From Mises blog. Archived comments below.

See also Incorporation and the Fourteenth Amendment: The 140 Year Old “Riddle”  (Aug. 18, 2008).

Update: For related posts:

• Libertarian Centralists
• The Libertarian Case Against the Fourteenth Amendment
• Healy on States’ Rights and Libertarian Centralists; Healy versus Bolick and the Institute for Justice
• Judicial Activism and the Presumption of Unconstitutionality (draft, 2005)
• Doherty on Slaughterhouse, Libertarian Centralism, and the Fourteenth Amendment
• The Heroic Gene Healy on the 14th Amendment: “If this be heresy—then make the most of it!”
• Incorporation and the Fourteenth Amendment: The 140 Year Old “Riddle”

Libertarian Centralists

[Archived comments below]

June 7, 2005 1:57 PM by Stephan Kinsella | Other posts by Stephan Kinsella | Comments (11)

In another post, I made the offhand comment that the recent Supreme Court marijuana decision shows that libertarian centralists are naive in hoping to get justice from federal courts. Tibor Machan complained that I am not naming names.

The issue of “libertarian centralists” has been discussed at length. See the post Healy on States’ Rights and Libertarian Centralists, which contains many links to many discussions of this topic.

Federal Review-Fourteenth Amendment

To clarify and elaborate a bit, what I mean specifically are those libertarians who are in favor of centralizing more jurisdiction at the federal level so that the federal courts can strike down “bad” state laws. I include here the libertarians who (a) believe that the Constitution does permit the federal courts to review state laws for compliance with the rights implicit in the Bill of Rights; and (b) believe that it’s a good, libertarian idea for the feds to have the power to do this. [continue reading…]

Oldie but goodie from Mises blog. Archived comments below. See also LewRockwell.com cross-post.

Hoppe on Liberal Economies and War

January 25, 2005 4:10 PM by Stephan Kinsella | Other posts by Stephan Kinsella | Comments (2)

One of my many favorite Hoppe quotes, from his Banking, Nation States and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order, Review of Austrian Economics, (Vol. 4 Num. 1), 1990 [now in Economics and Ethics of Private Property, ch. 3, which explains why the relatively rich, Western countries, which have relatively liberal internal economic policies, would tend to be militarily more powerful, and thus more aggressive, than developing states.

The need for a productive economy that a warring state must have also explains why it is that ceteris paribus those states which have adjusted their internal redistributive policies so as to decrease the importance of economic regulations relative to that of taxation tend to outstrip their competitors in the arena of international politics. Regulations through which states either compel or prohibit certain exchanges between two or more private persons as well as taxation imply a non-productive and/or non-contractual income expropriation and thus both damage homesteaders, producers or contractors [i.e., those that cause wealth to come into existence]. However, while by no means less destructive of productive output than taxation, regulations have the peculiar characteristic of requiring the state’s control over economic resources in order to become enforceable without simultaneously increasing the resources at its disposal. In practice, this is to say that they require the state’s command over taxes, yet they produce no monetary income for the state (instead, they satisfy pure power lust, as when A, for no material gain of his own, prohibits B and C from engaging in mutually beneficial trade). On the other hand, taxation and a redistribution of tax revenue according to the principle “from Peter to Paul,” increases the economic means at the government’s disposal at least by its own “handling charge” for the act of redistribution. Since a policy of taxation, and taxation without regulation, yields a higher monetary return to the state (and with this more resources expendable on the war effort!) than a policy of regulation, and regulation with taxation, states must move in the direction of a comparatively deregulated economy and a comparatively pure tax-state in order to avoid international defeat.

[See also similar comments in chapters 2 and 4 of Economics and Ethics of Private Property]

Archived comments:

Comments (2)

• Adem Kupi
• That is an awesome quote and, in fact, materially useful for me in some arguments I am engaged in right now. Thanks for posting it.

• Published: January 26, 2005 11:22 AM

• Stephan Kinsella
• I should add that this chapter is reprinted in Hoppe’s THE ECONOMICS AND ETHICS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY (1993).

• Published: January 26, 2005 11:32 AM

Great piece by Napolitano in the Wall Street Journal. He argues there is no constitutional authority for Congress to regulate the provision of healthcare; and that it is not to be found in the commerce clause.

I agree… but the more skeptical I get of the Constitution’s legitimacy and the events that led to its founding (in part due to Hummel’s great article and others), I wonder if the commerce clause really was intended to be so limited–and if its original understanding is as innocuous and limited as we libertarians often argue, and would like to believe. Sheldon Richman argues (based on Crosskey et al.) that of course it was meant to centralize power, but the federalists had to pretend it did not during debates with the anti-feds (which could affect the public meaning of the words ultimately ratified, I suppose, but still). I.e., maybe Wickard v. Filburn was right–maybe the IC clause is basically a (sneaky) grant of plenary legislative power to Congress–which means there is even more reason to reject the Constitution’s validity.

To be clear, I don’t quite accept Richman’s reasoning–for one reason, Richman’s vision of the meaning of federalism and enumerated powers is somewhat different from mine in this regard, since he takes the term “perpetual union” to prohibit secession, which is ridiculous in my view (the word “perpetual” is not a grant of power to the feds to do anything about it), making me skeptical of his reading of the IC clause as well. No doubt the federalists wanted to centralize; but I think they were not able to do it completely; the antifederalists blocked them, and forced them to give public declarations of the meaning of unclear terms before ratification, which has some bearing on the original public meaning of these provisions–that is, the antifederalists succeeded in boxing in the federalists. At least to some degree.

From LRC, below. And an update: another reason I expect Kindle to fail: it’s not color, no touch, slow refresh, and unsuitable for any browsing. Media pads/tablets, like the rumoured iPad, the CrunchPad, even things like Archos 5 Internet Tablet, will be the book reader of choice, in my view–many people already use iPhones and iPod Touches for this, despite their small screens.

Re: Kindle v. Netbook v. ePub, Bookworm and Stanza

I formerly called this feature “Pretentious Terms of the Slate Podcast Literati.” But after debate and reflection, I am changing it to the more ungainly and accurate, but less insulting and offensive, “Interesting and Notable Words and Phrases”. These are words and turns of phrase I notice: either interesting, or delicious, or perhaps a bit too fancy or strained or, yes, in some cases, maybe pretentious, or even misused. But usually just interesting and notable.

Latest notable terms from today’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• ascribe [SM] (just kidding on this one!)
• cuneiform [not too notable except SM pronounces it the way everyone else does, DS says kyoo-NAY-ih-form]
• giant nougat of incivility [SM]
• l’esprit de l’escalier [SM, a new one on me, I’ll admit]
• triptych [DS]

Hey, Camille said it, not me: “After a lifetime of observation, I must regretfully conclude that men make everything hotter — whether in gay or straight porn.”

Hoppe is repeatedly accused by people who are either uncharitable or who have reading comprehension problems of being a “monarchist.” But as Lew Rockwell notes, Hoppe “contrasted [democracy] with monarchy, not because he favors monarchy but rather to help us understand.” Hoppe argues that the incentives faced by a monarch would tend to make him make better decisions to highlight the even worse problems of a democratic system. It is not a defense of monarchy.

And as Hoppe has explicitly stated, [continue reading…]

Sir Roderick of Long in a recent post asks us to consider the following proposition: “1. Big business and big government are (for the most part) natural allies.” As I noted there, “Do you mean big business as it exists in today’s world, or big business per se? If the former, you have a point (and from my quick read I don’t disagree with any of your other points). But to argue for the latter interpretation would imply that there could be no big business in a free society.”

It seems that the bigger a company is, in today’s world, the more they have to “play ball” to prosper. I’m not sure, though, why this observation is limited to big business, or even business in general. Even individuals drive on public roads, and are incentivized or coerced into using public schools, say. And what about Big Medicine, Big Education, Big Research, and so on? (And let’s not forget Big Labor!)

Come to think of it–most larger charities I’m aware of continually seek state partnerships and funding, and encourage state redistribution schemes. Down with charity!

Update: A reply to “Rad Geek“:

Charles, you conclude, “So, yeah, down with Big Charity. I agree. Where’s the problem?”

But in my post that you quoted, I ended it, “Down with charity!” not down with Big Charity. My point should be obvious. I am mocking the notion that just because you are against Big Business (understood to “mean big business as it exists in today’s world,” business that is in bed with the state), means you are against business itself—or even against “big” business per se. I am mocking it by showing how ridiculous it would be for you to be against charity (or even “big” charity), just because you are opposed to Big Charity. That’s why in my comment on Long, I largely agreed with his 6 points but demurred if and to the extent the opposition to “Big Business” was meant to include “big business” (that is, any private business that happens to be big). I was also objecting to the apparent singling out of Big Business, but I’m glad to see you agree that Big Labor, etc. are equally (?) criticizable. YOu say, “Let’s set aside Stephan’s mentions of individuals driving on government roads, or sending children to government schools. Sure they do; but this doesn’t strike me as even remotely compelling, if you pause for even a second to consider matters of degree, and it’s hard to see what purpose mentioning it really serves except as a way to just sort of scatter critique as broadly as possible. Last year, the Department of the Treasury sent me a $600 check, allegedly for the purpose of economic stimulus — just like how they also cut AIG a $170,000,000,000 check last year, also allegedly for the purpose of economic stimulus. But, well, so what? I’d say it’s still pretty accurate to see AIG as having a much closer relationship with bail-out statism than I do.”

Remotely compelling for what? Your criticism is inapt. I am not comparing the sins of individuals to the sins of Big Business (which would be disproportionate, sure). Rather, I am trying to illustrate a couple things. First, that it is indiscriminate to attack anyone for merely benefitting from or even cooperating with the state; I think you and I would agree that the ones who actively lobby it and influence it like the Defense Industry etc. are far more blameworthy than a social security recipient or road-user. But this is my point. If we recognize distinctions then this means not all business—even “big” business—should be castigated the same way Big Business is. And to the contrary, Big Labor, Big Education, etc. shoudl be attacked as Big Business is—and despite your laundry list of links showing your ilk has sometimes criticized Big Labor etc., I note that in Roderick’s list he didn’t. Rather he singled out Big Business. So which is it?

My post was one of agreement with Roderick, with the caveat that I thought it was unclear whether he was castigating “Big Business” or any “big” business. If the latter, I disagree—for some of the reasons I gave (namely that if you indict all “big business” then your threshold for sin has to be so low that you indict almost everyone, mom and pop stores, people who drive on roads, etc.). And I notice that neither Roderick in his comments, nor you here, have tried to clarify. Ratheer you seem to dodge the question by saying you against Big Charity—implying you are not against charity (or even big charity)—but without specifying whether likewise you are against Big Business but not against business (or “big” business). Well? What’s your position?

[LRC cross-post]

From Huffington Post: “Tea Party” Leader: Obama Is An “Indonesian Muslim”. Why these stupid rubes care is beyond me. His religion is not the problem. Rather the lack of. I wish he were a real Muslim. Or Christian. If he were a real anything he could not support the killing and taxes and plunder he does.

FYLR!

see Lew Rockwell, King of Libertarianism

Tom, this is also why the state allows–encourages, even–various “reform” talk, like income tax “reform,” because they really don’t care how they loot us. Notice there is never talk of simply lowering the rates. And funny how the DC sellouts sniff at–indeed, belittle and slander–the only real threat to state power–as you say, secession and devolution.

See: re: Lew Rockwell, King of Libertarianism

The wonderful and prolific Gary North (see his excellent speeches and articles on career versus calling, and his great M.I.T. Calls Academia’s Bluff, for example) has a great piece: How Lew Rockwell Copied Leonard E. Read and Took Over the Libertarian Movement. North explains how Rockwell built up the Mises Institute, then, with Jeff Tucker, Mises.org, the most amazing resource for liberty and sound economics in the world. (See also Tucker’s speech Dissident Publishing: Then and Now, which is appended below.)

Rockwell’s dominance of principled, economically-literate libertarianism is obvious. He runs the incredibly popular and influential LewRockwell.com, not to mention being the founder of the Mises Institute. He has been anti-war on principle, from the beginning, and has never wavered, unlike various DC sellouts and unprincipled, flighty utilitarian types. His speaking appearances yield standing room only crowds, thousands of people cheering, and ovations. His books sell well, as do those of the Mises Institute (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of books downloaded for free from Mises.org) and affiliates like Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano. [continue reading…]