Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:27:24 — 80.0MB)
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 368.
This is my appearance on Robert Breedlove’s What Is Money podcast, Ep. WiM099 (Youtube channel). We discussed legislation vs. (private) law—Centralized Law vs Decentralized Law, or as Hoppe refers to legislation, “democratic law-making”.
From Robert’s Episode notes: “Stephan Kinsella joins me to discuss the nature of centralized law legislated by fiat in comparison with decentralized law discovered through the observation of human action across time.”
Youtube:
Youtube outline/time stamps:
- 00:00:00 “What is Money?” Intro
- 00:00:08 Exploring the Meaning of Legislative “Law”
- 00:09:40 Possession is 9/10ths of the Law
- 00:16:43 Corruption in Law Making & Money Printing
- 00:20:30 Is Coercion Inherent to Fiat? 00:26:44 Bitcoin Replacing Fiat Standards?
- 00:30:00 The Basics of Human Action and Property
- 00:36:17 Is Bitcoin Property?
- 00:44:25 NYDIG
- 00:45:34 Does the Nature of Legal Disputes Change Under a Bitcoin Standard?
- 00:51:42 Custodial Aspects of the Fractional Reserve Banking System [see also my post The Great Fractional Reserve/Freebanking Debate]
- 00:57:49 Bitcoin Lending & the Threat of Rehypothecation
- 01:03:25 Does Bitcoin Disincentivize High Risk Human Action
- 01:08:37 Morality Under a Bitcoin Standard vs a Fiat Standard
- 01:18:11 Centralized Legislation Contributes to Uncertainty
Related:
- Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Summer 1995)
- Summary version: “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010)
- Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes (Oct. 14, 2009)
- The Great Fractional Reserve/Freebanking Debate (Jan. 29, 2016)
- Jesus Huerta de Soto’s Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, esp. ch. 1 (uses Roman law concepts to properly analyze fractional-reserve banking)
- KOL274 | Nobody Owns Bitcoin (PFS 2019)
- Paul Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality: Thomas Mann in Light of Austrian Economics
People have “stolen” other people’s hard-earned bitcoins by “guessing”/”cracking” their brain-wallets. This is not analogous to leaving cash on a park bench because it’s not obvious how mind-bogglingly powerful modern computation is. Who would have guessed that there are massive computation farms that have scoured most phrases in most encyclopedias and famous books, and are powerful enough to constantly scan this insanely long list of permutations. It’s more analogous to leaving your wallet behind, where your ownership of the money can be proven.
If the perpetrator can be identified, I’m pretty sure every sane person would be okay with imprisoning him until he returns the “stolen” money, no? I guess the definition of property has to change slightly to accomodate this. This isn’t some esoteric fringe scenario either, it happens all the time. You’re right that third parties can’t be forced to modify the blockchain to return the money, but the perpetrator can be.
It’s similar to someone having a locked box on the edge of their property, or maybe just slightly off their property, with big bright labelled tape covering it saying “do not take – this belongs to me”.
It’s also kinda similar to the way we don’t pay upfront when we go to restaurants, it’s implied we’ll pay after.
Ie. there’s an implied grundnorm, not to steal someone’s savings. Similar to Argumentation Ethics.
I’m not sure where we disagree. If we could prove who cracked the password, wouldn’t you prosecute him? Or would you congratulate him on his good luck or clever cracking skills? Would you allow someone who guesses someone else’s online fiat-bank password to keep the money he transfers out of that account?