I found this in some old files. Might be of interest to some. Other participants included fellow libertarian sci-fi authors J. Neil Schulman and Victor Koman. PDF
An intelligent observation from a reader of Legal Foundations of a Free Society (my comments interspersed)
Page 486 had a great example of nuggets in this book that give me a different perspective. Nothing earth shattering, just a more accurate way to understand.
Scarcity is a particularly poor term, for this reason: think of paper clips and why we call them scarce goods. At the root it has nothing to do with the class of paper clips. It’s rather about a specific instance of a paper clip. Now ask if 2 or more people can use that specific object simultaneously without conflict: no. That makes it an economic good. This means we can be talking about the Mona Lisa, of which there is 1, or that paper clip, of which there is (drumroll) … 1.
No time to clean this one up at present, so here it is mostly raw—
Now, the topic of Willful Negligence.I looked at “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld”. I understand the idea of a “spectrum between non-action or mere behavior”.Where I get jumbled up, is on the combined topics of “willful negligence” and “action”. Example:Joe is lounging in his easy chair holding his known-to-be-vicious dog on a leash. He falls asleep; dog gets out of the house and kills a child. Whatever other details we wish to add (front door open, etc) should show Joe as extremely willfully negligent. Even stipulate Joe shows no remorse, indeed, objects to any estoppel argument. [continue reading…]
No time to clean this one up at present, so here it is mostly raw. All the indented (and lighter colored) text is from my questioner:
QUERY:
This is not a question, more of a light-bulb insight the book helped clarify for me: Page 225 says “…acquiring and abandoning both involve a manifestation of the owner’s intent”.
Formerly, I would sense a gap between the nature of first-acquired title, versus subsequently title transfer.
Original appropriation seemed clean and straightforward. But acquiring already-owned resources always seemed interlaced with a history of title transfer…acquiring it from someone who themselves can show clear title from a former owner; and that former owner can show the same, and so on, as far back as the property’s history is known (reasonably). And indeed I intuitively saw nothing wrong with this. It just seemed complicated in comparison to pure homesteading.
Q: Re page 424 at the top [“Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society], was the topic of exchanging a tangible for a service. This got me to thinking: how about service-only trades? I haven’t seen this covered, perhaps it falls outside libertarian legal framework.
How would we categorize an agreement whereby the parties exchange only their services (actions), AND make no provision for non-performance … therefore, no tangible resources are involved at all? An example: I’ll help set up for your party; you wash my car; and we don’t discuss what happens if one of us reneges. [continue reading…]
Q: Hi Mr. Kinsella,
Am I right in understanding that, based on your estoppel theory, [see chs. 5-6 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society] it would NOT be a crime for A to say to B, “Give me $100 or I’ll punch C” (assuming C is unaware of this statement)? Because neither B nor C suffers any fear of receiving a battery. [continue reading…]
Interchange between me and Jessi Cowart on FB, starting here:
Jessi Cowart for LPTexas Vice Chair:
I’m a minarchist, and I reject the notion that this makes me any less libertarian than my brethren who identify as anarchists. This movement is about fighting the state. It’s not a pissing contest to see who’s more “hard core.”
Kinsella:
You are less libertarian. You’re partly libertarian and partly statist. A mini-statist.
Cowart:
Your purity test is tired. Anarchists who try to arbitrarily move the goal post on what it means to be libertarian – and call their allies statists – aren’t helping to advance liberty. [continue reading…]
My new book, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), is festooned with footnotes. One reason for this is I’m used to the style and requirements of law reviews and law journals. Every scholarly discipline has its citation format. I, for one, despise in-line citations [such as: (Block 2017a) ], and I also despise endnotes. I hate flipping back and forth to the end of the chapter or book, as I usually read footnotes or glance at them. I prefer a modified version of Chicago-style, and in footnote form, although, again, many people hate footnotes, as I noted previously:
I’ve always liked the following comments by Bryan Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style (page 93). Garner notes that although footnotes can usefully refer you to other references, “you can hardly ignore, at the foot of every page, the notes that ‘run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text.’ These days, the notes are more likely Great Danes than chihuahuas.” 1
I don’t view them as annoying barking dogs; what is annoying are endnotes. In any case, my new book is littered with them. Some may hate them, but not everyone, apparently. From one reader:
In case you had any concerns about all the footnotes and Appendices, I for one am a fan. I read each one that has supplemental commentary. LFFS trivia: the first page of Part 1 has no footnotes. It’s not till page 79 we find another page absent footnotes. Love the meat on the bone!
Update: in my recent article The Problem with Intellectual Property, I have an extensive bibliography including over 80 references to my own writing—books, chapters, articles, blog posts. Now it is common to have multiple citations from the same year, e.g, Kinsella 2023a, 2023b, etc. But on occasion a reference is denoted by the full date, such as a blogpost. So you would think it’s more rare to have two references on the very same day that need the a, b treatment but I have a couple there: (April 23, 2025a) and (April 23, 2025b).
Related: Blog Posts as Footnotes–Webnotes
- Quoting S.M. Crothers, “That History Should Be Readable,” in The Gentle Reader 172 (1903; repr. 1972). To Footnote or Not To Footnote. [↩]
This is a lightly edited interchange with a libertarian friend.
FRIEND:
Stephan,
I’ve read Robert Hessen’s In Defense of the Corporation and found it excellent. I found it interesting that he disagrees with the notion that corporations are distinct entities, separate from the voluntary association of individuals (shareholders, board, executive, etc.) that makes up the corporation. Also interesting is his careful and insightful description of corporate liability for tort, distinguishing intentional and unintentional/negligence cases, and pointing out that agents (such as board members, executives, etc.) do not escape liability for their actions, i.e. cannot hide behind the corporate veil (though he doesn’t use this term).
[I found Norman Barry’s article “The Theory of the Corporation” very good and clear, too, for the most part, though some of it is somewhat mangled. More on this later… ***.]
However, some legal scholars, such as Frank van Dun, do not think that limited liability entities are compatible with a natural order. 2
- I discuss and critique Van Dun’s criticism of my and Walter Block’s “libertarian legalism” in “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre,” in Elvira Nica & Gheorghe H. Popescu, eds., A Passion for Justice: Essays in Honor of Walter Block (New York: Addleton Academic Publishers, forthcoming); see also Legal Foundations of a Free Society, pp. __, et pass. [↩]
- Perhaps he had in mind Frank Van Dun, “Is the Corporation a Free-Market Institution?,” Ideas on Liberty (March 2003). van dun: also: “A note on Austro-libertarianism and the limited-liability corporation“;
Hessen was also criticized in two articles by Piet-Hein van Eeghen, “The Corporation at Issue, Part I: The Clash of Classical Liberal Values and the Negative Consequences for Capitalist Practices,” J. Libertarian Stud. 19, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 49–70, and “The Corporation at Issue, Part II: A Critique of Robert Hessen’s In Defense of the Corporation and Proposed Conditions for Private Incorporation,” J. Libertarian Stud. 19, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 37–57. [↩]
Related:
- biographical pieces on my publications page
- Alan D. Bergman, Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025)
- Meeting Rothbard and Hoppe: John Randolph Club, 1994 (Oct. 16, 2023)
At the Mises Supporters Summit 2023 this past weekend, a group of us visited the archive room, which was fascinating. Tons of material from Mises, Rothbard, and others. Pat Barnett was there and we were reminiscing. I mentioned the first time I met her and others like Rothbard, Hoppe, Rockwell, and so on, was at the John Randolph Club meeting in late 1994, just a few months before Rothbard died. The meeting was in Crystal City, Virginia, Oct. 21-22, 1994. I have mentioned this in previous writing, e.g. “How I Became a Libertarian,” in LFFS, p. 8; see also “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella”; KOL302 | Human Action Podcast with Jeff Deist: Hoppe’s Democracy; The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory; My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–2019.
Pat found a copy of the original program and gave it to me, which I append here: PDF.
I was also able to get Rothbard to sign my copy of Man, Economy, and State, during a long, private conversation with him.
My book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) has just been published. When I was mailing copies to some colleagues today, the UPS lady asked me how long it took me to write it. I said “about 30 years,” though in a sense, it is even longer than that. I’ve been studying libertarian ideas for over 40 years, and I wrote the articles in this book over the last 29 years. But a more accurate answer is: about a year. I’ve been working very hard on this for the last twelve months, and it’s gratifying, and a relief, to have it finally out.
For more details, see here.
One tidbit for the curious. Hoppe includes a sort of “Easter Egg” in his Foreword, when he ends with these words:
Henceforth, then, all essential studies in the philosophy of law and the field of legal theory will have to take full account of the theories and criticisms expounded by Kinsella.
This is a callback to Ludwig von Mises’s comments about his student/protege Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. Mises’s comment, from his 1962 review in New Individualist Review, reads: “Henceforth all essential studies in these branches of knowledge will have to take full account of the theories and criticisms expounded by Dr. Rothbard.”
As Mises was Rothbard’s mentor, so Rothbard was Hoppe’s mentor, and Hoppe was my mentor, more or less, hence the clever callback.
Libertarian Answer Man time again!
I was asked a question about voting for Javier Milei, the soi-disant anarcho-capitalist or libertarian running for President in Argentina. I can certainly say that of the few videos and statements I’ve seen from the guy, he seems amazing, compared to any politician I’ve ever heard of. Since he seems to be familiar with Austrian economics and Rothbardian anarcho-libertarianism, and a scholar to boot. 1 I doubt he get much of his radical programme enacted if elected, but even if he could dollarize the economy and stop hyperinflation, that would be a huge plus. 2 [continue reading…]
- See his chapter “Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap,” in David Howden & , eds., The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Vol. II (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), which unfortunately has a prohibitive academic publisher price, but I hear rumors free copies can be found online. [↩]
- For more on Milei, see Fernando Chiocca, “O grande triunfo da esquerda: uma direita socialista,” Instituto Rothbard (July 1, 2023); and Javier Milei, “El retiro de Bernanke y el futuro de los emergentes” (Sábado 3 de agosto, 2013). [↩]
Recent Comments