But in the meantime, the state ought to set rules for the use of state owned resources to provide as much in-kind restitution to the citizen-taxpayers as possible. Of course this takes practical considerations into account just as juries have to assign monetary awards to victims of torts in lawsuits even though true value is subjective and true restitution is impossible. As I wrote years ago, [continue reading…]
A few years back I appeared on a podcast, Venture Stories Podcast by Village Global, alongside fellow guest Noah Smith. 1 Amusingly, one reason I was invited on the podcast was that they confused me with the Irish economic journalist Stephen Kinsella. 2 (Also somewhat amusing was they cut my derisive reference to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “Occasional Cortex.”)
I was asked one Juani (@witheredsummer), an Argentinian Voluntarist, on Twitter and then later via email, to review his draft article “Ideas Are Free: A Case Against Intellectual Property” (text below) (I note that perhaps ironically, this title is almost identical to one of my own previous publications/speeches, Ideas are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property: or, How Libertarians Went Wrong). I told him it was too long for me to fisk, got Grok to analyze it (see below), and told him to read up on some of my work and review the analysis, so that we could have a more productive conversation about it, and which I could also at least record for my podcast. This is our discussion.
In the end, he didn’t really have many questions and I think he just wanted to vent about how bad IP is and express frustration at out outrageous and harmful it is. And suggest some ways to get through to people and propose reforms. Things I already knew and have been writing about for 30 years. He basically identifies many problems with and absurdities with IP law … which he’s right about and which I’ve mentioned … and comes up with some proposals for IP reform that would reduce its harm. Again, which he’s right about and which I and others have also proposed, but also which are unlikely to be adopted by those infested with the IP mind-virus. Not really sure what the point of this was, but here it is FWIW. [continue reading…]
.@NSKinsella has proposed a number of patent reforms if we decide as a society not to abolish the patent system. This is, in my view, a more plausible way forward (politically) instead of demanding the abolition of patents.https://t.co/q3a0U2HQJ6
I was tagged in a recent Facebook Post by Reformed Christian and Libertarian Gregory Baus about his recent video arguing that non-Christian libertarians should become Christians (and in a sense, already are “religious”). His site contains various libertarian resources. 1
My view is that rights are metanorms, not morals themselves. I used to think rights are a subset of morals. Now I think that the sets are intersecting, that most rights violations are immoral but not necessarily so as the purpose of rights is to tell us which laws are justified not how to act on a day to day basis. There might be situations where it is moral to violate rights (breaking into a cabin in the woods to save your baby) and where is is immoral to stand on one’s rights (being needlessly cruel to your grandma doens’t violate rights but is immoral). [continue reading…]
how to see freedom in our lifetimes: well the purpose of freedom is to remove institutionalized human aggression one of obstacle to success in life. Successful action in life is always a challenge because we are not omnipotent or omniscient and the future is uncertain. We will…
I just interviewed Jack Spirko for the Tom Woods Show about his new book Laws of Life: Ditch the System, Design Your Life. The interview will be released next Thursday.
One thing that came up was Jack’s insistence that we focus most of our energy and attention on things that are within our control. (His view is a bit more nuanced than that, but this is a mere email, dear reader.)
I don’t like that the U.S. government spends as much as it does. But there is nothing I can do about that.
I can make a long list of things I disapprove of that I have no way of changing.
But there are plenty of things I can do, in the here and now, to create a more secure and fulfilling life for my family and me.”
The following is adapted from a note I wrote to Tom in reply. [continue reading…]
I’ve argued that Hoppe has a point that in today’s democratic system, immigration, whatever the state policy is, some rights are violated: either those of the would-be host/employer (forced exclusion) or those of citizens (forced integration). [continue reading…]
One of my friends on the Left Coast has had his cybertruck defaced twice now by the commies. I mused that it would be funny to rig it up to detect approaching commies by smelling their patchouli and shocking them, but that lawyers might warn that might be risky, and told Grok to write me some lyrics for a song. I then fed them into Suno and told it to make a country song. It’s not bad…. [continue reading…]
Thomas and Alito are the worst conservative judges.
“The 5th Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings. Procedural due process rules are meant to protect” against “the mistaken or unjustified deprivation of life, liberty, or property,” the majority said. “We have long held that no person shall be removed from the United States without opportunity, at some time, to be heard.”
Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas dissented last month, and they did the same on Friday.
The comments of my libertarian lawyer friend, F, with mine interspersed: [continue reading…]
GROK SHOWNOTES: [0:00–9:16]In this engaging episode of the Kinsella on Liberty podcast, Stephan Kinsella and Sheldon Richman tackle the contentious issue of pharmaceutical price controls under Trump’s executive order, questioning their equivalence to traditional price controls that distort markets. Kinsella, drawing on his extensive critique of intellectual property (Patents and Pharmaceuticals, 2023; Patents, Pharma, Government: The Unholy Alliance, 2024), argues that patents create artificial monopolies, so price controls countering these are not standard interventions but responses to government-granted privileges. Richman highlights FDA-imposed costs, which patents partially offset, though Kinsella counters that these costs are overstated, citing lower drug prices abroad (Drug Reimportation, 2009). They endorse reimportation as a market-based solution, referencing Connor O’Keefe’s analysis (Mises: How Trump Can Lower Drug Prices Without Price Controls, 2025), but criticize Trump’s coercive tactics as resembling a protection racket (Trump’s Worst Idea: Pharmaceuticals, 2025) (0:02–6:00). The discussion also critiques antitrust laws and secondary regulations, with Richman warning against Kevin Carson’s approach of layering controls atop privileges (Kevin Carson on Confiscating Property from the Rich, 2016) (6:00–9:16).[continue reading…]
Last week, after a trip to Nice with my wife (facebook), I joined some friends in Istanbul—Hans Hoppe, Saifedean Ammous, Greg Morin, and a few others (facebook) (some additional pix below). Had several interesting conversations, with Hans in particular. Since I sometimes act as his amanuensis—his Boswell to Johnson—1 I might as well record some of his comments I found interesting. [continue reading…]
I enjoyed James Boswell’s, The LIfe of Samuel Johnson (1791), and as a former Objectivist I always recall this savage review of Barbara Branden’s biography of Ayn Rand, Louis Torres, “Boswell’s Johnson—Branden’s Rand: ‘The Passion of Ayn Rand’ in Historical Perspective,” Aristos 3, no. 5 (May 1987): 1–6; see the obituary for Branden in Aristos, Dec. 2013. [↩]
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