Its revolution is conceptual: it strips power bare, stripped of its moral cloak.
And that’s precisely why it’s so dangerous to the status quo. Because it can’t be domesticated. It can’t be integrated into the political game without losing its essence. It can’t be “just another party” or “a proposal for reform.” Libertarianism doesn’t seek to reform the state, but to abolish it. It doesn’t ask for permission: it demands freedom.
That’s why attempts to dilute the libertarian message through electoral strategies, pragmatic concessions, or ideological alliances always end in moral defeat. Because they betray the principle that gives it strength: the radical refusal to justify aggression. Libertarianism is not a “brand” that adapts to the marketplace of ideas. It’s an inconvenient truth that challenges the entire system.
Now, this does not mean that libertarianism is a closed or dogmatic doctrine. On the contrary: it is an open structure, compatible with diverse philosophical, ethical, and cultural traditions. It can be defended from utilitarianism, deontological ethics, natural rights theory, Argumentation Ethics, radical consequentialism, or even from a normative agnosticism that simply states: “aggression cannot be rationally justified.”
What all these approaches share is the affirmation of a common principle: no one has the right to initiate the use of force against others. Everything else follows from there. There is no need for philosophical unanimity to build a free society: it is enough to agree on this minimum principle of mutual respect.
In this sense, libertarianism is not only a political theory, but also a social metatheory: a way of living together based on peaceful disagreement. A nonaggression pact between diverse, autonomous, imperfect people. A framework that allows multiple ways of life to flourish without any of them having to be imposed by force.
And that’s why it’s also one of the most humble ideas ever formulated. Because it doesn’t attempt to define what “good” is. It doesn’t attempt to tell anyone how they should live, what they should believe, whom they should love, what they should consume, or how they should spend their time. It simply states: live and let live. Or, more precisely: do not attack, do not steal, do not enslave.
This epistemological humility is part of its moral strength. Because it recognizes human fallibility, the diversity of ends, and the impossibility of centralized knowledge. It rejects the Promethean delirium of shaping society from above. Instead, it advocates free cooperation among responsible individuals. Not because everyone is wise or good, but because there is no morally superior alternative.
For all these reasons, libertarianism is not only more just than any form of statism. It is also more realistic. Because it starts from what exists—the human being as he or she is—and constructs a political theory that respects his or her limits, his or her capacities, his or her dignity. It doesn’t promise redemption, salvation, or perfect harmony. It promises freedom. And that is enough.
❧
Without private property, there is no responsibility, no foresight, no savings, no genuine cooperation. All that remains is the struggle for temporary control of the collective spoils, administered by whoever has the most power or influence. The rejection of property ownership does not lead to equality, but rather to a permanent war over resources. It is a recipe for perpetual conflict, backwardness, and authoritarianism under the guise of community.
Therefore, the libertarian critique of the State is inseparable from the defense of property. Because the State is not a neutral entity that organizes common goods: it is an institutionalized machine of expropriation. It presents itself as a referee, but it is a player. It presents itself as a defender of rights, but it systematically violates them. Every intervention in the economy—whether through taxes, subsidies, regulation, or legal monopoly—involves a forced transfer of property from some to others, mediated by threat.
This not only has economic consequences, but also moral and epistemological ones. It distorts prices, destroys the decentralized information that enables productive coordination, and corrupts the relationship between action, consequence, and responsibility. Instead of rewarding value creation, it rewards proximity to power. Instead of protecting the weak, it makes them dependent. Instead of generating cooperation, it incentivizes denunciation, clientelism, and legalized plunder.
Libertarianism, on the other hand, establishes a horizontal morality, where no one has legal privileges over others. Where every transaction must be voluntary. Where every right implies a corresponding duty. Where contract replaces decree, competition replaces favoritism, and justice replaces “political correctness.”
In this context, even traditional legal institutions—such as criminal law, contract law, and tort law—must be reinterpreted from a logic of restitution, not punishment. Punishment, as an end in itself, is incompatible with the nonaggression principle. Force is only justified against those who have violated rights, and only to the extent necessary to protect or compensate the victim. Revenge may have emotional value, but it has no place in a libertarian legal theory.
This radically transforms the function of justice. It is no longer a centralized apparatus imposing “order,” but a network of institutions geared toward resolving disputes and restoring rights. Judges, arbitrators, law enforcement agencies, and insurance companies can all be part of a free legal ecosystem, based on consent and reputation, not on armed monopoly.
A common objection is that this type of system could not guarantee legal uniformity. But this objection is based on a flawed premise: that uniformity is preferable to justice. Normative diversity—if rooted in contractual and voluntary principles—is not a defect, but a virtue. It allows for competition between legal models, adaptation to cultural contexts, and institutional innovation. Where there is legal monopoly, there is stagnation. Where there is legal diversity, there is evolution.
In fact, the most efficient legal systems in history—Anglo-Saxon common law, medieval commercial law, the rules of international trade—emerged without central planning, without imposed constitutions, without professional legislators. They were systems of emergent rules, validated by their functionality and legitimized by their practical acceptance. This is the logic of free law: not what a parliament drafts, but what people recognize as just.
Libertarianism doesn’t seek to abolish the law. It seeks to abolish imposed law. It doesn’t want normative anarchy, but legal polycentrism. It doesn’t want the absence of rules, but the absence of monopolies. Because it knows that true law doesn’t need to be written by bureaucrats or applied by brute force: it needs to be fair, clear, and respected.
And this is where the relationship between libertarianism and natural law becomes evident. Natural law is not understood as a mystical or religious doctrine, but as a rational logic of universal principles that delimit the legitimate use of force. Natural law is not a closed list of norms, but a methodology for discovering them: if a rule cannot be universally applied without contradiction, it cannot be just. If it cannot be defended without incurring aggression, it must be rejected.
This is the logic underlying Hoppe’s Ethics of Argumentation, Rothbard’s theory of original property, the idea of voluntary contract, the principle of proportionality in self-defense, and restitution as a criterion of justice. It is not an infallible or complete logic, but it is coherent and powerful. Much more so than any attempt to base law on the will of a majority, the preferences of an enlightened elite, or the fluctuations of social consensus.
Libertarianism is, ultimately, the rigorous application of that logic to social organization. Its strength lies not in promising results, but in establishing fair rules for achieving them. It doesn’t offer utopias, but limits. It doesn’t say what you must do, but what you cannot do: initiate violence, steal, enslave. Everything else—creating, cooperating, trading, helping, making mistakes—is up to you. Because you are your own master.
❧
Because you are your own master, you can make decisions, take risks, enter into agreements, form alliances, and build your life with your own hands. No one can claim a legitimate right to force you to act in their best interest without your consent. This is the inescapable core of libertarian ethics: you are not a means to another’s ends. You are not the property of any group, state, majority, or previous generation.
In practice, this ethical vision translates into a set of legal rules that define how conflicts over scarce resources should be resolved: through property rights. If something is yours—because you acquired it through original appropriation, received it by contract, or inherited it from someone who legitimately owned it—then no one can take it away from you without your permission. This simple rule generates a complex, adaptable, and peaceful social order.
The problem with statism is that it replaces this rule with an endless series of exceptions. Instead of protecting property, it conditions it. Instead of recognizing pre-existing rights, it grants (and withdraws) them according to political criteria. Instead of guaranteeing justice, it redistributes power. That’s why every state system, even the most “limited,” tends toward growth, toward the expansion of its functions, toward the progressive absorption of the voluntary spheres of life.
This is neither an accident nor an abuse. It is the nature of the state. As a territorial monopoly on legitimate violence, the state has structural incentives to increase its control, broaden its tax base, and consolidate its ideological hegemony. And it does so efficiently. Through public education, it shapes submissive mentalities. Through subsidized media, it manufactures consensus. Through legislation, it regulates every corner of everyday life.
Libertarianism, in denouncing this logic, does not limit itself to an external critique. It offers an internal alternative, based on legal theory: the total decentralization of the use of force, the abolition of the legal monopoly, and the restoration of contract as the sole legitimate means of social organization. This is not just about “privatizing” state functions, but about eliminating their source of power: the illegitimate use of force.
This also includes the rejection of legislation as a source of law. For libertarians, law is not created through decrees, but rather is discovered through legal reasoning. The principles of justice are prior to and superior to any positive norm. If a written law violates the non-aggression principle, then it is not law: it is an illegitimate imposition. Formal validity cannot replace ethical legitimacy.
Legislation, by its very nature, is a tool of institutionalized aggression. Not because all laws are unjust, but because all positive laws are imposed by force. Even a law prohibiting homicide can be unjust if it is formulated by an entity that does not recognize private property as a guiding principle. What matters is not the isolated content, but the institutional framework that supports it.
Hence the importance of customary law, voluntary arbitration, and emerging legal systems. In a free society, rules are not dictated by bureaucrats or drafted by technocrats: they are generated by the spontaneous interaction of individuals seeking to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. Justice is not a function of the state; it is a human need that can best be met through decentralized cooperation.
Many ask: what about “public goods”? Isn’t it necessary for someone to guarantee roads, defense, justice, and health care? The libertarian answer is not technical (although technical solutions exist), but ethical: no good, however desirable, can be justified if obtained through immoral means. Defense does not justify forced recruitment. Health care does not justify tax theft. Education does not justify ideological coercion.
Once this is understood, the door is opened to an explosion of institutional creativity. If something is valuable, people will find voluntary ways to produce, finance, and distribute it. History and theory show that public goods do not necessarily require a coercive provider. What they require is a legal environment that respects freedom of association, competition, and the right to exclude.
This also includes the right not to participate. The right not to fund outside causes. The right not to be forced to support structures one considers immoral or inefficient. This is the cornerstone of every free society: the right to say “no.” Without this right, every contract is a sham, every law is slavery, every democracy is tyranny.
That’s why libertarianism is not a fringe theory, nor an ideological whim, nor a philosophical fad. It is the logical consequence of taking the ethics of nonaggression seriously. It is the only political theory that can be sustained without contradiction. All others, sooner or later, fall into paradoxes, exceptions, privileges, and justified violence. Libertarianism does not. And that is why it is so feared, so resisted, so necessary.
❧
Below is the full translation of the following section of Chapter 1 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society, faithful to the original content and Kinsella’s libertarian academic tone:
Whoever understands this has in their hands a normative compass to navigate any political or social conflict. You don’t need a library of laws, a professional parliament, or a constitutional court: simply apply the nonaggression principle and the rule of legitimate ownership to determine who is right. Was there an invasion? Was there an illegitimate use of force? Who was the legitimate owner? Was there consent? Every dispute can be reduced to these essential points.
This does not mean that each case is trivial or that there are no factual complexities. It means that the principles that resolve these cases are clear and universal. They do not change with culture, ideology, or circumstances. They are legal principles, not preferences. And that is the basis of a true rule of law: not the rule of rules created by bureaucrats, but the subjection of all, without exception, to objective rules of justice.
From this perspective, anarcho-capitalism is not just one political option among many. It is the only system consistent with the idea of individual rights. Any other system—be it minarchism, social democracy, communism, theocracy, or technocracy—at some point legitimizes the use of force against innocent people. And that disqualifies it from the outset.
Libertarianism is not normatively gradualist, although it can be strategically. It doesn’t say, “Some illegitimate use of force is acceptable.” It says, “All illegitimate use of force is unjust, although some forms may be more urgent to abolish than others.” This distinction is crucial. Strategy can accept priorities; theory cannot. Justice is not a matter of degrees: it is an absolute principle.
This, of course, makes those who want to present themselves as “moderate,” “realist,” or “reformist” uncomfortable. But libertarianism isn’t designed to please, but to tell the truth. And the truth is that living off others without their consent is immoral, even if it’s called “welfare,” “redistribution,” “security,” or “development.” The truth is that enslavement, even for a portion of one’s time or income, is still slavery.
Once this is understood, there’s no turning back. The world doesn’t look the same. News, laws, political speeches, social demands… everything takes on a different dimension. The mechanism of domination becomes clear, almost transparent. Politics no longer dazzles: it repels. And power no longer impresses: it offends. We begin to see clearly what was previously veiled by decades of indoctrination.
Libertarianism doesn’t make anyone a saint, but it does give them a moral yardstick by which to measure the world. And that yardstick, though simple, is inflexible. That’s why it demands courage. Because it forces you to say no where everyone applauds. To reject easy solutions. To accept that living free also means accepting responsibility for every action, without a state safety net.
This is hard, yes. But it is dignified. And dignity, in an enslaved world, is a form of rebellion. Being a libertarian isn’t just an intellectual commitment: it’s an existential decision. It means standing before the Leviathan and saying: You have no authority over me. I don’t recognize you. I don’t serve you. And I am not alone.
Because libertarianism isn’t just a theory or a label. It’s a community. A tradition. A genealogy of thinkers, activists, economists, philosophers, jurists, entrepreneurs, hackers, objectors, creators, exiles… all united by a common principle: the individual is sovereign.
This community has produced some of the most brilliant intellectuals of modernity: Bastiat, Spooner, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, Block, Salerno, Huerta de Soto, Tucker, Rockwell, Kinsella. And not just intellectuals: also educators, disseminators, donors, network builders, editors, and institution-builders. Each contributes their part to the peaceful demolition of the statist paradigm.
And although we are still a minority, we have something our adversaries lack: consistency. They may have power, votes, resources, weapons. We are right. And reason, when expressed without fear, has an incomparable subversive power. It doesn’t need permission. It doesn’t need majorities. It just needs to be spoken.
Therefore, this work—and this life project—does not seek to please. It seeks to liberate. It does not aspire to “change the system from within,” but to show that the system lacks legitimacy. It does not seek to domesticate the State, but to abolish it. It does not seek to improve the cage, but to open the door.
Freedom is not a gift granted by power. It’s a condition to be demanded. It isn’t negotiated, it isn’t begged, it isn’t delegated. It is exercised. And it is defended. Every day, in every decision, in every idea. That is the call of libertarianism: to live as if we were already free.
❧
Living as if we were already free means acting, thinking, and arguing in libertarian terms, even within a world governed by coercive structures. It doesn’t mean denying the existence of the state, nor pretending that its threats don’t affect our daily lives. Rather, it means denying it moral legitimacy. It means not internalizing its narrative. It means ceasing to think as a subject and starting to think as a sovereign individual.
This attitude has practical consequences. A libertarian doesn’t simply say, “I would like the state to be more efficient,” but rather, “The state has no right to exist as a monopoly of violence.” A libertarian doesn’t ask permission to exercise his freedom: he exercises it and demands that it be respected. A libertarian isn’t satisfied with superficial reforms; he seeks to dismantle the very structures of domination.
And this doesn’t require heroism, martyrdom, or isolation. It requires consistency. It demands moral clarity. It demands rejecting the foundational lie of statism: that someone must command so that others can live in peace. No. Peace is not imposed. Peace is built on cooperation, ownership, and contract. And all of this can flourish—and has flourished—without the State.
Of course, this message is uncomfortable. It goes against centuries of political indoctrination, against established interests, against the sophisticated cynicism of academia. But there is no revolution more necessary than one that begins with ideas. Because power—all power—feeds on intellectual obedience. And libertarianism cuts to the root of that obedience: it dismantles its legitimacy.
Therefore, the objective of this work is not only to offer arguments in favor of a free society. It is to delegitimize the current system. It is to expose violence where it is disguised as law. It is to denaturalize what is considered “normal” today: taxes, regulations, controls, licenses, privileges. All of this is not normal: it is aggression. It is domination. It is injustice.
And justice admits no institutional exceptions. There is no moral way to steal, even if it’s called a “tax.” There is no just way to enslave, even if it’s only for a few hours a day or a few months a year. There is no peaceful way to coerce, even if it’s done with paperwork, uniforms, and courts. Libertarianism isn’t fooled by forms. It goes to the heart of the matter. And there it finds the truth: that the State is incompatible with justice.
This incompatibility isn’t just theoretical. It manifests itself in every daily interaction between the individual and the state apparatus. When opening a business without a license is prohibited. When part of a salary is expropriated through tax withholding. When an “inconvenient” opinion is censored. When production, consumption, and association are regulated. Each of these actions is an aggression. And the fact that it’s legal doesn’t make it just.
Hence, libertarianism proposes a radically different framework: a system where all coercive action must be justified as a proportional response to a prior aggression. A system where rights emanate not from a constitution or a majority, but from the very nature of human beings as rational agents and self-owners. A system where law is not created: it is discovered.
In this system, courts do not impose rules, but rather resolve disputes by applying principles. Law enforcement does not obey a state hierarchy, but rather voluntary contracts. The production of legal norms is decentralized, competitive, and consumer-oriented. And what is today considered a utopia—a stateless society—becomes simply a just society.
Of course, this change won’t be automatic. It won’t happen by decree. There won’t be a “libertarian revolution” in the traditional sense. What there will be—and is already happening—is a progressive erosion of the legitimacy of statism. More and more people are questioning authority. More and more services that were once a state monopoly are now better provided privately. More and more voices are daring to say the unthinkable: that we don’t need to be governed.
That’s the strength of libertarianism: it doesn’t require a majority, power, or weapons. It only requires clarity. Because when the truth is formulated consistently, it disarms lies. When justice is defined rigorously, it exposes injustice. And when freedom is defended unabashedly, it becomes irresistible.
Therefore, this work is an invitation. To think without fear. To live without permission. To reclaim what is yours: your body, your mind, your property. To stop asking the State to let you live and start living as if the State no longer exists.
It won’t be easy. But it will be fair. And that’s a price worth paying.
❧
This price, however, is not paid only once. It is not a single heroic act, but a continuous stance, a way of being in the world. Because we live immersed in structures that daily contradict libertarian principles: from taxes to licenses, from borders to prohibitions, from regulations to victimless criminal laws. The struggle for freedom is not episodic: it is ongoing.
Therefore, the first step for any libertarian is to demystify law. To remove it from the positivist pedestal on which state jurists have placed it. To show that the law is not what Congress says, nor what a supreme court judge writes, nor what appears in the official gazette. The law is a moral rather than a legalistic concept. It is the normative structure that enables peace and cooperation among individuals. And it only deserves that name if it is based on justice.
This brings us to a fundamental distinction between law and legislation. Legislation is a political creation. Law is a moral discovery. Legislation changes according to convenience, majority, party, or lobby. Law, if it is such, remains unchanged as long as its principles are respected: non-aggression, legitimate property, restitution. Confusing the two is one of the roots of modern tyranny.
The State presents itself as the source of the law, but in reality, it is its greatest violator. It legislates to grant itself privileges, shield its abuses, and disguise its plunder. And it does so with technical, pompous, ceremonial language so that no one dares to question it. But libertarianism lifts the veil: it exposes that state law is, almost always, the codification of crime.
Therefore, it is not enough to “respect the law” if it is unjust. It is not enough to obey if what is ordered is immoral. Civil disobedience, conscientious objection, passive resistance, the creation of peaceful alternatives—all are valid ways of asserting the superiority of natural law over positive law. Libertarians, when they can, comply. But when they must, they defy.
This is particularly important in the legal context. For centuries, it has been taught that law emanates from the State, that only the State can guarantee it, and that outside the State there is chaos. This narrative has been dismantled by history, theory, and experience. The most functional legal systems have emerged without central planning, through processes of institutional evolution.
From Roman law to common law, from medieval commercial courts to modern arbitration agencies, examples abound: law can exist—and indeed has existed—without the state. And not only has it existed: it has been superior in flexibility, legitimacy, and fairness. The state monopoly on law is not a historical necessity: it is a political imposition.
Libertarianism, therefore, does not propose “total deregulation,” but rather the replacement of coercive regulation with voluntary norms. It does not propose “abolishing the law,” but rather replacing arbitrary legislation with legitimate law. It does not propose “having no judges,” but rather that judges should not impose their authority over the consent of the parties.
And this doesn’t mean the absence of order, but rather its rediscovery. It means trusting that individuals, free from the illegitimate use of force, can coordinate to resolve disputes, protect rights, and prevent conflict. It means believing in the human capacity to create institutions better than those imposed by the state. It means, ultimately, embracing civilization rather than domination.
This commitment, of course, requires courage. Because challenging the status quo always comes at a cost. It may entail persecution, marginalization, misunderstanding, ridicule. But it also entails coherence, dignity, integrity. And what is gained—freedom of thought, action, association, creation—is priceless. It is, as we said, a price infinitely worth paying.
That’s why this book isn’t just another academic defense. It’s a declaration of principles. It’s a conceptual roadmap for a peaceful revolution. It’s an invitation to break chains, not with violence, but with ideas. To build a society where no one rules over others, where all power must be justified before the individual, where the law is not the shield of privilege but the limit of all authority.
We are not alone. We are not the first. But we may be the last to have the opportunity to reverse course. The world cannot endure many more decades of massive statism, legal inflation, moral degradation, and political coercion. If we want a free society, we have to start now. And it all starts with understanding what it truly means to be free.
❧
Being free is not a metaphor, nor a feeling, nor a vague aspiration. It’s an objective legal condition: it means not being subjected to the unjustified use of force. That is, not living under institutionalized coercion. It’s either that, or it isn’t freedom.
From this simple but demanding definition, most contemporary societies are not free. It doesn’t matter how many television channels there are, how many political parties can be elected, or how many NGOs operate. If the state can confiscate your income, recruit you, censor you, force you to fund projects you don’t approve of, restrict your voluntary contracts, regulate your business, your body, your words… then you are not free.
And if you are not free, you cannot be fully responsible, fully virtuous, or fully human. Freedom is not just another right: it is the precondition for any other right to have meaning. There is no justice without freedom. There is no civilization without freedom. There is no law without liberty.
That’s why libertarianism is not an “individualist” doctrine in the vulgar sense of the term. It doesn’t propose isolation, indifference, or social nihilism. It proposes radical respect for individuality as the only possible basis for any just coexistence. Because all genuine cooperation requires consent. And consent can only exist where there is freedom.
This principle—the necessity of consent for all legitimate interactions—is the cornerstone of any libertarian theory of law. It is the criterion that distinguishes between aggression and defense, between exchange and theft, between contract and fraud, between law and the illegitimate use of force.
And this criterion applies not only to the economic sphere, but also to the political, social, cultural, and personal spheres. A truly free society is not one where markets function well, but one where no one has coercive privileges over others. Where every relationship is voluntary. Where every norm is accepted. Where every action is peaceful.
This ideal is not an unrealizable utopia. It is a clear normative guide. It is a horizon from which to critique existing institutions and design alternatives. It is also an intellectual requirement. Because it requires us to justify every norm, every institution, every social practice based on a single principle: nonaggression.
Can this policy be justified without violating that principle? Can this law be upheld without invoking state privilege? Can this measure survive the consent test? If the answer is no, then it is not libertarian. And if it is not libertarian, it is not just.
Thus, libertarianism offers a coherent framework for thinking about justice, law, order, cooperation, economics, and even public morality. Not as imposition, but as the free articulation of individual values, goals, and projects. Not as social engineering, but as respect for spontaneous order.
This spontaneous order—as Menger, Hayek, and many others explained—is not chaos. It is decentralized complexity. It is the network of voluntary interactions that emerge when individuals act within a framework of well-defined rights. It is the opposite of central design: it does not impose form, but allows for multiple forms. It does not standardize, but diversifies. It does not standardize, but allows for adaptation.
In this sense, the libertarian order is more robust, more resilient, and more humane than any statist alternative. Because it doesn’t depend on a central authority, a dominant ideology, or an enlightened elite. It depends on millions of individual decisions, agreements, exchanges, and adjustments. It is a living network.
And like any living network, it needs simple but firm principles. It needs property rights, voluntary contracts, dispute resolution mechanisms. All of this can emerge—and has emerged—without state planning. The role of libertarianism is to identify these principles, defend them, and prevent them from being eroded by politics.
Politics, understood as a struggle for power, is the natural enemy of liberty. Because it always seeks privileges, monopolies, favors, and forced transfers. It always divides between rulers and ruled, between those who command and those who obey. Libertarianism proposes abolishing this division: that no one command, that all cooperate. Not by unanimity, but by contract.
And this contract isn’t metaphorical. It’s real, explicit or implicit, but always based on consent. It can take many forms: commercial, social, cultural, communal. But it can never be imposed by force. That’s the unbreakable limit.
No institution, no law, no majority can cross it without losing legitimacy. Consent is neither a luxury nor a detail: it is the moral boundary that separates civilization from domination. And everything the state does, it does without that genuine individual consent.
This doesn’t mean there’s no tacit consent or complex contractual forms in a free society. But that consent must be real, not fictitious; it must be able to be withdrawn without retaliation; it must be based on individual property ownership. And the modern state meets none of these conditions. Its “contracts” are unilateral, imposed, irrevocable, and without an exit option.
That’s why the state cannot be justified by the contractual analogy. It is not a business, nor a voluntary community, nor a mutual aid association. It is a structure of privilege backed by violence. Its existence depends on the systematic confiscation of resources (taxation), legal monopoly, and the suppression of competition. In any other sphere, this would be clearly unacceptable. In the political sphere, we simply call it “government.”
But libertarianism exposes this euphemism. It calls things by their name. It doesn’t speak of “public policies,” but of institutionalized aggression. It doesn’t speak of “redistribution,” but of plunder. It doesn’t speak of “regulation,” but of coercion. And it doesn’t do this to provoke: it does so because conceptual clarity is the first step toward justice.
Justice demands that what was stolen be restored, that the damage be repaired, that the repetition of the aggression be prevented. It doesn’t demand revenge or exemplary punishment. It demands restitution. And this principle—justice as restitution—can only be upheld where rights are clear, where ownership is defined, and where responsibility is individual.
This is the heart of the libertarian legal system. It is not based on obedience to a higher authority, but on the peaceful resolution of conflicts between equals. It is not based on force, but on agreement. It is not based on institutional loyalty, but on objective justice. It is, in essence, a system of self-government.
This self-government does not mean isolation or absolute self-sufficiency. It means that no one has the right to govern another without that person’s consent. It means that all legitimate authority arises from contract, from free agreement, from peaceful interaction. And it means that any institution that cannot be challenged or voluntarily abandoned is, by definition, illegitimate.
Applying this principle to political life involves rethinking everything: from taxes to policing, from borders to licensing, from courts to schools. Are these services voluntary? Can they be replaced by other providers? Can they be discontinued without punishment? If the answer is no, then they are not compatible with a free society.
This doesn’t mean all these services should disappear. It does mean they should be offered under conditions of freedom, competition, and consent. Libertarianism isn’t opposed to security, justice, healthcare, or education. It’s opposed to these things being imposed by force, monopolized, or funded without consent.
And this is where its moral superiority lies. Because it doesn’t impose a vision of good. It only demands respect for rights. It doesn’t force cooperation, but allows it. It doesn’t impose a culture, but protects all. It doesn’t impose an economy, but allows prosperity. It doesn’t impose morality, but creates the space for morality to emerge without violent imposition.
This is the central message: freedom doesn’t need to be imposed. It only needs to be respected. It doesn’t need uniformity, it only needs tolerance. It doesn’t need planning, it only needs justice. And that, although it may seem modest, is revolutionary.
And yes, it is revolutionary. Because it breaks with thousands of years of hierarchical structures justified by the myth of authority. Because it affirms that no political class, no state apparatus, no privileged group has the right to impose its will on others. Because it gives the individual back control over their life, their body, their property.
And every true revolution begins with ideas. Before a regime falls, its legitimacy falls. Before an empire crumbles, its narrative unravels. Libertarianism is in no hurry: it is clear. It knows that as long as the idea of freedom is alive—rigorous, coherent, uncompromising—the statist project is already mortally wounded.
The mission, then, is twofold: to resist the illegitimate use of force and to build an alternative. It’s not just about saying “no” to power, but about saying “yes” to voluntary cooperation. It’s not just about criticizing the system, but about showing what a principled social order would look like. And that requires theory.
A solid theory of property rights. A clear theory of contract. A precise theory of restitution. A theory of punishment—if any—and of proportionality. A theory of liability. A theory of unowned goods. A theory of dispute resolution. In short: a truly libertarian legal theory.
That is the purpose of this work. Not to offer political prescriptions or marginal reforms, but rather foundations. Not to sell campaign rhetoric, but to build normative foundations. Because only with solid foundations can a free order be sustained. And these foundations are not improvised. They are derived, refined, and systematized. That is what we are attempting here.
In the chapters that follow, we’ll address each of these elements. We’ll begin with the notion of law itself: what is law? Where does it come from? How is it distinguished from power? Then we’ll explore property: how it originates, how it is acquired, how it is transferred. We’ll cover contract, liability, criminal justice, punishment, and restitution.
We will also see how these concepts apply to specific problems: abortion, children, inheritance, the environment, immigration, war, corporal punishment, self-defense. Nothing is left out of libertarian analysis if we understand that every use of scarce resources requires a fair allocation rule.
And we will always return to the principle: nonaggression. Because if that principle is respected, everything else flows. And if it is violated, everything else is corrupted. It’s a simple principle, but not simplistic. It demands rigorous analysis, careful application, and steadfast defense.
But once understood, it becomes liberating. Because it puts an end to the normative chaos. Because it offers a clear criterion in a world full of excuses. Because it returns responsibility to the individual. And because it restores hope for a free, just, and peaceful society, without the need for enlightened tyrants or well-intentioned planners.
So let’s get down to business. Join me in this exploration of the legal foundations of a free society. It won’t be easy. Some conclusions will challenge common intuitions. Others will seem “extreme” by the standards of modern statism. But if you follow the reasoning with intellectual honesty, I think you’ll see what many of us have already seen: that libertarianism isn’t just coherent. It’s correct.
And if we want justice, freedom, and peace—for real—we cannot settle for less.
