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Somin’s overall take on secession is reasonable, but notice how he doesn’t consider the 600,000 people killed in the Civil War, or the option of not fighting that war, when he says that Northern victory was a “far better outcome” than Southern victory would have been. Anyway, no offense, preening anti-secessionist, pro-Lincoln “libertarians” such as Tim Sandefur.

5. “Two Concepts of Rationality”, by Danny Frederick

6. “Is There an ‘Anomalous’ Section of the Laffer Curve?”, by Walter E. Block

7. “How Anticommonism ‘Cemented’ the American Conservative Movement in a Liberal Age of Conformity, 1945–64″, by Lee Haddigan

and my Cajun heritage, and apropos nothing in particular, here is the joke “Illegal Cock Fight”:

Jeff Tucker was interviewed yesterday by Mark Edge, as part of his “Edgington Post Interview Series,” for his Free Talk Live radio show, about the Mises Institute’s “open information” approach (see Jeff Tucker, A Theory of Open, B.K. Marcus, Mises.org on iTunes U, Doug French, The Intellectual Revolution Is in Process). The interview is lasts about 24 minutes, and starts at 2:52:07 in the Feb. 8, 2010 show. Tucker makes some great points, such as his idea that perhaps the antitrust law prevented movie studios from owning the theaters and thus may have made them less likely to be willing to consider online distribution models; and his example of how the Cantor-Cox book, which was released for free online months before the paper version, helped to create a ready-made audience for the paper book.

[Mises; AM]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:16:41 — 67.5MB)

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As I’ve noted elsewhere (see posts appended below), the left-libertarian (and other) critics of corporate limited liability are off the mark. As far as limited liability for contractual obligations and debts, this is a contractual matter. As for limited liability (of shareholders) for torts (committed by employees of the corporation), there is simply no reason for the shareholder to be vicariously liable for acts committed by the employees merely by virtue of owning stock in the company. As Hessen argues:

The proper principle of liability should be that whoever controls a business, regardless of its legal form, should be personally liable for the torts of agents and employees. Thus, in partnerships, vicarious liability would fall upon the general partners only, while in corporations, the officers would be liable.

It should be no surprise that Rothbard was good on this issue as well. In Making Economic Sense, ch. 19, he writes:

None of this means that tort law itself is in no need of reform. The problem is not really quantitative but qualitative: who should be liable for what damages? In particular, we must put an end to the theory of”vicarious liability,” i.e., that people or groups are liable, not because their actions incurred damages, but simply because they happened to be nearby and are conveniently wealthy, i.e., in the apt if inelegant legal phrase, they happily possess “deep pockets.”

Thus, if we bought a product from a retailer and the product is defective, it is the retailer that should be liable and not the manufacturer, since we did not make a contract with the manufacturer (unless he placed an explicit warranty upon the product). It is the retailer’s business to sue the wholesaler, the latter the manufacturer, etc., provided the latter really did break his contract by providing a defective product.

Similarly, if a corporate manager committed a wrong and damaged the person or property of others, there is no reason but “deep pockets” to make the stockholders pay, provided that the latter were innocent and did not order the manager to engage in these tortious actions.

To the extent, then, that cries about an insurance crisis reflect an increased propensity by juries to sock it to “soul-less corporations,” i.e., to the stockholders, then the remedy is to take that right away from them by changing tort law to make liable only those actually committing wrongful acts.

Let liability, in short, be full and complete; but let it rest only upon those at fault, i.e., those actually damaging the persons and property of others.

For more, see: extensive quotes from Hessen and Rothbard in Block and Huebert’s article. Sheldon Richman also, at least as recently as 2005, seems to hold similar views.

See also: Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation; Legitimizing the Corporation and Other Posts; Defending Corporations: Block and Huebert; Pilon on Corporations: A Discussion with Kevin Carson; Corporations and Limited Liability for Torts; In Defense of the Corporation.

Four new articles published today in Libertarian Papers, vol. 2 (2010):

1. “Moundsville Penitentiary Reconsidered: Second Thoughts on Hyperreality at a Small Town Prison Tour”, by Allen Mendenhall

Abstract: In 2007, I toured Moundsville Penitentiary, a tourist spectacle that was once—and fairly recently—a working prison. I wrote about the experience as would a journalist, except that my working paradigm was the postmodern theory of hyperreality, which Jean Baudrillard used to describe the complex tensions between reality and illusion. A term of semiotics, hyperreality refers to the disappearance of the referent and its subsequent, oft-replicated simulation. It almost always involves strategically controlled images that distort and conceal true meaning. The International Journal of Baudrillard Studies published my essay in January 2009. Shortly thereafter, many of my libertarian friends and colleagues wrote to ask for clarification or to express their disagreements. In what follows, whether I’m describing hyperreality or speculating about the horror-themed attractions at Moundsville Penitentiary, my principal concern is laying the libertarian foundation for my argument. I do not mean to defend my theories so much as explain them; nor do I insist that my cultural criticism is somehow “the” right way. I simply hope to fill a critical vacuum and to generate conversation not only about the condition of the American prison system writ large, but also about state-run tourist attractions that glorify the history of the sovereign at the expense of real knowledge about human suffering.

2. “Austrian Business Cycle Theory: Are 100 Percent Reserves Sufficient to Prevent a Business Cycle?”, by Philipp Bagus

Abstract: Authors in the Austrian tradition have made the credit expansion of a fractional reserve banking system as the prime cause of business cycles. Authors such as Selgin (1988) and White (1999) have argued that a solution to this problem would be a free banking system. They maintain that the competition between banks would limit the credit expansion effectively. Other authors such as Rothbard (1991) and Huerta de Soto (2006) have gone further and advocated a 100 percent reserve banking system ruling out credit expansion altogether. In this article it is argued that a 100 percent reserve system can still bring about business cycles through excessive maturity mismatching between deposits and loans.

3. “Rejoinder to Carnis on Private Roads”, by Walter E. Block

Abstract: Carnis (2009) is a commentary on a debate I (Block and Block, 1976; Block, 1978c) have been having with Tullock (1976) on the privatization of roads. The present paper is a rejoinder to Carnis (2009) who is highly critical of Tullock’s share of the debate, and offers some luke-warm support of my side of this issue, plus some criticisms of it.

4. “Van Dun on Freedom and Property: A Critique”, by Walter E. Block

Abstract: Van Dun rejects private road ownership on the ground that owners will trap homeowners whose property abuts their thoroughfares. The present paper rejects this claim, and demonstrates that a free enterprise system of private ownership will maximize the welfare of householders, not minimize it.

[Mises]

In his post OK, So What Have I Been Up to These Last Four Years?, Gene Callahan notes he has almost finished his PhD dissertation, so one assumes his PhD is imminent. The dissertation also looks very interesting, in particular this part:

Chapter VIII examines some post-founding American history in light of Oakeshott’s contention that the rationalist can never really proceed as he purports to do. This chapter presents evidence suggesting that the ‘failure to follow the letter of the Constitution’ is not, as some contemporary, ‘strict constructionists’ contend, a peculiarly modern phenomenon, beginning, depending on which strict constructionist to which one is attending, with Lincoln and the American Civil War, with Roosevelt and the New Deal, with the Cold War, or with George W. Bush and the ‘War on Terror’, but is, instead, something that began almost as soon as the U. S. Constitution was adopted, and is not (primarily) a symptom of bad faith, but, rather, an inevitable consequence of the fact that no such rationalist design can ever dictate subsequent practice in the way that it is meant to do.

Congrats to Gene.

An email I just received:

My name is Luke Mroz and I am a Ron Paul supporter in NYC and a fan of your work at Mises.org.  I just wanted to share a brief story with you from an event I went to last night:

Last night I attended a Comedy Central taping for a live comedian special called “Comics Anonymous” at the Union Square Theater in New York City.  It was a festive event with a fun crowd of about 500 people.  One of the performers was one of my favorite comedians named Robert Kelly.  He told a really good joke about how he rarely used the word love because it loses its strength if you use it to much.  When his wife tells him she loves him, he shrugs it off.  When his father told him he loved him, for the first time in his adult life when he graduated high school, he feigned breaking down into tears and acting like an emotional wreck.  While doing this, he feigned being hugged and sang the phrase “We are the world”.  He then went on to his next joke.

After another comedian, the taping ended.  We were informed that the crowd had to stay put because Bob Kelly had to come out and re-film a joke.  It was the joke I just mentioned.  They said it had to be re-taped because Comedy Central didn’t have the rights to the song “We Are The World”.  (My guess is it probably wasn’t worth it to them to obtain the rights, for 1 or 2 seconds of a joke).  How ridiculous is this?  FOUR WORDS!  We then had to hear the same joke, slightly modified, again, and pretend and cheer for it like we never heard it before.  I am interested in seeing the final edited product, whenever it eventually airs.

[AM]

One of my posts from years back on another blog:

Reflicted

When I was a youngling in rural Louisiana, we would often use the pejorative, colloquial term “reflicted,” as in, “Oh, shut up, you’re so reflicted!” It was a synonym, roughly, for “retarded” or stupid.

Other colloquialisms from my home state:

• silver dime, meaning, a dime (one time when I was a checkout boy at a supermarket, this black guy, when I was giving him change, kept asking me to give him “silver dime,” and, as I used to collect silver dimes, started fishing through the cash drawer, looking on the edge of the dimes, searching for a pure silver one. Finally he pointed at a regular dime, and I realized, he meant a dime by “silver dime”. What a non-silver dime is, to him, I have no idea.)
• This calls to mind the time the black lady handed me a nickel and two dimes and asked me for a “solid quarter.” After looking at her with the deer-in-the-headlights look for a second, I realized she meant just a quarter. I think two dimes and a nickel must be a “non-solid” quarter.
• The blacks would also ask me to slice them up half a pound of “pepper sausage,” by which they meant salami. I got to be good at interpreting their colloquial expressions, like the way they pronounced shrimp (“swimpses”).
  • I hereby apologize for relaying this story and for remembering the racial aspect.
• In Louisiana they say this, when they see that one of their friends is pregnant: “Who’s dat baby for?” Which means, “who is the father of your child?” The answer would be of the form, “It for John.”
• They also say someone “caught a heart attack”
• grocery shopping is “makin’ groceries”. The Schwegmann chain capitalized on this with a campaign “Makin’ Groceries–Schwegmann Style”
• They end sentences with the personal pronoun for emphasis, like so: “I need to get me some boiled peanuts, me.”
• “If” is used for emphasis. As so: A says, “Man, is dat chick HOT or what?” B would respond, “If!” meaning “Yes!” My theory is that this was someone’s adaptation of the Spanish usage of the word “si” for both yes and if (there is some Spanish influence there).
• “Skiing” means water skiing. If you want to refer to the other kind, you have to say “snow-skiing”.
• I once saw a flier for a “PENTECOSTAL REVIAL.” The typo made me feel much more secure in my lack of thumperness.

See also other biographical pieces here, e.g. Alan D. Bergman, Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025) and How I Became A Libertarian, LewRockwell.com (Dec. 18, 2002). And Where I’ve Changed My Mind.

I wasn’t always a woolly-eyed anarchist. In 1989, I was still clinging to minarchy, trying to find ways to justify it. Hence, my article Freedom and Government, The Wonderland Times (underground LSU student newspaper), vol. 1, no. 6, July 5, 1989. I think I could see even then that minarchy made no sense; hence the tortured attempt to justify the current American state.

Shortly after that I gave up the attempt to justify minarchy and went all the way to full-fledged anarchy (as I describe in How I Became A Libertarian). Now, my views are better illustrated with Fig. 2 of that article, of the figure below.

From Jayel Aheram’s photostream: a rat named….

Mises Kinsella

Aharem Mises Kinsella Rats

I named her after Ludwig von Mises and Stephan Kinsella.