KOL478 | Haman Nature Hn 185: The Universal Principles of Liberty

by Stephan Kinsella on December 9, 2025

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 478.

This is my appearance on Adam Haman’s podcast and Youtube channel, Haman Nature (Haman Nature substack), Kinsella’s Legal Treatise On Universal Principles Of Liberty | Hn 185 (recorded Nov. 9, 2025; released Dec. 9, 2025).

Adam’s show notes:

On this episode of Haman Nature, libertarian poker pro Adam Haman is joined once again by libertarian legal theorist (and patent attorney who despises IP) Stephan Kinsella about his new creation: The Universal Principles of Liberty. (apologies, folks – my mic was a bit wonky on this one)

00:00 — Intro. Welcoming author, attorney, world-traveler, and all-around great guy Stephan Kinsella!
02:54 — What are “The Universal Principles of Liberty”, and why should we be excited by it?
11:40 — What is a “person”? What is “property”? Why are these things so important to think about clearly?
34:24 — This simple and elegant document can handle deep and complex issues.
47:54 — When (and why) does selling not imply ownership, and vice-versa? What does “dualism” have to do with this? What’s the confusion between economics and law when dealing with this stuff?
56:53 — Outro. Go comment on TUPoL! (linked below) Thanks for watching Haman Nature!

Shownotes, links, grok summary, and transcript below.

Shownotes (Grok)

Haman Nature Podcast – Show Notes

Guest: Stephan Kinsella

Host: Adam Haman

Episode Topic: The Universal Principles of Liberty – A New Foundation for Free Societies

0:00 – Opening Banter & Liberland Passport Shenanigans

Stephan shows up in casual clothes after taking a suit-and-tie selfie… for his upcoming Liberland passport photo
Only a libertarian would put on half a suit to pretend to be a government just to get a passport
Stephan is heading to Prague in December 2025 for the signing and announcement of the Liberland Constitution

1:04 – Who is Stephan Kinsella?

Patent attorney turned leading anarchist legal theorist
Author of Against Intellectual Property and Legal Foundations of a Free Society
Recent Vegas trip with Adam: helicopter into the Grand Canyon, Venetian St. Mark’s Square (tacky but awesome)

2:59 – Introducing “The Universal Principles of Liberty” (TUPoL)

A one-page, elegant, civil-law-style statement of libertarian metanorms
Not a constitution, not a detailed legal code – a foundational layer that private legal systems can build upon
Voluntary opt-in document: you must explicitly sign on to be bound
Purpose: foster conflict-free interaction through reason, experience, and ethics – no state decree, no majority vote

5:09 – Origin Story: From Liberland → Bir Tawil → Universal Principles

Stephan helped draft Liberland’s early (still statist) constitution but was uneasy as an anarchist
Long history of libertarian startup-country projects (Seasteading, Atlantis, Prospera, etc.)
Max (FreeMax) approached Stephan about Bir Tawil (unclaimed land between Egypt & Sudan) and wanted principles instead of a state
Co-drafters: Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Alessandro Fusillo, David Dürr, Pat Tinsley

9:16 – Why This Document Now?

Refinement of 30+ years of libertarian legal theory (Rothbard, Hoppe, Kinsella)
Earlier concise restatement now in the Libertarian Party platform (plank 2.1/2.2)
Goal: a short, uncontroversial, legally precise statement that any free society can point to

11:40 – Key Features & Definitions

“Person” = any sentient being capable of moral agency (includes possible AGI/aliens, excludes animals)
Rights are exclusively property rights in scarce physical resources (no “right to life,” no IP)
Self-ownership is primary and inalienable (the Walter Block voluntary-slavery debate settled against alienability)
Body rights can only be forfeited by committing aggression (proportional punishment/restoration justified)

20:01 – Freedom is a Consequence, Not a Primary Right

No need for enumerated positive rights (speech, religion, warm baths)
All legitimate freedoms flow from property rights in body and external resources

23:25 – Why Self-Ownership is Inalienable (and Walter Block is wrong)

Body ownership arises from direct embodiment/control, not homesteading
You can abandon or sell homesteaded external resources; you cannot abandon “you”
Contracts are title transfers, not enforceable promises

29:12 – Punishment, Outlaws, and Estoppel

Aggressors implicitly consent to proportional defensive/enforcement force
No need for prior signed contract with an outlaw – committing aggression waives the right to complain

34:26 – Weapons of Mass Destruction Clause (Article 8)

Indiscriminate devices that cannot be aimed solely at aggressors are legitimately restrictable
Practical insurance/neighborhood covenants would handle most cases anyway

37:39 – Evidentiary Standards Borrowed from Tradition

Severe remedies require heightened standards (e.g., beyond reasonable doubt, jury nullification rights)
Roman & common law are largely libertarian and will serve as starting points

40:41 – Select Unjust Laws & Aspirational Closing

Explicitly lists taxation, IP, conscription, etc. as unjust
Beautiful final paragraph: “We bow to no state… no power on earth will stop us” (mostly written by Max)

42:47 – Why Law Must Develop Organically (Quote from Stephan’s blog)

Detailed armchair legal codes are premature and counterproductive
Law evolves case-by-case through real disputes, custom, and decentralized courts

47:58 – Deep Dive: “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership” & Misesian Dualism

Crucial distinction between possession/control (causal/economic) and legal ownership (normative)
Robinson Crusoe has possession but no ownership
Labor/services are not ownable – employment contracts are conditional title transfers of money, not sales of “labor”
Confusing the two realms leads to the fallacious justification for intellectual property

1:06:20 – Free Will, Compatibilism, and Scientism

In the causal realm there is no free will (no downward causation)
In the teleological realm of human action we unavoidably treat people as purposeful choosers
Stephan’s “Misesian compatibilism” – both views are correct in their respective domains

1:16:53 – Closing & Future Plans

Stephan will push to have TUPoL incorporated into the final Liberland Constitution (to the extent compatible)
Next big project: new comprehensive book on IP/copyright titled Copy This Book
Where to find everything: stephankinsella.com | Universal Principles of Liberty poster & text freely available

Links

The Universal Principles of Liberty full text & poster: https://www.stephankinsella.com/principles/
Stephan’s blog announcement: https://stephankinsella.com/2025/08/announcing-the-universal-principles-of-liberty/
Adam’s original Substack post: https://hamannature.substack.com/p/kinsellas-legal-treatise-on-universal

Enjoy the episode and go read (and sign!) the Universal Principles of Liberty!

Transcript (Youtube/Grok):

Haman Nature Interview: Stephan Kinsella on The Universal Principles of Liberty

(Corrected transcript – spelling, punctuation, minor grammar, no paraphrasing. Long speaking blocks broken into ≤10-sentence paragraphs. Topical headers with timestamps added.)

Opening Banter & Liberland Passport Story

[0:00]

Adam Haman: Intro. Welcoming author, attorney, world-traveler, and all-around great guy Stephan Kinsella!

[0:00]

Stephan Kinsella: You forgot your cue. I told you to ask me about my adventure this morning and putting on a suit and tie.

[0:06]

Adam: I thought that was off because you, sir, are not wearing a suit and tie anymore.

[0:11]

Stephan: I know. So it wasn’t for you. You know how people—well, I don’t want to mess my shirt up. I can reuse it now. You know how it’s probably common knowledge now that ever since the Zoom era, a lot of people were telecommuting and so they would put on a shirt and tie but they were wearing shorts underneath, right?

[0:37]

Stephan: So I did something this morning and I was thinking only a libertarian would do this. I put on a suit and tie to take a photo of myself because I need a passport photo. But I don’t need a regular passport photo. I need a photo that I can use for my Liberland passport because I’m going to Prague in December for the signing and announcement of the Liberland Constitution.

Formal Introduction

[1:04]

Adam: Hello and welcome to Haman Nature. I am Adam Haman and that fine fellow fiddling with his pipe on a Houston morning is one Stephan Kinsella. How you doing, sir?

[1:15]

Stephan: I’m in fine fettle. You’re fine fettle and a fine fellow.

[1:22]

Adam: For those of you who just woke up underneath a rock, Stephan Kinsella is a legal theorist, one of our best, and also the author of this highly influential book here, Against Intellectual Property, and also recently the author of this fine book here, soon to become wildly influential, Legal Foundations of a Free Society. You can also find his work on his blog, which is stephankinsella.com, where he writes about all sorts of awesome things. And most importantly, for those of you who don’t know, he’s just a great guy who just came and visited the wife and I in Vegas just a few weeks ago.

Recent Vegas Trip

[2:14]

Stephan: I did. And it was fun. It was a great trip, one of my best trips of my life. You flew over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter. Not everyone can say they’ve done that. And we landed inside the Grand Canyon. That was cool. And we survived, which was good. And it was Greg’s birthday, Greg Moran’s birthday. We saw Doug and Deanna French for dinner that night. And then we saw the lovely Adam and Jen for dinner at the Venetian. That was cool too. I know it’s tacky, but the Venetian St. Mark’s Square in the Venetian in Las Vegas is just awesome. I know it’s tacky and kitschy, but I loved it.

Introducing “The Universal Principles of Liberty”

[2:51]

Adam: Yep. I feel the same way. No shame. I want to talk to you about a bunch of stuff today, but first: What are “The Universal Principles of Liberty,” and why should we be excited by it?

[2:59]

Adam: I want to talk to you about this great thing you have created. I’m going to flash it here on the screen briefly just because it’s so pretty, but you created something called the Universal Principles of Liberty. That is correct. And it is just a glorious thing.

[3:20]

Adam: I want to talk to you in depth about it, but maybe you want to talk about why you would go to the trouble of doing such a thing and what you think it’s for.

Origin Story: From Liberland to Bir Tawil and Beyond

[3:27]

Stephan: I will. That’s a good— But you forgot your cue. I told you to ask me about my adventure this morning and putting on a suit and tie. [repeated banter omitted]

[4:38]

Stephan: So I took a photo of myself, a selfie against the back wall, a white wall, meeting passport standards because we have to pretend to be a government to get government status, you know. And that ties into what you’re asking about.

[5:09]

Stephan: I have been—how long have you been a libertarian? About as long as me, right?

[5:16]

Adam: 1990.

[5:21]

Stephan: Okay. I’d say 1979 for me. But anyway, over the years I’ve seen—you’ve probably seen this too. In the early days we used to get these magazines like Reason and newsletters and there were all these ads for the latest libertarian project, right? Floating nations, Seasteading, Project Atlantis. I lost track of them. There’s so many. They’re all pie-in-the-sky, either scams or just vaporware, although half of them are well-intentioned. It’s just people desperate to have some semblance of liberty in this unfree world.

[6:08]

Stephan: I’ve always been curious about them. There’s still projects going on. In fact the Free Cities conference which I just went to in Prague last week was amazing. There were several different projects all attempting to have enclaves of liberty one way or the other around the world, like Prospera in Honduras which you and I went to, which had a chance of making it if the government hadn’t threatened it. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. It’s not dead.

[6:43]

Stephan: I was enlisted to help with the Liberland project six or seven years ago and I kind of helped draft their first constitution, but the whole time I was kind of uneasy about it because I’m an anarchist, not a statist, and a constitution is really the document that helps set up a new government. That’s what it means to constitute—to create.

[7:28]

Stephan: Which is why I’m frustrated when libertarians talk about the US Constitution being one of these great founding documents of liberty. The original US government was meant to protect liberty—that is completely false.

Why the Universal Principles Instead of Another Constitution

[9:16]

Stephan: You went on to create something way better than a constitution—a set of principles that if adopted could be the base layer, the foundation of a legal structure.

[9:23]

Stephan: Correct. Yeah. And the reason I did it was because I’ve been thinking over the years—when I wrote my own theories based upon the work of Rothbard and Hoppe and other libertarians before me, clarifying theories—I’ve had to continually refine how I present the ideas and define terms. I think I finally have it to a point which is pretty concise.

[9:53]

Stephan: About three or four years ago—when was the Mises Caucus takeover of the Libertarian Party? About three years ago—at that the Mises Caucus was taking it over and they had enlisted me to help revise their statement of principles or their bylaws, whichever one it was. They wanted to try to get anti-state stuff in there, but we didn’t end up doing that. I’m a little bit glad because it’s a little bit particular.

[10:17]

Stephan: But as part of that I did come up with a restatement of our property principles and our non-aggression principle. That is in the Libertarian Party bylaws right now—I think it’s plank 2.1 or 2.2. I’m really proud of that because I think it is a really short, concise restatement of what libertarian rights are.

[10:40]

Stephan: So I’ve been having this idea for a while of having a sort of—not codified but concise, elegant, fairly uncontroversial general statement of libertarian principles—not an argument for it, but just a statement of it—that people can point to.

The Document’s Structure and Purpose

[11:40]

Adam: What I really like about it—and we’re going to get into the details—but it’s a set of metanorms essentially that other private legal codes can be structured on top of. These codes that will come on top of the principles can expand—specific laws—but they can’t violate what they’re signing on to. You could come up with rules for how late the swimming pool is allowed to be open or whatnot, but you couldn’t do anything that would violate something foundational.

[12:17]

Adam: I’m going to read real briefly from the preamble which says in part, quote: “Their purpose is to foster conflict-free interaction. These maxims flow from reason, experience, and ethics. They are neither decreed by any state nor imposed by majority will.” Great. Death to the state, death to democracy. These things come from something else and you actually have to sign on the dotted line in order to be bound by them.

Definitions: Person, Property, Self-Ownership

[12:52]

Adam: I also love in the terms and conditions—under “person” (rightsbearer) you say: any sentient being whose inherent capacity for moral agency grounds a presumption of self-ownership and reciprocal obligations. Which is awesome. You left room for space aliens and AGI but you’ve excluded cats and dogs and cattle.

[13:24]

Adam: A lot of the prime movers in libertarianism are economists—which makes sense—and historians and philosophers. All of us are political philosophers to some extent because that’s what libertarianism is. But what we don’t have nearly enough of are people who understand the law and legal theory. And that’s a crying shame because after all, what you have governing you is a set of laws once you abolish the state and construct Ancapistan. This document is just beautiful. It’s clear, it’s concise, it doesn’t use wishy-washy terms, it doesn’t get confused.

[14:17]

Stephan: Thanks. Well, in a sense we’re all legal philosophers, right? Libertarianism is really a philosophy about what the law should be. That’s why some knowledge of law is essential, but of course lawyers are mostly statist, so they’re not going to be of much help.

[15:00]

Stephan: The way this project came about: there’s a guy named Max, FreeMax, who had been involved with Liberland as well, and he had spotted an opportunity for another kind of free country. It’s called Bir Tawil—it’s a 400-square-mile unclaimed res nullius between Egypt and Sudan. He wanted to try something like Liberland there but not as a state, but with a statement of principles. So he came to me to do that. I was the main drafter. Hans-Hermann Hoppe looked at some drafts and Max helped out with some of the language. Also three other lawyers who I know well—Alessandro Fusillo (Italian), David Dürr (Swiss), and my friend Pat Tinsley in Boston.

[16:03]

Stephan: One thing about these principles: I tried to be legally precise, stateless/anarchist, and very precise in the terms, but also—because of my common-law knowledge as an American lawyer and because I went to school in Louisiana, the only civil-law state—I am deeply influenced by the civil law and Roman law. So are Fusillo and Dürr. The style of it is inspired by the way civil codes are written, like the French code, because unlike statutes in the common-law world and even the US Constitution, civil codes have an elegance and economy of words.

Civil-Law Elegance vs. Common-Law Verbosity

[17:39]

Stephan: In the common-law world contracts and statutes are very detailed and lengthy because they’re trying to force the judge to budge from their adherence to the common law. Whereas in the civil law it’s more legal-positivist—people think of law as coming from the legislature, so judges are more ministerial. That is legal-positivist, but the codes were really just elegant restatements of organically evolved Roman-law principles. So the civil-law style has an elegance and economy of words which inspired the way this is written.

[18:34]

Stephan: Max generated a poster version of this, which is what you showed, and he presented it at the Property and Freedom Society conference with me, Alessandro, Hoppe, and David Dürr this September. It’s just a one-page document which you can read. It is not meant to be the details of law. It is meant to set the framework of the principles any legal system has to adhere to.

Metanorms and the Purpose of Rights

[19:04]

Stephan: It borrows on the idea of Douglas Rasmussen and Den Uyl who view rights as metanorms—not norms directly. That harks back to Rothbard’s idea that libertarianism is not an ethical theory, which really means it doesn’t tell you how to act in your daily life. It tells us what laws are just—which means it tells us which laws society should respect and put into force.

[19:44]

Adam: My layman way of thinking of it is proper law delineates what you may not do, but it leaves this huge sphere of experience where you’re just free to live your life as long as you don’t violate these things you’re just not allowed to do—like punch Stephan in the face and take his stuff.

Freedom as Consequence of Property, Not a Separate Right

[20:01]

Stephan: That way of looking at it—some people criticized my speeches where I’ve said that Roman law and the civil law of Europe is as good as or better than the common law in some ways because they said, “Well, in the civil law the rule is everything that’s not permitted is forbidden.” That’s not true. That is true of totalitarian systems like the Soviet Union or Cuba or North Korea. It is not true of the civil law.

[20:53]

Stephan: The general rule is you can do anything unless you violate others’ rights—which is the libertarian rule: you’re permitted to perform any action as long as you don’t trespass upon other people’s rights. Libertarians speak about liberty and freedom and they are good things, but our property rights really protect our use of a resource. You don’t need to say “I have a right to freedom of speech.” If there was no government you wouldn’t need to say there’s a right to freedom of speech. You would just simply say everyone has the right to perform any action whatsoever unless it violates the property rights of someone else.

[21:48]

Stephan: So if I own a home I can do anything in that home—I can have whatever sexual practices or religious practices I want, I can take a warm bath at night if I want. You don’t have to have an enumerated list of rights like “I have a right to take a warm bath on Wednesday nights.” That’s just a consequence of my right to private property of my home. Freedom itself is just a consequence of having a property right.

Why Rights Are Only Property Rights & Why Body Rights Are Inalienable

[23:25]

Adam: I’m going to skip a couple sections because you brought up the fact that you own your body. Why do we insist in these principles on inalienability? In other words, why is Walter Block wrong about being able to sign a contract and sell yourself into slavery?

[23:50]

Stephan: When we drafted the principles we wanted to make it general and avoid areas that are not settled or not agreed upon yet by libertarians, but we took a stand on some things. We decided not to be too wishy-washy. For example we took a stand on the state—it’s an anarchist document. And also at the very end we debated whether to put some things in a secondary set of documents. That’s the “select unjust laws” section—one is inalienability (voluntary slavery), one is intellectual property.

[24:52]

Stephan: Inalienability had to be mentioned because we had to mention contracts—what they are. Contracts are transfers of title to resources that are owned. And also because we had to have a clean definition of what rights are in general—that is Article 2 and Article 3: self-ownership and original appropriation. We distinguish them because there are differences between ownership of one’s body and how you get ownership of your body and ownership of formerly unowned resources which you own by homesteading.

[25:30]

Stephan: If you didn’t distinguish it then you would have this sloppy thing which some libertarians still say: “Well, if you homestead something in the world that was unowned and you come to own it because you homestead it (Article 3), then by analogy you own your body because you homesteaded it,” which then leads to the idea that you could sell it. I think that’s just wrong.

[26:01]

Stephan: The basis for ownership of your body is your direct control of it—that is your best connection to it, your best argument for control of it. It’s not because you homesteaded it. There’s a fundamental difference between who you are as a corporeal human actor with a body—you come into the world as a person and as a body-owner in effect; that is inextricably part of your personality and your identity—and things that you acquire in the world that are unowned and have no personality at all.

[26:45]

Stephan: Body rights are inalienable because contracts are not seen as binding promises—they are seen as alienation of title to things that you own. I plan to write in the next month or so a detailed commentary on this thing giving footnotes and further reading, but I want to do that in my capacity as just another person reading these principles and commenting on it, which is not binding and not authoritative. The principles stand alone and can be voluntarily signed on to by anyone willing to respect libertarian rights.

Forfeiture of Rights Through Aggression

[29:12]

Stephan: Self-ownership may be forfeited in whole or in part as a consequence of committing aggression, subject to principles of self-defense and proportionality.

[29:53]

Adam: There are libertarians—at least one—who reject this as well as the principle of rectification. They say the only thing you can do when somebody has harmed you is ostracize them or shun them.

[30:03]

Stephan: I think some libertarians have this instinctive opposition to authority and also to the state—which I understand the second one—but because they’re used to authority coming from the state they reject all authority. Just like we’re used to law being legislated law from a legislature—which is obviously unjust and actually not law—so people say, “Well then I’m going to throw it all out, I’m against all law and all authority.” I think that’s wrong.

[30:41]

Stephan: Libertarians are in favor of order, justice, law, and rights. They don’t have to come from the government; in fact the government can only impair and impede and distort and corrupt these things. You don’t need the permission of an aggressor to defend against what he’s doing. In effect you do have his permission—by his actions he’s granted you permission because he’s treating your body as if he can use it without your permission. By the same logic (estoppel) he’s stopped from complaining about your use of reciprocal force against him.

Weapons of Mass Destruction Clause

[34:26]

Adam: Another thing that impressed me—you actually managed to handle things like weapons of mass destruction, nuclear warheads, jars filled with plague sitting on a precarious shelf.

[35:04]

Stephan: That’s Article 8, devices of mass destruction. I give credit to Max. Max wanted to put that one in there. We all worked together to make it worded in a general way that I think is hard to object to by any libertarian. It’s a little bit out of place because it’s particular, but I don’t think it’s wrong.

[36:22]

Stephan: As a practical matter I think that problem would be very rare because everyone’s insurance company is going to require many things to get coverage. They’re going to require you’re part of a neighborhood association that itself prevents the use of nukes, or you could be ostracized if you’re a continual threat. So the principle is there just in case.

Evidentiary Standards Borrowed from Tradition

[37:39]

Adam: I was pleasantly surprised to see you ported in under evidentiary standards and procedures some wise things we developed over time—severe remedies require heightened evidentiary standard such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, unanimous verdicts, double-jeopardy protection, jury authority over not just fact but law.

[38:11]

Stephan: You’ll notice we say it’s natural to assume that you wouldn’t start from nothing because we do have the vast bodies of Roman law and the common law which are largely libertarian. You can expect them to be consulted as a starting point. I didn’t say you have to have a jury trial—I just said heightened standards and then “such as” and gave examples. That was a nod to the jury-nullification idea.

Select Unjust Laws & Closing Affirmation

[40:41]

Stephan: We did that [select unjust laws list] because when you have a general statement of principles it has some implications, but we wanted to give concrete examples of how we think those principles would apply.

[41:46]

Adam: The closing affirmation is beautiful: “The aspiration behind these principles is a world free from systemic aggression, open to every person. Let every free soul remember: we bow to no state. We kneel to no order but justice. We answer to no master but reason and ethics. Here under these principles we choose life without coercion, without chains, and without tyrants, and no power on earth will stop us.”

Why Law Must Develop Organically

[42:47]

Adam: There’s a great paragraph on your blog: “The time has come to state our principles clearly to serve as a basis for any future legal systems… Law has to develop in a certain process and to be just has to be based on just principles but developed over time in a decentralized organic process.”

[44:22]

Stephan: It kind of goes against our instincts, right? Libertarians understandably like to debate and always come up with these armchair hypotheticals. When you have these button-pushing scenarios like Rothbard and others saying “Would you push the button to achieve freedom tomorrow?”—it depends on what the means is. The means matters.

[46:18]

Stephan: In the real world, in Roman law and common law, law develops by the answer given by judges in deciding actual disputes between actual parties when they can take evidence and know background custom and relevant facts. The answer is often “it depends,” which frustrates dorm-room grad-student libertarians who want you to answer every question from your armchair.

When (and Why) Selling Does NOT Imply Ownership – Dualism, Labor, and Contract Theory

[47:58]

Adam: There’s a whole lot buried in this statement: “selling does not imply ownership and vice versa.” It touches on “do you own your labor or not,” which is very confusing.

[48:43]

Stephan: That’s implied by those principles but not mentioned because that’s more of an explanation. It’s in chapter 9 of my book and some blog posts. This gets to the concept of dualism—Mises’s methodological dualism, rejecting monism.

[49:33]

Stephan: There are two realms: the causal world (natural sciences) and the teleological world (understanding the implications of purposeful human action—praxeology). There’s also prescriptive vs. descriptive: “is” vs. “ought.”

[51:33]

Stephan: There’s an overlap in the way words are used that leads to confusion. People say they “own” their bitcoins but they really mean they possess them. “Selling” or “exchange” is both an economic/descriptive concept and a legal concept.

[52:40]

Stephan: Robinson Crusoe alone on his island has no ownership—only possession—because there is no other person. Ownership arises only in society when there is a threat that others might interfere with your possession. That’s why property norms and rights arise.

[54:50]

Stephan: When we talk about exchange or selling something, the word “sell” has two meanings: giving something away so you no longer possess it (descriptive/economic) and a change of legal ownership. They usually go together but are different concepts. Because we use the same word it leads to confusion—which is why people like Walter Block think you have the right to sell yourself into slavery.

[56:07]

Stephan: Ownership is really the right to exclude others from using your resource. It doesn’t automatically imply the right to sell it. You have the right to sell a thing in the legal sense because you acquired it when it was unowned and you only maintain ownership so long as you intend to own it—so you can abandon it (and thus sell it). That does not apply to the body.

[57:52]

Stephan: When we analyze exchange economically we’re analyzing the descriptive aspects: I gave you the apple to obtain possession of your orange. But in a legal system that recognizes property there is also a legal exchange of title. In service/labor/employment contracts there is economic exchange but legally only a one-way transfer (title to money). That’s why it’s misleading to call an employment contract a “sale” of labor—you don’t own your labor; you own your body and can withhold action.

[1:04:10]

Stephan: Calling a haircut a “sale” of labor is economically correct (describing motivations) but leads to the presumption that labor was legally sold—which implies you own your labor—which leads to the IP mistake.

Free Will, Compatibilism, and Closing

[1:06:20]

Stephan: Monism has won the day because of scientism. The free-will debate frustrates me because people stay inside the causal realm. In the causal realm there is no free will (no downward causation). In the teleological realm of human action we unavoidably model others as purposeful actors. That’s my Misesian compatibilism.

[1:16:53]

Adam: Is there anything else you want to say on this beautiful document, the Universal Principles of Liberty, or anything else?

[1:17:05]

Stephan: I welcome any comments on it, of course. When I go to the Liberland meeting in Prague next month they’re going to finalize their constitution. I’m going to try to persuade them to add a provision incorporating the Universal Principles of Liberty to the extent compatible. My main project for the next couple of years is a brand-new book from scratch on copyright/IP called Copy This Book.

[1:19:41]

Adam: Always great to talk to you. Thank you so much. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening and watching. We’ll catch you next time on Haman Nature.

Outro

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