Years ago I came across a fascinating series of lectures by Andrew Galambos, called V76, which focused on the significance of Thomas Paine’s thought and his crucial role in the American Revolution (and Galambos’s contention that Paine was the actual author of the Declaration of Independence, not merely its intellectual inspiration). The files had been available at this link, but have since been taken down. I recently found them at another page on the Internet Archive, which describes it thusly:
This is an open source download of a 3 session course by Andrew Galambos, delivered live in 1966, entitled ‘The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine and Your Freedom.’
In my various arguments about intellectual property (IP) over the years (since I first started writing and speaking on this, in about 1995) I have gradually come up with new ways of explaining the issue, mostly in response to various criticisms and arguments I’ve seen raised on the pro-IP side. I don’t disagree with much of what I wrote in my 2001 Against Intellectual Property, though I was not hard enough on trademark and trade secret, and I probably would be more careful with the term “scarcity” since I have learned that its dual meanings are an unending source of equivocation by unscrupulous opponents (e.g. when they say “well good ideas are pretty scarce, in my opinion!”). I’ve learned a few supplementary arguments against IP or have learned different ways of making the case, that I would now include in the 2001 monograph, and which I may do someday if I write a new case against IP from scratch (a possibility; tentatively entitled Copy This Book). [continue reading…]
Apparently Facebook retroactively deleted it since it linked to c4sif.org which for some reason Fecebook now censors; I re-posted the link here. [↩]
“Thus human economy and property have a joint economic origin since both have, as the ultimate reason for their existence, the fact that goods exist whose available quantities are smaller than the requirements of men. Property, therefore, like human economy, is not an arbitrary invention but rather the only practically possible solution of the problem that is, in the nature of things, imposed upon us by the disparity between requirements for, and available quantities of, all economic goods.”
See also Heath Pearson, Origins of Law and Economics: The Economists’ New Science of Law, 1830–1930 (Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics), p. 151; and Josef Sima, “Praxeology as Law & Economics,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 18, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 73–89, at 78.
Same people: Project Lifeboat: “From the people who brought you the Oceania project so many years ago comes the Lifeboat project. An attempt to create a spaceship for the purposes of saving the human race from the singularity predicted by Vernor Vinge.”
The “Creative Common Law” project, an anarcho-capitalist project in which I was enlisted as an advisor, only for it to later turn from “Creative Common Law 1.0: Anarcho-Capitalism” to “Creative Common Law 2.0: Anarcho-Socialism/Syndicalism”
“The Libertarian Constitution” by Ilya Shapiro, Tim Sandefur, and Christina Mulligan: “This was probably an easier project for us than for our conservative and progressive counterparts because the current United States Constitution is fundamentally a libertarian or, more precisely, classical liberal document. So much so that, at the outset, we joked that all we needed to do was to add “and we mean it” at the end of every clause
Tom Bell’s “Ulex,” or “Open Source Legal Operating System”;
Galt’s Gulch Chile, a scam that ended in disaster;
Roderick Long’s “Imagineering Freedom: A Constitution of Liberty Part I: Between Anarchy and Limited Government” and Michael Darby’s “Draft Constitution for a Reviving or New Nation,” both at http://freenation.org/a/
Siegen, Bernard H. (1994) Drafting a Constitution for a Nation or Republic Emerging into Freedom. 2d ed. Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press.
“The @LPRadicals agree; our platform plank on IP:
2.13 Intellectual Monopoly and File Sharing
The phrase “intellectual property” is a misnomer. What the state calls intellectual property is more accurately referred to as “intellectual monopoly” as the state grants a monopoly on the use of an idea, or goods and services derived from an idea, to a certain limited group. We call for the elimination of the protection of such monopoly thereby freeing the market, encouraging content providers and product developers to improve on existing products thereby bringing more and better choices to the market.
In particular, we call for the end of the prohibition of online file sharing, just as we oppose all victimless crimes. When content is shared it is not stolen as no one loses any property, only a potential loss of some future revenue, which is natural in any open market.”
The Libertarian Party’s 2022 convention, in Sparks (Reno) NV is over. It was an exhausting but interesting 3 full days. The Mises Caucus swept the LNC. I was also elected to serve on the Judicial Committee (see below). A few ad-hoc amendments to the LP Platform were made as well as a larger set of amendments recommended by the Platform Committee.
My main goal in joining the LP about 5 years ago was to have it field more principled, libertarian candidates and to have clearer, more principled libertarian messaging.
To that end I worked to help develop a definition of aggression and property rights to add to the Platform, since there the current LP Platform (https://www.lp.org/platform/) contained no clear definition of aggression or property rights or the relation between these two fundamental concepts. It is critical to include a clear, general statement to this effect to distinguish what makes the Libertarian perspective unique and to clarify our political principles. [continue reading…]
I posted on Facebook about a new book, The Essential Women of Liberty [website; pdf] which includes 10 profiles including that of Deirdre McCloskey, formerly Donald. The editor, Aeon Skoble, a former friend, has now defriended me as have some other longtime friends/acquaintances. Oh well. Their loss. I’m not backing down.
Incidentally I was featured heavily in Sciabarra’s book Total Freedom1 and featured in his book The Dialectics of Liberty2 and was telephone and email friends with him for many years, and also gave Reason Papers lots of assistance by converting all their back issues to PDF (see Skoble’s editorial for issue No. 32), even though at the time I was publishing a similar/”competing” journal, Libertarian Papers, and for years have been on their editorial board. I also met and was friendly with McCloskey when I met him in South Dakota for Freedom Fest in 2021, even though he was wearing woman-face and anyone wearing blackface today would be socially shunned. I will put up with people I disagree with but will not put up with former friends accusing me of cruelty, bigotry, just because I will not lie and say a man is a woman.
Screenshot
In case Facebook censors the post, I am reproducing it below: [continue reading…]
Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Penn State University Press, 2000), pp. 367–69. [↩]
A high school student sent me a question. Here’s my dashed-off reply:
On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 4:21 PM E wrote:
Hey Mr. Kinsella, I’ve found myself very interested in your works concerning argumentation ethics. I find myself pretty convinced of it, but I do have a few questions about it. I think I have a hang-up on particularistic norms, and their invalidity.
Your justification seems to be that when two agents are engaging in argumentation, they (prima facie) assume some common, morally relevant quality which is sufficient to grant self ownership to both of them. If they posit another property (such as only people with brown eyes have rights), they have to demonstrate how it is grounded in the nature of things.
International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War
by Stephan Kinsella
Free Life, 19 April 2022
In a discussion with some fellow libertarians about the current Russia-Ukraine war, I noticed some of them kept avoiding condemning Russia’s invasion, criticizing pro-Ukraine western media and state propaganda, and kept changing the subject to the baleful role the US and NATO have played. NATO should have disbanded after the Cold War ended; NATO is “provoking” Russia, and so on. “Of course Russia doesn’t want NATO on its doorstep and perceives it as a threat; how would the US feel if Russia were to position missiles in Canada?” And so on. They didn’t come right out and take Russia’s side, but I have seen some people literally defend Russia and claim it is simply defending itself from aggression from the US/NATO and Ukraine or via Ukraine, and, moreover, that Russia is exercising heroic restraint in an attempt to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damages. Read more>>
Much of “classical international law” theory, developed by the Catholic Scholastics, notably the 16th-century Spanish Scholastics such as Vitoria and Suarez, and then the Dutch Protestant Scholastic Grotius and by 18th- and 19th-century jurists, was an explanation of the criteria for a just war. For war, as a grave act of killing, needs to be justified.
… Classical international law … should be brought back as quickly as possible.
In response to the simpleminded but common comment and legal positivistic sentiment that international law is not real or that international law does not exist, because there is no sovereign state and enforceable legislation, see, inter alia, Anthony D’Amato, “What ‘Counts’ as Law?,” in Law-Making in the Global Communkty, Nicholas G. Onuf, ed. (1982), Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 11-02, and many other treatises and papers. Also Is international law real? Professor José Alvarez weighs in (“almost all 0:18 states comply with almost all international law almost all the time. 0:22 Most people focused on the almost, but the fact is that they do comply it’s 0:28 just not front page news when they do”); International Law Explained | Kal Raustiala | Big Think; Philip Allott – The True Nature of International Law.
In this tweet, I respond to Elon Musk’s promoted tweet where Jeffrey “Sachs” explians “How the US Provoked the Invasion of Ukraine.”
From my tweet:
“This is not how international law works. There was no binding international obligation at all from these “promises.” Russia and other states are akin to “sophisticated parties” in large business deals; there are rules for what constitutes a binding treaty under pacta sunt servanda, for what gives rise to an actual binding legal obligation under international law. For example, like Russia’s agreeing to Ukraine’s borders after the USSR fell, and like the USSR’s accession to the UN Charter which makes it illegal to invade another sovereign state. See my article “International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War” https://stephankinsella.com/2022/04/international-law-libertarian-principles-and-the-russia-ukraine-war/…. Expanding NATO is not a threat to Russia. Even if they pretend to perceive it that way, which I doubt they actually do. They are mostly upset at being treated like the thuggish threat they are and having their expansionist and imperialist ambitions thwarted. That said, am not saying NATO should have expanded and provoked thuggish, irrational Russia; I think NATO should have been disbanded. But let’s not pretend Russia has a valid excuse here. Still, a reasonable solution ought to be reached by negotiation. The US should stand ready to remove all financial support for Ukraine, agree to take Ukraine membership in NATO off the table for X years, get Russia to agree to a neutral zone for the contested territories, agree not to put NATO missiles etc. inside Ukraine, have Russia agree to Ukraine’s attempt to join the EU, and revive the old cooperation between Russia and NATO to reduce tensions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro-Atlantic_Partnership_Council…). The US and its allies could also agree to ease various sanctions on Russia. This could be a win-win for everyone including the mixed populations in Crimea etc.“
Back in 2019 one Mario Demolidor asked me to field some questions. I replied to one of them at length. It was:
1) People often dislike libertarianism because they do not see how a fully contracted private justice system can work. So, I ask, how can we deal in a libertarian society with criminals or suspects who deny justice and make no contracts to elect a judge? How to get them to trial?
I have just been made aware that he later published an edited and rearranged version of my responses at Stateless Justice | By: Stephan Kinsella (March 10, 2020). I reprint his article below in case his is ever lost (this happens all the time), and append after it my original emailed response to him (unedited) for completeness and in case there are any errors or omissions from his version (I have not checked). [continue reading…]
This libertarian movement of ours has its fair share of drama, crazy stories, eccentric personalities, losers, weirdos, and so on. I’ve been involved since the late 80s, 1 so have seen my fair share of this bullshit.
I just heard Murray Sabrin, on a fairly recent episode of the Tom Woods podcast (ep. 1988), speak positively about the late Bob Wenzel of “Economic Policy Journal” (sic, as it wasn’t a “journal”; it was just a clickbaity blog) as being the rare person who could give financial and investment advice from an Austrian perspective.
Robert “Bob” Wenzel, Raymond Nize, or whatever his real name was
(You’ll note I said “late.” Bob, or whatever his real name was, allegedly died last year. See David Gordon, “Robert Wenzel, RIP” (May 27, 2021); Robert Wenzel – 1957 to 2021; Taylor Lewis, “Rest in Peace, Robert Wenzel” (June 12, 2021); Walter Block, “Bob Wenzel, RIP” (June 1, 2021); Daniel McAdams, “Robert Wenzel, RIP” (May 26, 2021). I say “allegedly” and express skepticism that Bob Wenzel was his real name for reasons that will become apparent below.)
Interesting discussion re a new book from Billy Christmas, whom I also published in Libertarian Papers: “The Possibility of Thick Libertarianism” (2016), the abstract of which is:
“Abstract: The scope of libertarian law is normally limited to the application of the non-aggression principle (NAP), nothing more and nothing less. However, judging when the NAP has been violated requires not only a conception of praxeological notions such as aggression, but also interpretive understanding of what synthetic events count as the relevant praxeological types. Interpretive understanding—or verstehen—can be extremely heterogeneous between agents. The particular verständnis taken by a judge has considerable moral and political implications. Since selecting a verständnis is pre-requisite to applying the NAP, the NAP itself cannot tell us which one we ought morally to choose. Therefore the application of the NAP calls on moral and political considerations outside of the NAP itself. Since some of these are more consistent with an endorsement of the NAP than others, libertarianism is not a “thin” commitment to the NAP alone, but a “thick” commitment to the NAP and other supporting moral and political considerations.”
Keith Knight has just published The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes (2022; pdf). As Keith notes in his Afterword, the compilation was inspired by Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook, and his book contains some of the pieces I suggested in “Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook: Supplemental Readings,” such as Alfred G. Cuzán’s classic “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?”, Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (excerpts), Bob Murphy, Chaos Theory (excerpts), and John Hasnas, “The Obviousness of Anarchy,” as well as my own “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” and many other gems. Check it out.
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