Interesting post by Jake Desyllas. See below.

Update: see also A Critique of Stephan Kinsella’s Approach To Rights Theory August 6, 2025. Quick comment: he criticizes my approach to rights in ch. 4 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society, but it’s not clear what he disagrees with in my conclusion. Does he thinks that we do not have rights at all, or that we never acquire them? I’d be curious to see where he thinks my motivated reasoning was wrong, or what about it is incorrect other than how I got there.

I think a case can be made for rights, that they have to do with our nature as rational agents, and so on. I was talking to libertarians who already accept humans (a) have rights, and that (b) they must have them for some reason, and thus, (c) they must arise at some point. If you want to deny humans have rights, that rights can be justified, or that aggression can be justified, or that we have right but never acquire them or that we have them for no reason at all…. okay, let’s see it. Have at it. It seems uncontroversial to me to ask when and why we have rights, taking for granted that normal adult humans do have rights, when talking to people who already agree that adult humans have rights. But I obviously do not object to arguments about why rational adult human actors have rights, as I argue elsewhere (e.g. ch. 5, 6, etc. of Legal Foundations of a Free Society).

I do not know what he means that rights are inherent. Inherent in what? In being human? What about other forms of intelligent life? See:

• • KOL443 | Abortion: A Radically Decentralist Approach (PFS 2024)
  • Block, “Does Trespassing Require Human Action? Rejoinder to Kinsella and Armoutidis an Evictionism”
  • KOL465: Sheldon Richman on Corporations, Limited Liability, Price Controls, Thickism, Abortion, Pipes

h/t John Riganti

Dear Mr. Kinsella:

[continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 435.

I was interviewed by Daniel Morena Vitón and Luis Abram for a Spanish libertarian podcast, as he initially told me: “The interview is about some legal questions of libertarianism, for a new libertarian association in Spain founded by Jesús Huerta de Soto, the ‘Austrian Libertarian Association.'” I believe there were technical problems with the recording of the first question or two, so I was asked to repeat my answer near the end; sure how they ended stitching this together or editing this.

From their shownotes (Google autotranslate):

Stephan Kinsella will give the keys regarding various topics from intellectual issues that concern libertarianism such as intellectual property and the challenges that it entails, as well as more current topics such as libertarians in politics or the current libertarian parties that the political landscape houses.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:49:38 — 100.4MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 434.

My appearance on The Rational Egoist: Exploring The Objectivist Ethics with Stephan Kinsella. (Spotify)

[continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (46.0MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 433.

This is my appearance on The Big Questions with Big John. From his shownotes:

Libertarian Stephan Kinsella shares his background as an engineer turned lawyer. A conversation on IP rights delves into arguments against patents & copyrights.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (77.7MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 432.

My appearance on Adam Haman’s podcast and Youtube channel, Haman Nature (Haman Nature substack), episode 27. I have previously argued against “school choice” (KOL419 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Corey Deangelis: School Choice). Adam wrote an article promoting school choice and I objected to it. He invited me to come back on his show to discuss and I did and, well, he kinda sorta changed my mind, or at least softened my opposition.

I love these kind of real conversations when people actually listen to each other with the shared goal of promoting liberty and reaching the truth, and with no ego or other investments involved that could prevent you from seeing reason or truth or the other guy’s position and even being willing to change your mind. And I like when I lose! I mean it rarely happens, but I like it–it means I learned something. Which is also increasingly rare. Enjoy!

[continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:26 — 37.0MB)

Stephan Kinsella, “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Œuvre,” in Walter Block – Anarcho-Capitalist Austro-Libertarian, Elvira Nica & Gheorghe H. Popescu, eds. (New York: Addleton Academic Publishers, 2025) (pdf). Text below. More detail forthcoming. The book also contains Leo Krasnozhon, “Walter Block on Externality, Public Goods, and Voluntary Government“ (pp. 391–399). Audio: KOL482 | A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre: Audio.

This piece has a somewhat convoluted publication history. In brief: I was invited to contribute to this volume in early 2023 and submitted a piece on defamation. It was longer than the maximum length but Walter was fine with it. As the project was taking a while (the working title was at the time A Passion for Justice: Essays in Honor of Walter Block), it occurred to me that I could write a sampler/overview of Walter’s work. I knew it was unorthodox to include two pieces by the same author in such a book, but there were other non-standard things about this project so I figured what the hell—maybe they could use it as an introductory type chapter. Walter approved this too. So I wrote “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre.”

Months later, Walter wrote me complaining that I had two chapters in his book, and each one was twice as long as the maximum word count, even though he had explicitly approved all this. Probably he had forgotten. Absent-minded professor syndrome. So I withdrew the defamation chapter since the Tour chapter was specific to Walter and not suitable for publication elsewhere. The defamation piece because “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property,” in A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024).

Subsequently there arose controversy over Walter’s views on Israel-Gaza as well as his views on Covid (and, later, Milei). I felt my “tour” article was incomplete without mentioning the Israel and Covid controversies and my disagreements with Walter on these issues; yet I also felt it was inappropriate to include such critical commentary in a Festschrift honoring the subject. Plus, Walter had already complained about its length. So I withdrew this piece as well and just published it here.

Some time later Walter absent-mindedly asked me if he could use my piece after all. Since I had published the draft paper under a CC0 license, I explained that my permission was not needed for republication or reuse, and so the editors decided to include it after all.

Notes and Errata

This article is not a comprehensive overview of all of Walter’s publications, and does not include mention or criticism of his pro-covid lockdown writing ¹, his more recent Israel-Gaza related publications, ² or his pro-Milei views. ³ As noted above, this is one reason I had withdrawn this piece from the volume, as I agree with Tucker (and Hoppe) on the covid/infectious disease lockdown issue, with Hoppe on Israel-Gaza issues, and also with Hoppe on Milei issues.

Some additional updates, notes, and non-errata:

See also Block on Defamation (criticizing a recent piece by Walter arguing for expansion of defamation law).

In this piece I forgot to mention Walter’s defense of suing some parties under defamation law, even though in principle he is against it: see Walter Block Defends His Libel Suit Against The New York Times; A Libertarian Analysis of Suing for Libel (“How … can I justify suing the New York Times for libel? It is simple. The libertarian case against suing for libel applies only to innocent people, and this newspaper does not at all qualify. Rather, this organization is a member in good standing of the ruling class, and all bets are off for criminals of that ilk.”); and Randy Barnett, “What’s Next for Libertarianism?”

One other update: re my mention of his “two teeth for a tooth” rule: I criticize it in KOL020 | “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society: Lecture 3: Applications I: Legal Systems, Contract, Fraud” (Mises Academy, 2011):

And then there’s caveat emptor, which is the buyer beware. Was he defrauded, or did he—should he have known better? And then Walter Block and Murray Rothbard’s idea where they say, well, there should always be the two-teeth-for-a-teeth punishment rule. I mean I understand the sympathy there and the reasoning, but it seems to me a little mechanical and a little bit armchair. We can’t say it would be exactly two teeth for a tooth.

This is similar to some other criticisms I have made of Walter and also Rothbard for being too ad hoc. See, e.g., the section on “Incitement” below; Kinsella, “Causation and Aggression,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society, p. 182 et seq.; also in ch. 24.

Update: Libertarian Answer Man: On Restitution going Beyond Two Teeth for a Tooth.

On disagreement with Block over pacifism etc., see Ammous vs. Block on Israel.

Re the “Incitement” section: see also “The Libertarian Case Against Punishing a ‘Conspiracy’” (2); as I commented there, “You set up the hypo but just announce the conclusion, as if it’s obvious, and present no argument.”

Also, on others who support voluntary slavery, e.g. Gerard Casey and Nozick, see KOL442 | Together Strong Debate vs. Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery (Matthew Sands of Nations of Sanity). And Grotius; see Richman on Inalienable Rights.

Re abortion/evictionism: See Rothbard, Editor response to James Sadowsky, S.J., “Abortion and Rights of the Child,” Libertarian Forum, XI, no. 4 (July-Aug. 1978). Rothbard writes: “to correct a misunderstanding, while Walter Block and I agree on many things, we are not a monolith. In contrast to Walter, who agrees that the foetus is human, I simply made the assumption for the sake of argument, in order to grant the anti-abortionists their best case. In fact, if I had to “vote” on the issue, I would probably say that the foetus only acquires the status of human upon the act of birth. If so, then of course the foetus has no rights, and the thorny abortion question would be eliminated forever. It seems to me that the problem with the Block-Sadowsky thesis of asserting the foetus to be human is that that act of birth, which I had always naively assumed to be an event of considerable importance in everyone’s life, now takes on hardly more stature than the onset of adolescence or of one’s “mid-life crisis.” Does birth really confer no rights?”

Errata

N. 27 (n. 26 in the pdf version), the link to “Libertarianism, Positive Obligations and Property Abandonment: Children’s Rights” is now bad as Walter’s has lost the domain to his website. See instead https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1889454.

In n. 44 (n. 43, pdf), I should reference also Stephan Kinsella, “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract,” Papinian Press Working Paper #1 (Sep. 7, 2024).

Also, I could have mentioned my disagreement with Walter’s “Ragnar” example as I note in On “Unowned” State Property, Legal Positivism, Ownership vs. Possession, Immigration, Public Roads, and the Bum in the Library.

Re McElroy and Hitler: “Why I Would Not Vote Against Hitler.” See https://stephankinsella.com/2023/09/libertarian-answer-man-voting-for-libertarians/#footnote_6_18425 and https://libertyunbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Liberty_Magazine_May_1996.pdf; Walter Block, Why “Don’t Vote, It Only Encourages Them” Isn’t Libertarian  Oct 22, 2025.

❧

A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre

[draft]

Stephan Kinsella[*]

I dare say no single person has ever read all of Walter Block’s massive corpus of publications. There are just too many. Walter’s writing spans a large number of topics in Austrian economics and libertarianism as well as in other areas, published over a more than fifty year period. This includes innumerable popular articles, 32 or so books, and hundreds of scholarly journal articles. His first articles were published in 1969; his first piece in a refereed journal was published in 1971,[2] a year before he received his Ph.D. As Walter tells his friends, one of his goals is to publish 1,000 articles in refereed journals and law reviews,^[3] and by his count, he’s currently at about 700. So he is on track to meet his goal in about twelve years. He’s only 82 now, after all. [continue reading…]

1. See Walter Block, “Forced Vaccinations,” LewRockwell.com (Feb. 4, 2013); see also Libertarianism and Compulsory Vaccinations and others listed here. And more recently, Walter Block, “A Libertarian Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” J. Libertarian Stud. 24 (2020): 206–37. Jeffrey Tucker criticized Walter for some of these views here; a few days later the same program had Walter on to defend his pro-Covid lockdown/mandate views he had expressed at the height of the pandemic lockdown period. Tucker also rightly called out Block for his illiberal and unlibertarian views on infectious diseases, including his bizarre defense of jailing “Typhoid Mary,” in The Downfall of the Gurus. See, e.g., Walter Block, “My Response to Jeffrey Tucker on COVID,” Epoch Times (Feb. 8, 2023; substack version); Jeffrey A. Tucker, “The Downfall of the Gurus,” Epoch Times (Jan. 23, 2023); Block’s appearance online talking about the Typhoid Mary issue. And Walter Block, “Rejoinder to Slenzok on COVID,” J.Libertarian Stud. 25 (1) (2021): 264–68. [↩]
2. See 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). See also 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). [↩]
3. On Milei, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “PFP280 | Special: Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Javier Milei” (PFS 2024),” Property and Freedom Podcast (Dec. 23, 2024); idem, “Resignation from the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Germany,” HansHoppe.com (Aug. 18, 2025); idem, “PFP290 | Hoppe: Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian (AERC 2025),” Property and Freedom Podcast (March 23, 2025); idem, “A ‘Great Thinker’ at Work,” Power & Market (June 19, 2025); Kristoffer Mousten Hansen, “PFP306 | Kristoffer Mousten Hansen: Mileinomics (PFS 2025),” (Jan. 12, 2026).  See also, concerning Milei and the (non-)closure of Argentina’s central bank, Hoppe, “A ‘Great Thinker’ at Work,” and the recent interchange between Philipp Bagus and Jörg Guido Hülsmann, beginning with Philipp Bagus, “Credit Money, Pesos, Dollars and Argentina,” Power & Market (Oct. 20, 2025), first published, in German, as Philipp Bagus, “Kreditgeld, Pesos, Dollars und Argentinien,” Ludwig von Mises Institut Deutschland (Oct. 20, 2025). The Power & Market article contains links to others in the interchange.[↩]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 431.

My appearance on The Rational Egoist: Exploring Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics with Stephan Kinsella. (Spotify)

[continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:43 — 63.8MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 430.

This is my presentation, “An Insider’s Introduction to Austrian Economics,” Bastiat Society—Houston, American Institute for Economic Research, The Briar Club, Houston Texas (May 2, 2024). From their shownotes:

Join AIER’s Bastiat Society program in Houston for an event with Stephan Kinsella, libertarian writer and registered patent attorney in Houston.

Mr. Kinsella is both an internationally recognized scholar on libertarian legal theory and a former Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute. The Mises Institute’s purpose is to promote teaching and research in the Austrian school of economics in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. In the foreword to Stephan’s most recent book, Legal Foundations of a Free Society, the great Austrian economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe said, “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.” Stephan will be introducing Austrian economics that is in part shaped by the rare insights one can only get as a scholar and insider.

This is my first talk on a purely economic topic. I tried not to dumb it down but also not talk over people’s heads, but I only had 45 minutes. This is the recording I made on my iphone. [continue reading…]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (35.8MB)

“Q – can you have a valid contract over things that don’t exist?

and especially if there’s no property title being transferred?

like it’s buying the idea of a kilometre? or a ‘rare sat’?”

Okay here’s how others might say: there is no thing to transfer so the contract is null and void, or something like that. That is because they think of contract as some kind of independent thing—a relationship, a legal “obligation.” And that one of the effects of a contract is that someone gets title to something that they agreed to, etc etc. This view of contract also thinks of the parties as being obligated to each other, and if they don’t perform their obligation they are in breach and owe damages, etc. [continue reading…]

Q: If I sign something that says “this person is allowed to kill me under xyz circumstances and he is owed $10 from my estate if he fulfills this” and, assuming I never renege, those circumstances arise and the person kills me, would the thing I signed be a valid defense against murder charges in a free society and/or an enforceable claim against the estate?

Kinsella:

I think in a free society, it would be a defense because it would indicate consent. (And yes, the estate owed the $10.)

Of course, in today’s world, it will still be murder [continue reading…]