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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 459.

In response to lots of froth on Twitter related to Jack Dorsey’s call to “delete all IP law,” which was echoed by Elon Musk (Musk and Dorsey: “delete all IP law”) I decided to attempt to host an impromptu Twitter Spaces about this. After overcoming some technical glitches, here is the result (and thanks to @Brunopbch, @NotGovernor (Patrick Smith), and @TrueAmPatriot86 for assists). I proposed to the space: “Fielding Questions About Abolishing Intellectual Property, about IP, and About Libertarian Property Rights”, and that’s basically what we ended up talking about. The Twitter spaces can be viewed here; I have clipped off the first 8 minutes or so of setup talk for this podcast episode.

Grok summaries and shownotes and Youtube Transcript below. [continue reading…]

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Re the new book Common Law Liberalism: A New Theory of the Libertarian Society, by John Hasnas, of “Myth of the Rule of Law” (2) fame.

[Note: this includes also his other famous paper, The Obviousness of Anarchy (2), which is also hard to find online. See Two Great Arguments for Anarchy: Long and Hasnas; also comments in Federal Judges Aren’t Real Judges]

Grok summary of two recent talks below.

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I’ve been interested in bitcoin for some time, ¹ and witnessed the BTC vs. BCH blocksize war from 2015–2017 from the sidelines. Last year I read Roger Ver and Steve Patterson’s Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC (2024) (foreword by my buddy Jeffrey Tucker, whose Atlanta Crypto-Currency Conference I spoke at in 2013). ² I found it to be well-written and organized. I was not persuaded by their case, however. Seemed like spin, whining, typical activism to me. If bitcoin can ever work, it has to work on its own, not because of flogging by activists to “use” it or “adopt” it. (Same thing with libertarianism.) ³

I was aware of another book on this topic, Jonathan Bier’s The Blocksize War: The battle over who controls Bitcoin’s protocol rules (2021), but I’ve never read it. In a Tweet, Miguel Vidal commented that “Roger Ver is deeply dishonest: he’s who tried to hijack Bitcoin. He attacked (bcash) and he failed (he had no interest in the underlying debate)” and that Jonathan Bier‘s “essay is quite well documented, fair, engaging and riveting. Highly recommend.” I noticed he had written the Prólogo (prologue, or foreword) ⁴ to the Spanish translation and he sent me a link to an a automatic English translation of his Foreword, which I append below. [continue reading…]

1. Am I a Bitcoin Maximalist?; various podcast interviews and posts. [↩]
2. KOL085 | The History, Meaning, and Future of Legal Tender (Crypto-Currency Conference, Atlanta, 2013). [↩]
3. Activism, Achieving a Free Society, and Writing for the Remnant. [↩]
4. Pat McNees, “What is the difference between a preface, a foreword, and an introduction?” [↩]

My book Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) contains updated essays published over a 29-year period, and thus is quite lengthy—about 800 pages, including bibliography and index and about 712 page of text.

As I pointed out on the landing page, for those who just want a taste of what the book is about, I recommend the Foreword by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, my Preface, and chapters 1 (“How I Became A Libertarian”) and 2 (“What Libertarianism Is”). However, as I pointed out in the Preface, “For those who want to skip the more extraneous material and focus on the core libertarian theory chapters, I recommend chapters 2–12, 14–15, and 18.”

With this in mind, I have produced a version of the PDF with the extraneous material stripped out: LFFS—Core Chapters Only, PDF. This version is 304 pages shorter than the main text, containing 408 pages of text as opposed to 713 for the original version–so about 57% the length of the original.

As I mentioned to the folks at the CEES in Guatemala, ¹ when I spoke there earlier this week, ² which had expressed some interest in translating Legal Foundations of a Free Society—it’s so far been translated into Chinese and Portuguese, but not Spanish—this “core chapter” truncated version might be more suitable for translation since the overall length would be much shorter and result in a slimmer paper volume. Food for thought for others interested in publishing a translation.

1. Centro de Estudios Económico-Sociales, affiliated with Universidad Francisco Marroquín. [↩]
2. Speaking at APEE IP Panel in Guatemala. [↩]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 458.

The meat of this talk is only about 15 minutes, if you skip the first couple minutes of setup and the Q&A at the end.

See also Self-Ownership, Natural Rights, Estoppel (CEES Guatemala 2025)

GROK SHOWNOTES: In this episode of the Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (KOL458), recorded on April 7, 2025, at the APEE 49th Meeting in Guatemala City, libertarian patent attorney Stephan Kinsella delivers a 15-minute panel presentation titled “Patent and Copyright versus Innovation, Competition, and Property Rights,” arguing that intellectual property (IP) laws, particularly patents and copyrights, are state-enforced monopolies that violate property rights and hinder innovation (0:00-7:00). Drawing on his forthcoming book Copy This Book and article “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” Kinsella traces IP’s origins to mercantilist privileges, critiques its economic harms like monopoly pricing in pharmaceuticals, and dismisses natural rights and utilitarian arguments for IP as flawed or empirically unsupported, including defamation law as a form of IP (7:01-15:00). He advocates for IP’s complete abolition to foster a free market of ideas, emphasizing its conflict with free speech and competition (15:01-22:20).

Youtube Transcript and Grok Detailed Summary below.

As mentioned in Speaking at APEE IP Panel in Guatemala, today (April 6, 2025) I spoke on a panel at the APEE 49th Meeting in Guatemala. The theme of this year’s meeting was “The Economic History of State and Market Institutions,” April 6-8, 2025, Guatemala City, Guatemala (program; other info).

My panel was Panel 50. [1.E.06] “Intellectual Property: Old Problems and New Developments,” Monday, April 7, 2025, 3:50 pm-5:05 pm, Breakout06. Organizer: Monica Rio Nevado de Zelaya, Universidad Francisco Marroquín;
Chair: Ramón Parellada, Universidad Francisco Marroquín. My full panel: [continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (50.1MB)

From twitter:

As early as 2011 I recognized that bitcoin could be closer to ideal money than anything else before. https://stephankinsella.com/2024/10/am-i-a-bitcoin-maximalist-or-big-blocker/…:

“(IN the bitcoin thing with digital currency, you can arbitrarily increase the granularity by adding more digits; in such a digital numeraire (which I confess I sort of think is the ideal money, in some sense, though not in a practical sense given some political and other problems), you never need to increase the supply at all (once it reaches its asymptotic maximum), because any supply truly is enough: you never face the granularity problem you guys allude to.”

The “political” problems I was thinking of was my fear that the state would kill it, if it became a real threat. For once I was too pessimistic (too confident in the competence of the state to realize the danger bitcoin poses) and thus I lost a bet to @real_vijay … but that led me to buy some bitcoin to repay my debt to him, so I don’t regret losing that bet! [continue reading…]

As I relate here, My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–20192025, I’m trying this year to slow down, or at least change, the number of libertarian and related events I attend this year. For example I recently attended a completely non-normative (well mostly) and non-libertarian scholarly legal conference which I thoroughly enjoyed.¹
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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 457.

I had been meaning to talk to my old friend Sheldon Richman, of the Libertarian Institute and TGIF column, about his own IP Odyssey, as he’s always been great on this issue, ¹ and many others. At the same time I had been talking to André Simoni of Brazil about some questions he had about applying my/Rothbard’s title-transfer contract theory to some questions he had about interest payments on student loans and other contracts, usury, and so on. I had thought of talking to André and Sheldon separately but decided to combine them, partly because I confused André’s topic with a discussion I had also been having at the same time with Galambosian Brian Gladish about IP and Galambos. ²

Libertopia, San Diego, Oct. 11, 2012: Anthony Gregory, Kinsella, Roderick Long, Sheldon Richman. See KOL238 | Libertopia 2012 IP Panel with Charles Johnson and Butler Shaffer; KOL237 | Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP—Part 2 (Libertopia 2012); KOL236 | Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP (Libertopia 2012)

Sheldon and I talked first about IP and other topics, and then to André about contract theory, which Sheldon jumped in on anyway. (I may talk to Gladish later about Galambos and IP.) ³

We touched on a number of topics; see the summary of our discussion points by Grok:

[00:00:02 – 00:20:44] Stephan Kinsella hosts Sheldon Richman, executive editor of the Libertarian Institute, to discuss Richman’s libertarian journey and his opposition to intellectual property (IP). Richman traces his ideological roots to the 1964 Goldwater campaign, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard, emphasizing his rejection of IP as incompatible with liberty due to its monopolistic nature. He critiques the notion that creation alone justifies ownership, advocating for property rights based on prior ownership of tangible inputs. The conversation highlights Richman’s classical liberal stance, his defense of corporations as efficient market entities, and his nuanced view on libertarian labels, favoring a broad, non-tribal approach to radical liberalism.

[00:20:45 – 01:33:05] The discussion shifts to Andre from Brazil, who joins to explore the title-transfer theory of contract, focusing on its application to student loans, interest payments, usury, and bankruptcy. Kinsella explains that contracts involve title transfers, not enforceable promises, and addresses Andre’s concerns about vague contract terms and usury laws, arguing they often protect entrenched interests. On bankruptcy, Kinsella notes his evolving view, influenced by inalienability concepts, suggesting that extreme debt obligations resembling slavery might justify limited bankruptcy protections in a free society, as discussed in his recent blog post. Richman contributes insights on contracts, reinforcing the need for clear title transfers, while the trio debates the moral and legal implications of debt and societal expectations in libertarian frameworks.

Transcript and detailed Grok shownotes below.

[continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:10:10 — 118.5MB)

1. My IP Odyssey; as quoted in “Your failed business model is not my problem”; Sheldon Richman, “Patent Nonsense,” IP Debate Breaks Out at FEE. Others, e.g. Richman, The Articles of Confederation Versus the Constitution. [↩]
2. On Galambos, see the following. On Gladish, see the next note. Galambos and Other Nuts; The Galambosians strike back; “Around this time I met the Galambosian.”; Was Galambos an IP Thief?; Galambos the Crank; Shades of Galambos: Man tries to copyright his name; Rothbard and Galambosians. [↩]
3. Gladish on Galambos at ASC; his comments at: Have You Changed Your Mind About Intellectual Property?; Galambos and Other Nuts; Mises on Intellectual Property; Why Objectivists Hate Anarchy (Hint: IP). [↩]

A friend on an email discussion list had a long post starting with:

It strikes me that humanity is by and large trapped in a false dilemma where we have to choose between an all-powerful egotistical dictator and an all-powerful soulless bureaucracy. In the mean it boils down to the Soviet Union versus Hitler.

Person A: Hitler was really bad because he killed millions of innocent people.
Person B: The Soviet Union was worse because it killed even more innocent people.

I didn’t read the rest but chimed in with this: [continue reading…]

A normie friend asked me for my take on a recent Louisiana Supreme Court case, KATHLEEN WELCH AND CARROLL DEWAYNE WELCH VS. UNITED MEDICAL HEALTHWEST-NEW ORLEANS L.L.C. AND UNITED MEDICAL HEALTHCARE INC. (La. March 21, 2025).

The case involves the La. governor issuing various executive orders during Covid, “limiting gatherings and encouraging people to stay home” and also limiting liability of health care providers to cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct, under the Louisiana Health Emergency Powers Act (LHEPA), La. R.S. 29:760, et seq., which provides:
“During a state of public health emergency, no health care provider shall be civilly liable for causing the death of, or injury to, any person or damage to any property except in the event of gross negligence or willful misconduct.”

As the case notes, “On March 11, 2020, Governor John Bel Edwards declared a public health emergency in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic.” (The federal limitation on liability of pharmaceutical companies has also been criticized by libertarians.) ¹

It’s almost impossible to meet this standard of liability, as it’s much higher than the normal standard of negligence found in La. Civ. Code
Art. 2315: [continue reading…]

1. Jeffrey A. Tucker, “The Pandemic Excuse for a Corporatist Coup,” Brownstone Institute (July 11, 2024); Tucker’s tweet; Leslie Manookian, “Policy Imperatives for Health Freedom,” Brownstone Institute (October 3, 2024). [↩]

Bryan Mercadente, “The Illiberal Nature of Limited Liability: A Libertarian Critique,” The Libertarian Alliance [UK] (22 March, 2025). Excerpt:

https://libertarianism.uk/2025/03/30/the-illiberal-nature-of-limited-liability-stephan-kinsella-replies/The question I have been set is why, if it is as wonderful as I claim, capitalism produces immense inequalities and waste? Why is it so harmful to the environment? Since the purpose of the question appears to be a requirement for me to explain in more detail certain points I have argued in class, I hope I shall be forgiven for putting aside its exact wording in favour of what I think a more productive question. Before doing this, even so, I will make some effort to deal with question as set—even if my effort here will be brief.

The argument from inequality is easily answered. If one looks at the Lorenz curves for those countries that have economies based even slightly on free market principles, they show more equality than those countries that do not allow free markets. The correlation between economic freedom and prosperity is undeniable. Consider, for example, Switzerland and South Korea—two countries where markets are moderately free. Both have high GDP per capita and a large middle class. Compare them to command economies such as North Korea or Venezuela, where wealth is concentrated in the hands of the political elite, and the general population is impoverished. To be precise, capitalist countries, by any honest measurement, both richer and more equal than non-capitalist countries.

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