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… ***.]
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. [↩]
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.
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.
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. [↩]
The Supreme Court’s recent decisions preventing colleges from using affirmative action—Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard College)—are wrong and unconstitutional. It’s a shame libertarians are in favor of this and sound like conservatives repeating dumb lines like “it should be merit oriented.” As if it was ever about merit: ever heard of legacy admissions or athletic admissions? Sure, mediocre-IQ Obama got into Harvard (racial affirmative action); but similarly mediocre-IQ George Bush got into Yale (legacy). Lower IQ football players get in and get scholarships too. So what?
It’s not about merit, or not only about merit; never was. Look at Harvard’s own website:
John Adams graduates
John Adams, future U.S. president, graduates. Before 1773, the graduates of Harvard were arranged in a hierarchy not of merit but “according to the dignity of birth, or to the rank of [their] parents.” By this rather undemocratic standard, Adams graduated 14th in a class of 24.
They also ignore federalism (the FedGov has no business regulating state universities) and constitutional problems with using the 14th Amendment to strike down state laws/actions they frown upon. 1 Libertarians sound like clueless rah rah patriotic type dumb conservatives who romanticize the past and pretend we should “return” to a merit based higher education system. Return? Sounds half-racist. I understand why Blacks sense hypocrisy when whites whine about racial preferences—when legacy admissions have been tantamount to racial preferences for whites for a looooong time.
A libertarian colleague asked me something like this:
Some time ago, I recall you wrote a piece on property rights where you argued (I think) that the inability to pay on a credit transaction was not a fraud because of the doctrine of impossibility. (I’m clearly paraphrasing in hopes that you will recognize the piece to which I’m referring.) I can’t seem to find it. (Perhaps it’s in the JLS or some reply to Van Dun.) 1
From this facebook post, referring to this Youtube video:
Also discussed at KOL361 | Libertarian Answer Man: Oaths: With Kent Wellington): Go to around 32 minutes; from the transcript: “Just like in the US, in the federal court system, all these guys that they call judges, the federal judges, the Supreme Court judges, they’re not really judges. They’re just state agents whose job is to interpret the words written down on paper by other state agents. That’s it. Their job is not to do justice, which is what a real judge does. A real judge tries to resolve a dispute between two parties based upon principles of justness and fairness. These federal judges can’t do that because their job is to interpret the Constitution and federal law, which are just positive enactments written down on paper by a bunch of elected bureaucrats and members of the state. So I don’t think they’re actual judges. They’re not actually doing law. What they’re interpreting is not law. (See Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes)
[Update: see the following comment adapted from an email to my new friend Nadia Nedzel 1 about related matters:
It’s a shame Hasnas’s small but important output is not easily accessible online, because I think his Myth piece could be improved by clarifying that his critique applies mostly to cases where the judge is interpreting artificial codes like statutes, legislation, and written constitutions (e.g. the US Constitution) and does not apply nearly so much to the normal judge in a true decentralized system whose mandate is to do justice (e.g. an arbitrator in a decentralized libertarian anarchist society, or even a judge or jurist or jurisconsult in a system like the Roman Law or English Common Law.
This article on Mises.org is disappointing (Daniel Lacalle, “Price Inflation Slowed to 3 Percent. That’s Still Far Too High,” Mises Wire (July 24, 2023). I guess it’s a blessing they seem to have disabled comments. Because this would be my comment:
This is not how Austrians think—at least, not Misesian-Rothbardians. The title gives it away: “Price Inflation Slowed to 3 Percent. That’s Still Far Too High.” As if there is a desired inflation rate—say, zero percent (in nominal terms).
And this line: “Inflation is caused by the constant increase in the quantity of currency in circulation well above real demand.” [continue reading…]
We spoke in the past, briefly, and I do appreciate that you’re open to emails. I’m not really expecting any kind of answer from this, just trying to bring to your attention a weird issue in the reasoning of a lot of pro-IP people that I’ve seen. AI has been a hot topic (though not the subject of this email), and in conversations with people about it I’ve seen the following come up time and time again. [continue reading…]
In 1912, in The Theory of Money and Credit[TMC], Ludwig von Mises argued that money is neither a producer good nor a consumer good, but a special type of good, which, following Karl Knies, he called media of exchange goods. 1 Nowadays, some Austrians refer to money as a sui generis good (sui generis meaning “of its own kind”), to highlight its unique character, although Mises apparently never himself used this terminology. For example, in a recent article touching on this topic, Thorsten Polleit writes:
Money is no consumption good and no production good. It is the exchange good, a good sui generis. I should also note that money is not a claim on goods, and in a free market, no one is obliged to give you something for your money. 2
What is your view on false TV ads? Do you consider it fraud when a customer purchases a product from a TV ad but finds out that the ad lied about the product?
Like if there was a TV commercial that claimed drinking soda would make me fly, and I went to the store to purchase that brand of soda thinking it would make me fly and ends up not, is that company liable for fraud?
Kinsella:
I think we would have to wait and see how a legal system decided such matters, because they could take into account previous case law, local custom, ask questions of witnesses and experts to determine the relevant context. In short, you can’t decide everything from the armchair. Sometimes you have to wait. 1
My own view is that caveat emptor would be a reigning principle. Fools are easily parted with their money. You can’t rely on such information unless it is clearly deceptive, or you are given a clear guarantee. If you do, it’s at your own risk.
But whatever happens legally, practice would take it into account and change if necessary. If stupid customers win at such lawsuits, then vendors will start being more careful with their claims or add caveats, or maybe make the customer sign a waiver before the purchase. If the customers lose, then this would tend to spread the word of “caveat emptor” and customers would be more careful and/or buy insurance or rely more on private reputation agencies like the Better Business Bureau seal of approval. Suppose you know it’s hard to sue a vendor if they make shady claims. So you have a choice between Vendor A, who uses the BBB but whose prices are higher, but whose quality is probably higher; or Vendor B, who refuses to use BBB and thus might be more dishonest in his claims. One consumer may choose B because he’s cheaper, but now he’s taking a risk–some might say assuming the risk, and can’t complain if the product turns out to be shit. 2
The late Doris Gordon 1 was an interesting libertarian. She was an atheist, but also pro-life, and founder of Libertarians for Life. We corresponded a bit about the abortion issue in 1996, when I was practicing law in Philadelphia (reprinted below). I cannot recall how we came across each other. We talked on the phone but never met in person.
I liked Doris; she was genuine and sincere. But I thought then, and still do now, that her pro-life arguments are flawed. In my view, they are simply semantic and simplistic—and wrong. The argument is basically this: if “humans” have rights, then fetuses do too—after all, they “are humans” (“if they are not humans, what are they? Lizards?” is the retort you often get from the pro-life types). As she wrote me, “If Adult Stephan has the right not to be killed, then prima facie why not Zygote Stephan?” [continue reading…]
I am informed by her friend Richard Stevens that she passed away about twelve years ago. [↩]
I was also able to get Rothbard to sign my copy of Man, Economy, and State, during a long, private conversation with him.
Recent Comments