StephanKinsella.com

[From my Webnote series]

Many times I have noted that one criticism of libertarianism is that it is too simplistic, in that its “only value” is liberty. This is usually stated by some statist who grudgingly concedes that they value liberty, that liberty is a value, but for them it’s not the only value. ¹ As I wrote previously,

Calling rights absolute is just a tactic of those who simply have no principled opposition to aggression. They believe aggression is usually wrong, or unjust—but not always. In other words, they think it is not unjust to commit aggression. This is why they do not respect property rights on principled grounds and are willing to infringe property rights if there is a more important value, like “freedom.” Or some other value, like equality or basic welfare rights, and so on. Those who favor “non-absolute” rights really favor or condone aggression (in some circumstances), and should not hide behind misleading characterizations of libertarian opponents of aggression as being “absolutists.” Liberty is not our “only value,” but it is a value, and we oppose aggression. As I wrote in my book:

Now, as a human being, I, like every other libertarian, have values other than liberty. We are not just libertarians, ever. However, we do value liberty, and we oppose aggression. For us it is a “side-constraint,” to use Nozick’s phrase: we believe aggression is simply wrong, or unjustifiable. As Nozick wrote, “Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).”13 When the conservative, or liberal, or minarchist, or “bleeding heart” libertarian starts wagging their finger and tut-tutting that they oppose aggression but that unlike the “simpleminded” libertarian it is not their “only value,” you can be sure they are setting the stage to propose or endorse or condone some kind of invasion of liberty—some act of aggression. That is, when I hear people, even some libertarians, condescendingly denounce our focus on aggression as the primary social evil, …. I want to hold onto my wallet, because they are coming after it. Or as Ayn Rand says in “Francisco’s Money Speech,” “Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”14 Likewise, when someone says aggression is not the only thing that matters, they are about to advocate aggression. Keep an eye on these people. ²

A recent example is by conservative James Orr in a debate with Stephen Hicks, an Objectivist if I am not mistaken, where Orr repeats this tired canard. ³ Orr says, around 1:01:34, “if you’ve got freedom as the highest value—and just and let’s just assume you can sequester it within a political domain—that’s only going to work if you’ve got, outside the political domain, a sense of what makes life meaningful that is shared at least to some degree…”

It’s like playing whack-a-mole with these aggression-condoning weasels.

1. Stephan Kinsella, “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), text at n.14; Dominiak & Wysocki, “Libertarianism, Defense of Property, and Absolute Rights”; The Limits of Libertarianism?: A Dissenting View; KOL236 | Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP (Libertopia 2012), and its transcript, at 38:23; KOL341 | ESEADE Lecture: Should We Release Patents on Vaccines? An Overview of Libertarian Property Rights and the Case Against IP, at 37:22. [↩]
2. Kinsella, “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” quoting “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” p. 626. [↩]
3. The debate is featured in written form in Reason Papers vol. 45, no. 1. [↩]

I’ve pointed out before the pitfalls of trying to design law by legislation, and also the limitations of libertarian legal theorists trying to design or deduce law from their armchairs. ¹ And yet there is no doubt a role for libertarian theorists, and for legal commentators and private law codes in guiding the development of law in a private-law society. ² As an example, a fledgling libertarian society might take the existing private law as developed in the mostly decentralized Roman law, and as now embodied in European civil codes, or the English common law, as starting points and as presumptively compatible with libertarian law.

The positive Roman/European continental and Anglo-American common law would only be presumptively just, and would have to be scrutinized with respect to more fundamental or abstract or general libertarian principles, and ultimately discarded if found wanting. It would be no surprise if this were the case; lots of statist or other assumptions play into the reasoning of jurists over the centuries. It would be a surprise if mistakes never happened. Of course a sense of caution or humility in jettisoning long-established rules would be warranted. As Chesterton noted: [continue reading…]

1. The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats; also Libertarian Answer Man: Corporations, Trusts, HOAs, and Private Law Codes in a Private Law Society; KOL359 | State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PFS 2021); KOL345 | Kinsella’s Libertarian “Constitution” or: State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PorcFest 2021). [↩]
2. See Stephan Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS] (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), Part V.B; also Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases. On the distinction between abstract legal rights and more concrete rules that serve as guides to action, see “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society” and Kinsella, “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” in LFFS, the subsection “Abstract Rights and Legal Precepts” and the section “The Third-Order Problem of Knowledge and the Common Law,” text at n. 24 et seq. For an example of a concise statement of the basic principles of libertarian justice, see Aggression and Property Rights Plank in the Libertarian Party Platform. [↩]

From Twitter:

Here’s what I’ll add: you say yours is a moral argument. You say you’re a Rothbardian. I don’t think you could defend that position, especially given that Rothbard was wrong concerning all rights are property rights, and self-ownership is their source. I believe I soundly… https://t.co/dGqcgY4BPC

— Michael Liebowitz (@Lieboisout) April 25, 2025

“Here’s what I’ll add: you say yours is a moral argument. You say you’re a Rothbardian. I don’t think you could defend that position, especially given that Rothbard was wrong concerning all rights are property rights, and self-ownership is their source.”

A few things. First,…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 25, 2025

[continue reading…]

Background:

My heart is with Israel, my brain is with the Palestinians.

• A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre
• Ammous vs. Block on Israel
• Walter E. Block & Alan G. Futerman, “Rejoinder to Hoppe on Israel vs. Hamas,” MEST Journal (2024), which is a response to
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “An Open Letter to Walter E. Block,” LewRockwell.com (Jan. 31, 2024).
• David Gordon and Wanjiru Njoya, “The Classical Liberal Case For Israel,” LewRockwell.com (Feb. 2, 2024; Mises.org version)
• and Walter’s response, Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block, “Rejoinder to Gordon and Njoya on Israel and Libertarianism,” MESTE Journal (Position Paper) (2024).

Some recent twitter posts:

Isn’t being anti war a gutless, virtue signaling position? I mean, most people would rather there not be a need for war, but sometimes it’s either war or being conquered.

— Michael Liebowitz (@Lieboisout) April 24, 2025

Not any more than your being opposed to aggression is virtue-signaling. Your way of wording is loaded since it subtly implies an analogy or similarity between self-defense by an individual and that by a state. This is a bit disengenuous. As I pointed out previously…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 24, 2025

I haven't weighed in much on the Walter Block/Mises Institute/Hoppe Israel stuff, since I know what areas I specialize in and this is not one of them (libertarians often want to chime in about things they know little about; I try to resist this or provide appropriate…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) September 6, 2024

Completely disagree. Just like with IP. The case against IP is not anarchist and doens't rest on anarchy, only on understanding the nature and basis of property rights. Similarly even if you are a minarchist you can recognize that justifying individual self defense is different…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 24, 2025

I had surgery for prostate cancer last October. And I’m fine. But beware of a scam Facebook page using my photo to seem nostrums.
[continue reading…]

Earlier this month I attended and spoke at the APEE 49th Meeting in Guatemala City and had a great time. ¹ The APEE Annual Meetings alternate between Las Vegas and other cities, sometimes in the US, sometimes in other countries. It’s been held in the past in Guatemala because of its connection to the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (where my old friend Bill Marina ² used to teach), but apparently it’s been over 10 years since it was held there. Most of the meeting was held at the Westin Camino Real, just a couple miles from UFM, but the opening reception and dinner was held at UFM.

As I mentioned previously, ³ the CEES (Centro de Estudios Económico-Sociales; see UFM page), a group affiliated with Universidad Francisco Marroquín and in fact started by Manuel Ayau, who also founded UFM, ⁴ holds a monthly colloquium with UFM and other local students and members to discuss a book or work, normally on a Saturday night. The impression I get is that CEES was originally founded as very classical liberal and libertarian but nowadays has a lot of members interested in Rothbard, Hoppe, Austro-libertarianism, and so on. They sent me a very kind invitation to lead a discussion on the Monday night of my APEE talk (April 7), on the topic of self-ownership and natural rights, based on “How We Come To Own Ourselves,” chapter 4 of my recent book. ⁵ [continue reading…]

1.  KOL458 | Patent and Copyright versus Innovation, Competition, and Property Rights (APEE 2025). [↩]
2. See my post Bill Marina (R.I.P.) on American Imperialism from the Beginning; also William Marina R.I.P., History News Network; William Marina R.I.P. | David Beito – The Beacon; William F. Marina as Teacher and Historian Independent Institute, Joe Stromberg. [↩]
3.  Speaking at APEE IP Panel in Guatemala. [↩]
4. Ayau founded CEES in 1959 and he and other members of CEES founded UFM in 1971. For more on Ayau, see Ayau, The Ideology of Underdevelopment; Pedro Pablo Velásquez, “Manuel Ayau’s Campaign for Liberty: How FEE helped spark a movement in Guatemala,” FEE.org (Jan. 27, 2025); Classical Liberalism in Guatemala; Manuel F. Ayau (1925-2010): A Life for Liberty, Justice, and the Truth; Manuel Ayau: Champion of Freedom; Manuel Ayau (Acton); Manuel Ayau, »Champion of Freedom» (UFM); [↩]
5.  Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023). [↩]

[From my Webnote series]

I have not yet confirmed these–got help from ChatGPT, Grok, and NotebookLM—

“The present work attempts to fill this gap, to set forth a systematic ethical theory of liberty. It is not, however, a work in ethics per se, but only in that subset of ethics devoted to political philosophy.”
— The Ethics of Liberty [continue reading…]

Mi Ecuadorian amigo Juan F. Carpio is translating my book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) into Español. He’s ideally suited to it since his English is perfecto and he understands Austro-libertarian concepts like no normal translator could.

Anyway while getting ChatGPT to assist, in the middle of the translation of chapter 1 (which is only about 5 or 6 pages), it inserted about 30+ pages of made-up text. I didn’t write any of it and I am not sure where it got it from. Some of it sounds like some of the other chapters in the book that it is also helping to translate, some of it sounds like Ayn Rand. It’s as if it was trying to just write a rambling essay in my style, like a chapter that could have been in the book but wasn’t, or an overview or introduction. I’m not sure. I only skimmed it and nothing seemed exactly wrong, but lots of it is written in a style I would never use and expressing things I would never express. But a lot of it sounds like me, or a version of me.

Anyway, Juan and I got a kick out of it. The text has a few breaks as if ChatGPT was starting a new section, sort of arbitrarily or randomly, so I indicated some of those by dingbats.

(Interesting question: who has the copyright in this text? Open AI? No one? My guess is: no one (like the monkey (macaque) selfies), or maybe me, to the extent it’s a derivative work.)

What is libertarianism?

What does it mean to be a libertarian? What constitutes the essence of libertarian thought? Although there are disagreements within the movement on specific issues, and even on fundamental philosophical questions (such as anarcho-capitalism vs. minarchism), there is a kind of common core, a consensus, that defines the libertarian spirit. And that core is composed of a belief in individual rights—especially property rights—and in the illegitimacy of aggression.

To put it in its most basic terms, libertarianism is a political philosophy centered on the idea that every person is his or her own master and that the use of physical force against others is permissible only in self-defense. This basic ethic—the nonaggression principle—serves as the basis for deriving property rights over external resources: those that were first appropriated, acquired by contract, or voluntarily exchanged. This is not an arbitrary rule, but a normative conclusion derived from respect for self-ownership and social peace. [continue reading…]

As I’ve recounted in various biographical pieces, ¹ in college (LSU) I dabbled in writing letters to the editor to local newspapers and the student newspaper, and then columns for the LSU Daily Reveille as well The Wonderland Times, an underground student newspaper published briefly around that time. ²

As I mentioned in The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory:

When I was younger I was interested both in STEM topics as well as philosophy, but had almost no views on political or economic topics. I was basically tabula rasa. Reading Ayn Rand in high school catapulted me into deeper interest in philosophy, political theory, economics. I ended up going to LSU and studying electrical engineering (started in 1983), but I was also devouring this other kind of material “on the side.” I started getting the itch to have conversations or interactions on these topics with others, but it was hard to find anyone to talk about them with. Frustrating. You can’t find engineering students who care about this stuff. And there was no Internet back then. This itch is probably one reason I eventually gravitated towards law school. I gradually realized I would not be satisfied being a practicing engineer. I liked using normative and verbal and legal type reasoning and argumentation too much, plus the scholarship opportunities a law career can offer. I liked writing. Engineering would not have suited me—it would have been too stultifying and boring. [continue reading…]

1. See The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory, Alan D. Bergman, Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025) and others here. [↩]
2. See The LSU student press: an annotated bibliography (part 3); Streakers, R-rated movies and chickens: A century of shenanigans in the LSU student press. [↩]

[From my Webnote series]

Not yet organized—

•  On “Unowned” State Property, Legal Positivism, Ownership vs. Possession, Immigration, Public Roads, and the Bum in the Library
• A Simple Libertarian Argument Against Unrestricted Immigration and Open Borders, LewRockwell.com, September 1, 2005
• I’m Pro-Immigration and Pro-Open Borders
• Switzerland, Immigration, Hoppe, Raico, Callahan
• Reply to Neverfox on immigration: “Whatever Mileage We Put On, We’ll Take Off”
• Boudreaux on Hoppe on Immigration
• Transcript: “Liberty Forum Debate vs. Daniel Garza: Immigration Reform: Open Borders or Build the Wall?“, by Stephan Kinsella, Daniel Garza, and Jeremy Kaufman, New Hampshire Liberty Forum, Manchester, NH (Feb. 7, 2019) [KOL258]
• Kinsella on Anarchy Time Discussing Immigration
• Discussion with Bieser on Immigration

In response to this LewRockwell.com blog post, Immigration Idea (2; about selling citizenship, and No Treason’s Chattering Punks), and Hoppe’s article on immigration, these threads sprang up (my reply: Palmer on Hoppe, Hoppe on Coase, and Re: Palmer on Hoppe):

• Stephan Kinsella Ought To Shut His Stupid Cake Hole (No Treason)
• Yet Another Problem With Hoppe’s Immigration Column (No Treason)
• Hoppe: “The best one may hope for…” (no-treason)
• Heroic market anarchist takes on market anarchist (Anti-State.com)
• Gary North, Lew Rockwell, and the Politics of Stoning Heretics and Homosexuals to Death (Tom Palmer)
• An Immigration Policy that Would Exclude Its Author (Tom Palmer)

• immigration (15) posts
• Immigration Threads and Posts

Tweets

https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1434617199570964484

No trolling. I mean: I have said “I’m Pro-Immigration and Pro-Open Borders”–pretty explicit, no? Just b/c I think Raico and Hoppe make arguments worth pondering doesn’t mean I am closed borders. Some of us are tolerant enough to hear differing views https://t.co/gZvXS5lzd1 /1

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) September 5, 2021

https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1434618580667092994

favor immigrants over citizens (forced integration). This is why Hoppe’s approach is radical decentralization tending towards anarchy so that both problems evaporate; or in the meantime, a policy that wd reduce forced exclusion by permitting immigrants who have an invitation. /5

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) September 5, 2021

https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1770500516298068282

In the meantime we can recognize that in the current US system, immigration policy will violate rights in two ways: forced exclusion (for people who want to invite outsiders but are prevented) and forced integration (because of state roads, antidiscrimination law, welfare, voting…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) March 20, 2024

https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1434599843926847492

I think in our current system, imposing stricter immigration controls violates rights (what Hoppe calls forced exclusion) and opening the borders violates rights (forced integration). In the US system, I tend to think we should increase the number of legal immigration.

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) September 5, 2021

https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1379588048531427338

Hoppe is for anarchy in which there would be no INS etc. He simply points out that with a welfare democracy, there are costs to whatever immigration policy is adopted: either forced exclusion, or forced integration. Both are costs imposed by the state’s existence.

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 7, 2021

[From my Webnote series]

From a twitter post. Kinsella on fie-ya.

This is why I use conflictability (or rivalrousness) instead of scarcity, ¹ since the latter term is ambiguous and has different connotations. In common usage it just means lack of abundance. In terms of praxeology and property rights it means the opposite of…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 19, 2025

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1. On Conflictability and Conflictable Resources [↩]