Stephan Kinsella, “Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe: An Indispensable Framework,” in Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press and Property and Freedom Society, 2026)
Related
- A Question of Authorship? (attribution) (re the section “Excursus: The Role of Ideas in Human Action”)
- Audio at KOL487 | Stephan Kinsella, “Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe: An Indispensable Framework” (Rothbard at 100)
Update: Re the discussion of attribution in the section “Excursus: The Role of Ideas in Human Action,” see On Julio H. Cole, “Eponymy in Economics,” The Independent Review (Summer 2006). Comments adapted from Grok analysis:
This is a review essay of An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics (Segura & Rodríguez Braun, eds.). Its thesis is that eponymy (naming laws, theorems, effects, indexes, tests, etc. after people) functions mainly as a practical mnemonic and communication shorthand. Historical accuracy is secondary. Cole endorses Stigler’s Law of Eponymy—“no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer”—and notes that common usage, not true origin, determines the labels that stick. Attempts to “correct” established eponyms are usually pedantic. He briefly observes that the process of naming often has a spontaneous-order character. The bulk of the piece evaluates the dictionary’s coverage, omissions, and usefulness for economists.
The paper contains no discussion of praxeology, the structure of human action, scarcity versus non-scarcity of knowledge, property rights, intellectual property, Lockean labor/creation theory, or the accumulation of a fund of experience.
The 2025 article and the Excursus
The piece at c4sif.org/2025/05/libertarian-lockean-creationism/ (“Libertarian and Lockean Creationism…”) is an extended development of the same themes found in the “Excursus: The Role of Ideas in Human Action.” Its central claims are:
- Creation/innovation is a major source of wealth, but it is not a source of property rights.
- Property rights arise only with respect to scarce, conflictable means of action (via homesteading or contract). Knowledge, ideas, recipes, and technological information are non-scarce guides to action; the same idea can be used simultaneously by any number of people without conflict.
- Because knowledge is non-scarce, it becomes part of Hayek’s “fund of experience” and is “gratuitously available for the benefit of all.” Restricting it via IP creates artificial scarcity and is destructive.
- “Libertarian/Lockean creationism”—the view that the act of creating an idea thereby confers ownership of it—is a fallacy. One does not own an idea merely because one first thought of it or articulated it.
The Excursus and the 2025 article therefore treat accurate identification of the originator of an idea as theoretically secondary: what matters is the usability of the knowledge, not its provenance or any desert-based claim by a “creator.”
Relation after taking the 2025 article into account
There is still no direct or substantive relation between Cole’s thesis and the arguments in the Excursus / 2025 article.
- Cole is concerned with the sociology and practical linguistics of scientific nomenclature. He observes that names rarely track true discoverers and that usage overrides historical truth. This is an empirical point about how labels form and stick.
- The Excursus and the 2025 article are making a normative and praxeological argument: because knowledge is non-scarce, creation does not generate property rights in ideas, and accurate attribution is unnecessary for the productive use of knowledge.
One can note a mild thematic resonance: Cole’s observation that eponyms often detach from true originators and settle by usage is consistent with (but does not argue for) the view that the provenance of ideas is secondary and that ideas function as a common fund. Both texts also allude, in different ways, to spontaneous or emergent processes surrounding ideas. But these are superficial overlaps. Cole never addresses scarcity, property, creation-as-source-of-rights, or the means/knowledge distinction that constitute the core of the Excursus and the 2025 piece.
