My friend Tibor Machan presents a fascinating and excellent lecture on “Thoughts on Objectivism and Ayn Rand” at the Libertarian Alliance Conference in October 2009 in London. I enjoyed in partiuclar Machan’s discussion of how many of Rand’s technical philosophical views–on volition, epistemology, and so on–were similar to perhaps more sophisticated treatments by mainstream philosophers such as Austin, Sperry, and so on.
Someone asked me what books I had and what my office (at work) looked like. I snapped a few pix with my i-fizzy, which I put on this SmugMug gallery; a slideshow is below (and here’s a SmugMug gallery showing only my own book covers).
In a blog post here a few years ago (Friedman and Socialism), I mentioned a July 1991 Liberty article by Friedman that I remembered where he said he was in favor of liberty and tolerance of differing views and behavior because we cannot know that the behavior we want to outlaw is really bad. In other words, the reason we should not censor dissenting ideas is not the standard libertarian idea that holding or speaking is not aggression, but because then we can’t be sure the ideas are wrong. This implies that if we could know for sure what is right and wrong, it might be okay to legislate morality, to outlaw immoral or “bad” actions.
One of the things I have always liked about Objectivism was its moral defense of economic and personal liberty. The objection to antitrust law, for example, is based on the right to engage in non-aggressive action, including attempts at collusion and price-fixing, say. It’s not based on the economic case against antitrust law. Similarly, there is a right not to give to charity, a right to discriminate in one’s business, and so on–even if we can expect people to be charitable and for irrational discrimination to be penalized and wither away on the free market; the case for these rights is not dependent on these subsidiary observations. It’s principled, not consequentialist.
The relative invisibility of Libertarianism after 40 years of backbreaking, heartbreaking labor, has little to do with any lack of money, ideas, personnel, or anything else Libertarians may occasionally whine about. It isn’t the fault of an evil northeastern Liberal conspiracy. Nor, as the more timid among us often recommend, is it reason to tone down Libertarian rhetoric, to soften principle or its expression, to make it more conservative or “practical” in approach. All of that has been tried, again & again. [continue reading…]
In another thread here, a commentor asks, “What, exactly, is un-libertarian about “loser pays” laws in civil suits?” This sentiment is common among libertarians who seem to assume that the “loser pays” rule is preferable, from a libertarian point of view, to a system in which each side pays its legal costs. [continue reading…]
Nokia’s infringement suit against Apple illustrates need to scrap US patent system
Stephan Kinsella [General Counsel for Applied Optoelectronics and Editor of Libertarian Papers]: “A recent lawsuit filed by Nokia against Apple alleges that the iPhone infringes 10 of Nokia’s patents. Nokia is probably “seeking between $200 and $400 million in damages from Apple,” which JURIST characterizes as “a relatively low amount to seek from a company that expects revenues…of over $11 billion this year.” It doesn’t seem trivial to me, given that $400 million is a good chunk – say, 5 to 10% or so – of Apple’s profits. And Nokia’s is not the only lawsuit Apple faces. Half a billion here, half a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money. For other examples, see here. [continue reading…]
The cool, hip techno-pundits are usually reliably Obama-liberal/libertarian-lite types. A bit California-smug, engineer-scientistic, anti-principled, anti-“extreme.” But okay overall. A soft, tolerant, whitebread bunch.
On the last This Week in Tech, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the always interesting Jason Calacanis voice support for nuclear power; and even more surprised to hear soft-liberal host Leo Laporte echo mild agreement with this. Good for them!
But then they had to revert to form when they, along with Natali Del Conte and Patrick Norton expressed unanimous disapproval of McCain’s Internet Freedom Act, since they are all–“of course”–in favor of net neutrality rules imposed by the FCC. McCain’s proposed statute would block the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules, which would forbid network providers (e.g. cable companies, telcos, and wireless carriers) from selectively blocking certain types of Internet use. [continue reading…]
Leonard Read, “I’d Push the Button” (1946): “If there were a button on this rostrum, the pressing of which would release all wage and price controls instantaneously, I would put my finger on it and push!”
Murray N. Rothbard, “Why be libertarian?”, Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought 2, no. 3 (1966): 5–10, 7-8: “A true passion for justice, then, must be radical–in short, it must at least wish to attain its goals radically and instantaneously. … The true test, then, of the radical spirit, is the button-pushing test: if we could push the button for instantaneous abolition of unjust invasions of liberty, would we do it? If we would not do it, we could scarcely call ourselves libertarians, and most of us would only do it if primarily guided by a passion for justice. … The genuine libertarian, then, is, in all senses of the word, an “abolitionist”; he would, if he could, abolish instantaneously all invasions of liberty: whether it be, in the original coining of the term, slavery, or it be the manifold other instances of State oppression. He would, in the words of another libertarian in a similar connection: “blister my thumb pushing that button!” The libertarian must perforce be a “button-pusher” and an “abolitionist”.
“I have no idea what it means to “favor the immediate abolition of the state”. I say the state is illegitimate and not justified. What in the world does it mean for it to be “immediately abolished”? I think of the Genie jokes where the guy wishes for something and all kinds of…
that is different i think. he is right that anarchy is our ideal goal and the concerns that it would not be stable are in a sense self-defeating. this is different from my criticism of acontextual button-pushing hypos.
“I take A’s wood and B’s metal to make a house. Am I the rightful owner of that house?”
Libertarian armchair theorists hate this answer, but it depends. You need to know the context. That’s why you need a trial to examine relevant evidence and decide. And this is why there are…
Some of us “radical” (read: principled) libertarians are sometimes accused of refusing to compromise, refusing to accept incremental movements toward liberty; that we would only accept a magical “push of the button”. Of course, this is not true. I want the income tax abolished, but I would view a reduction in the marginal tax rates as an unambiguous improvement by libertarian standards.
The problem lies in reforms that do not clearly and unambiguosly improve the situation, however minutely; but that might even make things worse, at least for some people. For example, moving to a “flat tax” of 20% (with no deductions at all) would be a good thing for me, and maybe even “overall” (whatever that means), but it would amount to a punitive tax increase on people making, say, $25K a year, who pay almost no income tax now. Such a reform would decrease rights violations for some, and increase it for others. [continue reading…]
An edited version of my reply to a global warming alarmist on another thread:
I’m against the state. I’m against junk science. I’m against science used by liberal arts and women’s studies majors from Brown who now infest the state to advance their anti-capitalist interests.
I believe we are in an interglacial period. I believe the evidence trotted out so far by global warming advocates is spotty and selective, and almost always insincere and agenda-driven, or driven by pure ignorance. I believe that global warming would probably be good, but is not going to happen. I suspect that even if it were happening and even if it were bad, the cost of stopping it would far exceed its damages–that is, that it’s not worth it to stop it; that human survival is more important, ultimately, than environmentalist concerns; moreover, I would never trust the state to make this assessment or to impose the “right” regulations to ameliorate the “problem.”
I think that the global warming advocates are not interested in real science or real debate–they want to just take their temporary popularity in the polls and among the arts & croissant crowd, among the DC jetset bored housewives and ditzy Hollywood stars and parlay that as quickly as possible into legislation sponsored by corrupt pols like Nancy Pelosi. I.e.., they just want to win, right away, as quickly as possible before the public starts to catch on or yet another pseudo-science fad catches its eye.
The primary enemy is the state. Any scheme that involves them as a part of the “solution” to a posited problem is obviously flawed. I have no wish to cooperate with or endorse that criminal gang’s legitimacy. Period.
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