The O.P. Alford III Prize in Libertarian Scholarship is a $1000 prize awarded by the Mises Institute each year for the the article published in the preceding volume of Libertarian Papers that best advances libertarian scholarship, as chosen by the journal’s Editor and Editorial Board.
There were forty-four articles were published in Libertarian Papers in 2009. The 2009 award was given by Mises Institute President Doug French at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 to Gil Guillory and Patrick C. Tinsley, for their article “The Role of Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution in the Future of Liberty.” This paper is a pioneering effort to advance the theory of the private production of justice. Guillory and Tinsley integrate and blend the theoretical and the practical, and set forth a detailed and practical plan to begin to establish such private institutions. Their article is creative and bold, informed by existing libertarian theory while extending it. As one member of the journal’s Editorial Board noted, “This paper presents a carefully worked out business plan for organisations that would provide an effective, superior alternative for tax-funded monopolies in deterring common types of crime and providing restitution to victims of such crimes. It is an original and path-breaking effort not only because of its concern with practical matters but also because of its deep understanding of the issues involved in developing a libertarian theory of social organization. While the paper’s primary focus is on the United States of America, a relatively young but highly developed and complex society, it opens up lines of enquiry and suggests methods that are bound to be of interest to libertarians everywhere.” Guillory and Tinsley are to be commended for their careful, meticulous, and systematic study.
The video of the award presentation is in the first 5 minutes of the following:
It’s long been my contention that if the demonrats would just jettison the relatively small elitist wing of their party–the condescending limousine liberals, the middle-America and normalcy-hating “urbane” and cosmpolitan condescending types–and just have a mildly populist, redistributionist, soft-socialist but culturally conservative platform, they could clean house and recapture all the inexplicably Republican Joe Sixpack types who are their natural constituency (but who are alienated by Barbra Streisand’s screeching). (See my How the Democrats Could Win.) But their stupidity knows no bounds. Why they need to anchor their image to the vapid Hollywood and libertine types is beyond me. Apparently abortion is all that matters to them. [continue reading…]
As Tom Woods recently noted, though he was too polite to name names, Thomas Fleming and others at Chronicles (related posts: 1, 2) have attacked his published views on Austrian economics and some economically illiterate pronouncements of certain popes.
Oh, this is hilarious–see Robert Higgs’s replies to befuddled diZerega’s whining about Higgs rejecting one of diZerega’s articles for The Indendepent Review. Higgs’s comments have a dry wit and are laced with hilarious sarcasm. Poor Gus really comes off poorly in this interchange.
Abstract: The recently rediscovered Michigan-born poet, essayist, and political philosopher, Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912) has been celebrated by modern scholars as both an anarchist and a feminist. In this paper, however, it is argued that detailed scrutiny of her writings perhaps suggests de Cleyre, who spent much of her life in Philadelphia, was consistently an anarchist thinker, but that her ideas are not nearly so compatible with feminism as they have been portrayed.
Excellent post by Bryan Caplan, Should Libertarians Oppose “Capitalism”?, arguing against Sheldon Richman’s contention that we libertarians should not only not use “capitalism” as a synonym for favoring free markets, but that we should say we oppose “capitalism,” because of the term’s connotation of the historical collusion between business and the state.
I have myself for years now preferred the term anarcho-libertarian instead of anarcho-capitalist, mostly because libertarianism is about more than just free markets. But to the extent capitalism means the private ownership of the means of production–and I think this is a defensible meaning still–it is of course libertarian. We can expect any advanced libertarian society to be “capitalist” in that it would have an industrial, productive economy where the means of production is privately owned, characterized by the division and specialization of labor (see my post Rothbard on Self-Sufficiency and the Division of Labor). In my view we should certainly be in favor of free markets and not adopt instead other terms like “market liberal” or “freed market”. I’m not sure what term best describes us–we favor peace, cooperation. Perhaps Henry Hazlitt’s proffered term, “cooperatism,” is a good one. I think it best to use capitalism to refer to a catallactic aspect of the libertarian, free society, while making it clear that we oppose corporatism and business-state collusion, and use free market or libertarian to describe our preferred socio-political order. [continue reading…]
As noted in Justin Levine’s post, Dissent of the Day, a recent decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit holds “that a U.S. stamp which depicts a view of a public Korean War memorial violates the copyright of the sculptor who designed it.” The case involved the sculptures made by Gaylord, a photograph of them made by John Alli (a “derivative work”), and a stamp made using Alli’s photograph. Alli and the USPS did not get Gaylord’s permission. Gaylord sued for copyright infringement.
The lower court had made three determinations:
1. “Mr. Gaylord was the sole author of the soldier sculptures” (the government was not a joint author);
Korean War Memorial during snow
2. “his sculptures were not exempt from copyright protection under the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act (AWCPA)”, and
3. “the stamp made fair use of Mr. Gaylord’s work.”
Thus, although points 1 and 2 went Gaylord’s way, the USPS still won in the lower court since it had the fair use defense.
On appeal, the CAFC upheld the lower court’s rulings on points 1 and 2, and reversed on 3: they said the stamp was not a fair use. Now I can’t say I am outraged at an agency of the federal government being hampered by federal copyright law. And I am not especially interested in whether the CAFC and lower court were right regarding the first two points (though Judge Pauline Newman, in dissent, was none too happy about it). And while I think the CAFC’s holding on fair use seems defensible based on the language of the fair use statute, it’s instructive to read the court’s reasoning on the “fair use” claim, to get an idea of how obviously artificial and unlibertarian copyright law is. (I’ve written on “Fair Use” before: see World’s Fair Use Day; IP: The Objectivists Strike Back!.)
To decide whether an unauthorized use of a copyrighted work is permissible as a “fair use,” the court has to consider four “factors”:
The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work. [continue reading…]
A “friend” and I were discussing Rand — he said that though Rand said she opposed taxes, “eliminating taxes is among the last reforms Rand would make”. I don’t recall this–instead, I seem to recall she said this about abolishing drug prohibition. Anyone know where there is a cite or quote for either contention?
In a facebook note, Quee Nelson writes about Mises the Utilitarian (appended below). I wonder if he was more of a consequentialist than a utilitarian. Below I collect some points I’ve made along these lines before:
Barnett’s aim in this ambitious book is to determine the type of legal system, laws, and rights which are appropriate, given the widely-shared “goal of enabling persons to survive and pursue happiness, peace, and prosperity while living in society with others” (p. 23). Happiness, peace, and prosperity are fine principles to select and quite compatible with libertarianism, but Barnett does not attempt to try to justify these basic norms or values. His argument is thus hypothetical and consequentialist, though not, he maintains, utilitarian (pp. 8, 12, 17–23, esp. 22–23).
The libertarian seeks property assignment rules because he values or accepts various grundnorms such as justice, peace, prosperity, cooperation, conflict-avoidance, and civilization.[14]
In a recent excellent facebook post by Quee Nelson (see appended below), she wrote:
Some of my best friends are Randians. They’re excellent people, and one of the things I love most about them (among many things), is the fact that, no matter how generous, compassionate, and charitable they behave, they insist they’re just being selfish.
This called to mind some of the things I’ve written about this issue, a couple of which I collect here:
Then there was Stephan Kinsella, who subjected me during a boat trip around the Ionian coast to a friendly but probing examination of what I thought about Ayn Rand and epistemology. I am not sure if he approved of all I gave in answer. Even so, the surrounding conversation was enjoyable. He was scathing about Objectivism. He noted that David Kelley is an improvement on the official movement. “But when someone has to write 15,000 words on why it is permissible to be nice to others, or to tolerate disagreement” he said, “there must be something wrong with his underlying philosophy”.
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