StephanKinsella.com

Reply to BrainPolice, “Why I Reject ‘Self-ownership’ Redux“:

Self-ownership is not incoherent, and indeed is crucial to libertarian theory, if it’s understood properly–if it’s understood simply to mean the idea that each person, as opposed to others, has the right to control his own body. (See my How We Come To Own Ourselves, A Theory of Contracts: Binding Promises, Title Transfer, and Inalienability and Defending Argumentation Ethics, for more detail). As for the disparaging remarks about Hoppe’s theory above, I am reminded of Rothbard’s great Hoppephobia, where he wrote:

The Lomasky review is an interesting example of what is getting to be a fairly common phenomenon: Hoppephobia. Although he is an amiable man personally, Hoppe’s written work seems to have the remarkable capacity to send some readers up the wall, blood pressure soaring, muttering and chewing the carpet. It is not impolite attacks on critics that does it. Perhaps the answer is Hoppe’s logical and deductive mode of thought and writing, demonstrating the truth of his propositions and showing that those who differ are often trapped in self-contradiction and self-refutation.

I agree with Todd Andrew Barnett: Maher is not now and never was a libertarian–not even close to it. Why he insists on self-describing himself this way is a mystery, but it’s inaccurate. He is smart but ignorant and thinks he knows more than he does; he thinks that snideness and condescension equals intelligence. He thinks he’s better than Bush and his ilk: he’s not. He’s for drug legalization: whoopee. I recall he was cold on Bush; then warmed up when he thought the Iraq war might work; then got cold again. He’s for higher taxes, for Obama, for socialized medicine. He’s vile and crude, and unjustifiably snide and condescending. And he’s no libertarian.

Maher: you’re out!

Free Life Commentary * Issue Number 184 * 18th June 2009
Book Review by Sean Gabb

Organization Theory
Kevin A. Carson
Booksurge, 2009, 642pp, $39.99

I will begin my review by stating its main conclusions. These are that Kevin Carson has written one of the most significant books the libertarian movement has seen in many years. I do not agree with everything he says Mr Carson has said here. I do not suppose any libertarian will unreservedly accept what is said. Even so, I doubt if there is a libertarian who can read this book and not, in some degree, have his vision of a free society enriched and even transformed by it.

Summarising an argument that is worked out over more than six hundred pages is not easy. However, Mr Carson begins by observing that, while economic theory seeks to analyse the behaviour of individuals and small groups within a market system, the economic reality is a world dominated by large corporations within which prices are largely administered and there is an absence of competition.

The rest of Gabb’s review is here.

They are spreading gobs and gobs of pro-liberty and sound economic writing. They are publishing machines. See Tucker’s post, Huge literature avalanche, “Have a look at this. Too many to name.”

Here is one of the comments:

“You guys are geniuses for giving away this stuff for free. I know so many people (including myself) who have become little masters of Austrian economics thanks to your free resources here. You probably even make more money that way–I’ve bought more books from the bookstore after finding out about them through your Literature section than I probably would have bought had you not had free literature to download.”

And another: “Someday, we’ll look back (or our kids will look back) and say that giving these books away for free was a “key” decision in the spread of the ideas of the Austrian School.“

Sheldon Richman notes in IP Debate Breaks Out at FEE that “At a recent FEE seminar, a debate over intellectual ‘property’ broke out spontaneously among Ivan Pongracic (second from right), Paul Cwik (second from left), and me (left, where I belong). Who won?”

There is no doubt that in just 10 short minutes Richman completely dominates with his clear and concise thinking on this issue (as he did in Sheldon Richman on Intellectual Property versus Liberty). Pongracic and Cwik just re-hash the standard arguments, which are full of holes (as Cwik did in his presentation at the 2008 Austrian Scholars Conference, on the IP panel on which I was a discussant; Cwik’s argument was incredibly weak (as several audience members noted to me), as the IP argument has to be; Cwik’s working paper, “Is There Room for Intellectual Property Rights in Austrian Economics?”, is available here).

[Mises cross-post]

After some problems, not to speak of the whole Mark Skousen debacle, the venerable Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) seems to be on the right track.

But an interesting PC episode has been on my mind recently. The November 1996 issue of The Freeman contained a Book Review (2; 3) by Hans-Hermann Hoppe of The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars (edited by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger).

[continue reading…]

Republished as “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010). See archived comments below.

For a more in depth treatment of these issues, see “A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023).

***

From the Archives:

“Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” 45 The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty 561 (September 1995)

Legislation and Law in a Free Society
By N. Stephan Kinsella • September 1995 • Volume: 45 • Issue: 9

Mr. Kinsella practices law with Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis in Philadelphia. This article is adapted from a longer essay forthcoming in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, which contains detailed references to the authors and works cited here.

Libertarians and classical liberals have long sought to explain what sorts of laws we should have in a free society. But we have often neglected the study of what sort of legal system is appropriate for developing a proper body of law.

Historically, in the common law of England, Roman law, and the Law Merchant, law was formed in large part in thousands of judicial decisions. In these so-called “decentralized law-finding systems,” the law evolved as judges, arbitrators, or other jurists discovered legal principles applicable to specific factual situations, building upon legal principles previously discovered, and statutes, or centralized law, played a relatively minor role. Today, however, statutes passed by the legislature are becoming the primary source of law, and law tends to be thought of as being identical to legislation. Yet legislation-based systems cannot be expected to develop law compatible with a free society.

Certainty, which includes clarity of and stability in the law, is necessary so that we are able to plan for the future. Often it is thought that certainty will be increased when the law is written and enunciated by a legislature, for example in the civil codes of modern civil-law systems.

As the late Italian legal theorist Bruno Leoni pointed out, however, there is much more certainty in a decentralized legal system than in a centralized, legislation-based system. When the legislature has the ability to change the law from day to day, we can never be sure what rules will apply tomorrow. By contrast, judicial decisions are much less able to reduce legal certainty than is legislation.

[continue reading…]

From the Archives…

Book Review (of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (1993)), The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, November 1994.

?  ?  ?

Book Review: The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
By N. Stephan Kinsella • November 1994 • Volume: 44 • Issue: 11

Boston/Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers • 1993 • 265 pages • $59.95

In 1989, Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe published A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics (Boston/Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), arguably the most important book of the decade, if only for the revolutionary “argumentation ethic” defense of individual rights presented in Chapter 7, “The Ethical Justification of Capitalism and Why Socialism is Morally Indefensible.” Hoppe continues to produce a significant assortment of articles elaborating on his argumentation ethic and the epistemology that underlies it, as well as on his impressive economic writings.

His new book, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, is a collection of many of these related writings published up until 1992.

[continue reading…]

From the archives…

Perspective: Pride and the Nanny State

The Freeman • April 1996

I do not come from a rich family, and the other day it struck me that I am, in a way, glad of this. My wife and I recently purchased our first house, and, after we had inspected it one Sunday while it was still being completed, I remarked to her that it was a satisfying feeling to be purchasing the house ourselves.

While other aspects of our lives, such as relationships with spouses, family, and friends, are undeniably meaningful and essential to achieving happiness, we humans also live in the economic world. So it is natural that surviving, flourishing, and prospering would also be a significant source of happiness. It is deeply satisfying to have truly earned something—a car, a new computer, a job, even if these are derided as “material” by some.

But this source of satisfaction is being threatened by the welfare state of liberals’ and socialists’ dreams.

[continue reading…]

In July 2002, I delivered three lectures at the wonderful Rothbard Graduate Seminar (original link) at the Mises Institute in Auburn (other lecturers included Walter Block, David Gordon, Hans Hoppe, Guido Hülsmann, Roderick Long, Ralph Raico, Joe Salerno, and Mark Thornton). It was truly a great week.

My three lectures were entitled: “Natural Law and Positive Law,” “Self Defense, Punishment, and Proportionality,” and “The Theory of Contracts.” Strangely, I didn’t even think to include a lecture on IP even though I had just published a lengthy article on this topic in the JLS. Apparently, even as recently as 2002, it was not clear yet how much visibility the IP issue would soon attain.

I believe the lectures were recorded, but the tapes have not yet been located, as far as I know. I intend to write further on some of these topics, but for now I have uploaded my fairly detailed and comprehensible notes for these lectures. (Subsequent to this talk, I did publish A Theory of Contracts: Binding Promises, Title Transfer, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17:2 (Spring 2003); and, on the topic of punishment and rights, had previously published Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach, 12:1 Journal of Libertarian Studies 51 (Spring 1996) and New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory, 12:2 Journal of Libertarian Studies (Fall 1996).)

Children are using the Peace Table to discuss a conflict and come to resolution prior to resuming activities.

Ryan–you’re right that “Montessori, unlike Dewey or the other anti-individualist educators, actually liked children and thought they had intrinsic value. For her, the purpose of education was not to make people “productive” or good taxpayers or good wage slaves or whatever”–and that “most government educators violently hate Montessori.” In fact Montessori usually is hated both because it’s different, and because it’s private. It’s widely misunderstood; people ignorantly say that it has “no structure,” etc. I’ve grown to love the Montessori approach. My post Out of the Mouths of Babes pointed out its wonderful pro-peace approach to dispute resolution. And of course the state and statists hate Montessori’s “citizen of the world” approach which emphasizes our common humanity instead of our nationality.

[cross posted at LRC]