Related:

• International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War
• Alan Bickley, The Nature of International Law: Response to Kinsella, Libertarian Alliance (UK) (17 January, 2026)
• KOL250 | International Law Through a Libertarian Lens (PFS 2018)
• Rubins, Papanastasiou, Kinsella, International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution, 2d ed. (Oxford University Press, 2020)
• Alan Bickley, The Nature of International Law: Response to Kinsella, Libertarian Alliance (UK) (17 January, 2026)

Reprinted as “Using International Law to Protect Property Rights and International Investment,” Libertarian Alliance (UK) (6 Dec. 2025)

Update: See also my comments in International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War regarding a recent Human Action Podcast, where Bob Murphy and Peter Klein have an illuminating discussion about international law, in Dr. Peter Klein on International Law and “Might Makes Right”.

Regarding the hostility of some libertarians to my pro-international law views, as mentioned below, Rothbard had some relevant and interesting comments on international law.

Rothbard’s pro-international law comments in War, Peace, and the State:

The libertarian objective, then, should be, regardless of the specific causes of any conflict, to pressure States not to launch wars against other States and, should a war break out, to pressure them to sue for peace and negotiate a cease-fire and peace treaty as quickly as physically possible. This objective, incidentally, is enshrined in the international law of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that is, the ideal that no State could aggress against the territory of another—in short, the “peaceful coexistence” of States.9

Suppose, however, that despite libertarian opposition, war has begun and the warring States are not negotiating a peace. What, then, should be the libertarian position? Clearly, to reduce the scope of assault of innocent civilians as much as possible. Old-fashioned international law had two excellent devices for this: the “laws of war,” and the “laws of neutrality” or “neutrals’ rights.” The laws of neutrality are designed to keep any war that breaks out confined to the warring States themselves, without aggression against the States or particularly the peoples of the other nations. Hence the importance of such ancient and now forgotten American principles as “freedom of the seas” or severe limitations upon the rights of warring States to blockade neutral trade with the enemy country. In short, the libertarian tries to induce neutral States to remain neutral in any inter-State conflict and to induce the warring States to observe fully the rights of neutral citizens. The “laws of war” were designed to limit as much as possible the invasion by warring States of the rights of the civilians of the respective warring countries. As the British jurist F.J.P. Veale put it:

The fundamental principle of this code was that hostilities between civilized peoples must be limited to the armed forces actually engaged…. It drew a distinction between combatants and noncombatants by laying down that the sole business of the combatants is to fight each other and, consequently, that noncombatants must be excluded from the scope of military operations.10

[Notes]

9 The international law mentioned in this paper is the old-fashioned libertarian law as had voluntarily emerged in previous centuries and has nothing to do with the modem statist accretion of “collective security.” [I.e., the UN and its framework. —SK] Collective security forces a maximum escalation of every local war into a worldwide war—the precise reversal of the libertarian objective of reducing the scope of any war as much as possible.

10 F.J.P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism (Appleton, Wis.: C.C. Nelson, 1953), p. 58.

This recognizes that classic international law was, in fact, perfectly compatible with libertarian natural law theory as I have maintained. I think the confusion arises partly because of legal positivism and the confused idea that international law is not “real” because there is no world government to enforce it, ¹ and because of ignorance of international law itself and the modern UN. International law pre-dates the UN and is not legislated or created by the UN.

(I still think the UN is on balance good, as a forum for states to try to settle disputes without engaging in violent combat, but negative aspects of the UN ² do not reflect on international law itself.”)

And in this connection, see the following excerpt from my book Rubins, Papanastasiou, Kinsella, International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution, 2d ed. (Oxford University Press, 2020), ¶¶ 10.83–88:

10. Intervention of States in Investment Disputes

F. Prohibitions against the Use of Force

1. Overview

[¶10.83] Until the early twentieth century, States not infrequently applied military force against other States as a means to resolve investment disputes involving their nationals’ property.¹⁴⁵ Under certain circumstances, this sort of “gunboat diplomacy” was considered lawful under customary international law.¹⁴⁶ In his classic treatise The Law of War and Peace, the great international law scholar Hugo Grotius opined that the recovery of property was one of three situations justifying the use of force under the law of nations.¹⁴⁷

In 1900, for instance, the U.S. Secretary of State approved the dispatch of a naval vessel to Venezuela to prevent the destruction of property belonging to the New York & Bermudez Company, an American corporation. He instructed the Secretary of the Navy that “the gunboat should also protect all existing rights and maintain the status quo pending an investigation and decision as to an attempt which was alleged then to be in contemplation to deprive the company of its property by executive action.”¹⁴⁸ The Jecker Claim is another notorious example. Here, Mexico obtained a loan from a bank owned by French and Swiss interests. The Mexican government never received more than 5 percent of the face value of the loan,¹⁴⁹ but its subsequent default was one of the primary justifications for France’s invasion of Mexico in 186–62.¹⁵⁰

Today, some investors hailing from militarily and politically powerful States might favor the threat or use of force to obtain restitution or compensation for expropriated property.¹⁵¹ Such an option is no longer available, however, due to fundamental changes in international law and politics. In particular, the U.N. Charter has since 1945 prohibited the use of force to resolve disputes, except in the case of self defense.¹⁵² Today, it is generally accepted that a State may not use force against another State in response to a taking of the property of one of its nationals. This conclusion is reinforced by the modern movement toward “permanent sovereignty over natural resources,” which emphasizes the right of a State to control over its own resources and territory.¹⁵³

As Professor Brownlie concludes in his important study on the use of force under international law:

Is nationalization, with or without prompt and adequate compensation, a measure which justifies protection? If so, can a state protect property of nationals threatened not by nationalization but by laws restricting use of currency, discriminating export regulations, or taxation? May the right be exercised in favor of bond holders? It is submitted that the answer must be negative in these cases since if it were other-wise any state accepting foreign investment or permitting ownership of property by aliens is severely curtailing its sovereignty as a result.¹⁵⁴

2. The U.N. prohibition against the use of force

The U.N. Charter prohibits the use of force by any State, except in limited cases for the purpose of self defense. The general prohibition against the use of force is set forth in Section 2(4) of the Charter. This prohibition is regarded as a principle of customary international law,¹⁵⁵ and thus is applicable to all nations, not only those that have voluntarily acceded to the Charter by joining the U.N. Article 2(4) of the Charter provides:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.¹⁵⁶

The self defense exception is set forth in article 51 of the Charter:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.¹⁵⁷

145 M. SORNARAJAH, THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT 19-20 (3d ed. 2010); M. Sornarajah, Power and Justice in Foreign Investment Arbitration, 14 J. INT’L ARB. 103 (1997); ]AMES CABLE, GUN BOAT DIPLOMACY: POLITICAL APPLICATIONS  OF LIMITED FORCE (1981); Matthew B. Cobb, The Development of Arbitration in Foreign Investment, MEALEY’S INT’L ARB. REP. (Apr. 2001).

146 IAN BROWNLIE, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE USE OF FORCE BY STATES 289 (1963).

147 The other two occasions were for defense or punishment. 2 HUGO GROTIUS, DE JURE BELLI AC PACIS, ch. 1, § 2; ch. 2, § 13 (A.C. Campbell trans., 1814), available at http://www.constitution.org/gro/djbp.htm. See also HIGGINS, supra note 37, at 238.

148 Letter from Mr. Hay to Sec. of Navy, Dec. 28, 1900, 250 MS. Dom. Let. 8, reprinted in 6 MOORE’S lNT’L LAW DIGEST 258 (1906).

149 The loan’s face value was 75 million francs, but the Mexicans received only 4 million.

150  DONALD R. SHEA, THE  CALVO  CLAUSE: A PROBLEM  OF INTER-AMERICAN  INTERNATIONAL LAW AND DIPLOMACY 14 (1955); IBRAHIM SHIHATA, TOWARDS A GREATER DEPOLITICIZATION OF INVESTMENT DISPUTES: THE ROLES OF ICSID AND MIGA 1 n.2 (1992).

151 See Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Banking, Nation States and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order, in THE ECONOMICS AND ETHICS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY 61, 80-81 (1993) (“The need for a productive economy that a warring state must have also explains why it is that ceteris paribus those states which have adjusted their internal redistributive policies so as to decrease the importance of economic regulations relative to that of taxation tend to out-strip their competitors in the arena of international politics. Regulations through which states either compel or prohibit certain exchanges between two or more private persons as well as taxation imply a non-productive and/or non-contractual income expropriation and thus both damage homesteaders, producers or contractors [i.e., those that cause wealth to come into existence]”).

152 U.N. Charter, supra note 64, arts. 2(4), 51.

153 See Chapter 5.

154 BROWNLIE, supra note 146, at 301. See also [M.N.] SHAW [International Law, 7th ed. 2014], supra note 18, at 829-31; HIGGINS, supra note 37 [Rosalyn Higgins, Problems and Process (1994)], at ch. 14. On the doctrine of legislative or parliamentary sovereignty, see Chapter 4, Section B.l.

155  SHAW, supra note 18, at 814-15. [Here Shaw cites K. Skubiszewski, ‘The Use of Force by States,” in Manual of Public International Law (ed. M. Sørensen), London, 1968, pp. 739, 742–4, p. 745 [§12.02, 12.03], and L. Henkin, R. C. Pugh, O. Schachter and H. Smit, International Law: Cases and Materials, 3rd edn, St Paul, 1993, p. 893. See also the Third US Restatement of Foreign Relations Law, St Paul, 1987, p. 27; J. P. Cot, A. Pellet and M. Forteau, La Charte des Nations Unies: Commentaire Article par Article, 3rd edn, Paris, 2005, p. 437, and The Charter of the United Nations (ed. B. Simma et al.), 3rd edn, Oxford, 2012, p. 203, noting that it also constitutes a rule of jus cogens.

See also Clive Parry, “The Function of Law in the International Community,” in Manual of Public International Law, M. Sørensen, ed. (London, 1968), §1.04, p. 35: “War, then, has ceased to be a relevant legal concept and the right of war to be a legal right.” And as usual, it all started in Rome:

From §1.02, p.10:

Our story, then, begins with Rome and its empire. While the imperial idea still held sway in Rome and the Roman world there could in theory be no state within that world save the one universal state. There was equally but one law. Theory, however, had to make some concession to reality. Thus the universal law of Rome was not the tribal ius civile of the city of Rome itself, forced upon Rome’s allies and vassals. On the contrary, it was largely the ius gentium, an amalgam of the customs practised by the numerous peoples who made up the empire. If there was one common law it was common to all because immemorially familiar to all. A common or universal law did not, moreover, connote a single jurisdiction. Under the empire, jurisdiction was parcelled out between the territorial provinces—a circumstance of great significance for the future. But, at least after the extension of Roman citizenship to the whole empire, the drawing of a distinction between the law applying to a particular people and the law applying in a particular place could have no meaning. And this was the politico-legal condition of things to which the barbarian invaders of the empire came.

And see K. Skubiszewski, ‘The Use of Force by States,” in Manual of Public International Law (ed. M. Sørensen), London, 1968, pp. 739, at 742–4, p. 745 [§12.01, 12.02]:

“We have seen in 1.04 how the traditional place and role of war in the international community underwent a basic change during the twentieth century. Prior to 1919, inter-state relations abounded in wars, and situations developed frequently where states felt free to begin wars when recourse to arms appeared to be to their advantage. But neither the study of the last millennium, especially in Europe, nor the recent date of the instruments prohibiting war warrant the conclusion that until 1919 or 1928 international law licensed war as an always perfectly lawful means of settling disputes or changing existing rights. It may be argued that the twentieth century instruments relating to the outlawry of war and the prohibition of the use of force bring to conclusion a historical development, the origins and beginnings of which go far beyond our times. In the early law of nations states had a right of war (jus ad bellum), but that right was not identical with a licence to wage war. Long before the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations, states justified, or attempted to justify, their belligerency. In particular, states attached legal significance to the existence of a cause of war. Discussions on the just and unjust causes of war go back to the Middle Ages, but were not merely theoretical discourses of theologians, philosophers, political writers and publicists. They reflected, if not the actual practice of states, at least the preoccupations of governments and rulers.

However, until the post-1918 developments, international law lacked a specific rule prohibiting certain kinds of war, let alone war in general. We are not concerned here with rare and occasional limitations such as the neutrality treaties or The Hague Convention No. II, of 1907 (Martens, NRC, 3rd ser., vol. 3, p. 414). International law never defined the permissible causes of war. The state remained for centuries the sole judge of what constituted a valid and sufficient cause. As long as the state was, in fact, free to determine the object of its obligation, the element of legal obligation did not exist. Hence the frequent practice of states to resort to war whenever the national interest so demanded and the general acceptance among the positivist writers of the view that, prior to 1919, states had an unlimited right of war. While the right of war which states enjoyed was not necessarily unlimited, and international law did not give a licence to wage wars, it remains a historical fact that only the twentieth-century instruments have had the effect of radically modifying the place of war in international law. For it is these instruments which abolished the traditional jus ad bellum. The reader must, however, remember that this change in the law did not eliminate war and other categories of force from international life. Outlawry is one thing, compliance with the new law another. Contrary to their obligations, states continue to resort to force, and actual physical conflict remains, alas, an ever present phenomenon in inter-state relations.”

—SK]

156 U.N. Charter, supra note 64, art. 2(4).

157 Id., art. 51.

[In this connection, see my article International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War. —SK]

In the present discussion, the relevant question is whether the self defense exception allows a State to use force against another State in response to interference with or taking of the property rights of its nationals.¹⁵⁸ If property has been illegally taken by a host State, the use of force by a State to recover the property would fall more under the category of “self help” than self defense. Self help has been defined as “the use of force to obtain legal rights improperly denied.”¹⁵⁹ Article 51, which allows self defense, does not permit self help. In fact, it is nearly universally accepted that it is unlawful for a State to use such self help to recover property of its nationals.160 Thus, the self defense exception to the prohibition on the use of force does not allow the “self help” necessary to recover property.

Incidentally, the customary international law (not “UN” law) is more or less compatible with the views of libertarians such as Rothbard and Ayn Rand, others such as Tom Woods, etc., in Rothbard’s Objectivist Influences. Their view is that while the US government may have an obligation to respect and protect the rights of American citizens in the US, especially if the citizen travels to or invests in a regime hostile to private property rights, it should not intervene to protect his property rights from expropriation in these regimes, as he knew the risks. (Plus, as I argue in this article, there are measures the investor can take to reduce this risk, such as investment insurance, international concession agreements protected by internationalized stabilization clauses (under international law), or relying on international investment protection treaties negotiated between their home country and the host state.)

Thus, see Rothbard’s further comments in War, Peace, and the State:

Let us see how libertarian theory applies to the problem of imperialism, which may be defined as the aggression by State A over the people of country B, and the subsequent maintenance of this foreign rule. Revolution by the B people against the imperial rule of A is certainly legitimate, provided again that revolutionary fire be directed only against the rulers. It has often been maintained—even by libertarians—that Western imperialism over undeveloped countries should be supported as more watchful of property rights than any successor native government would be. The first reply is that judging what might follow the status quo is purely speculative, whereas existing imperialist rule is all too real and culpable. Moreover, the libertarian here begins his focus at the wrong end—at the alleged benefit of imperialism to the native. He should, on the contrary, concentrate first on the Western taxpayer, who is mulcted and burdened to pay for the wars of conquest, and then for the maintenance of the imperial bureaucracy. On this ground alone, the libertarian must condemn imperialism.¹¹

¹¹ Two other points about Western imperialism: first, its rule is not nearly so liberal or benevolent as many libertarians like to believe. The only property rights respected are those of the Europeans; the natives find their best lands stolen from them by the imperialists and their labor coerced by violence into working the vast landed estates acquired by this theft.

Second, another myth holds that the “gunboat diplomacy” of the turn of the century was a heroic libertarian action in defense of the property rights of Western investors in backward countries. Aside from our above strictures against going beyond any State’s monopolized land area, it is overlooked that the bulk of gunboat moves were in defense, not of private investments, but of Western holders of government bonds. The Western powers coerced the smaller governments into increasing tax aggression on their own people, in order to pay off foreign bondholders. By no stretch of the imagination was this an action on behalf of private property—quite the contrary.

In other words, Rothbard supported the classical international law, not the UN’s system, and saw it as largely incompatible with “gunboat diplomacy,” which further bolsters his (and that of others like Rand, Woods, etc.) view that if a US national or company has its property expropriated in another country, it is not the obligation or even right of the US to use force against the host country; rather, the international law principle of sovereignty and opposition to aggressive war should be upheld.

Using International Law to Protect Property Rights and International Investment

[Libertarian Alliance (UK) (6 Dec. 2025)]

Among libertarians I am known most for my intellectual property (IP) and general libertarian theorizing, as in my books Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Papinian Press, 2023), Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008) and other publications. In my libertarian writing and theorizing I have tried to blend my practical and theoretical legal knowledge (of IP law, oil & gas law, international law, Roman/Louisiana/civil law, and common law) with libertarian and Austrian economics scholarship and insights.

I viewed this “libertarian legal” writing as my hobby or avocation, although I devoted a lot of time to this research and writing, and in retirement it is what occupies much of my time and attention. In my vocation, ³ I also practiced law for over thirty years, initially in the fields of oil and gas and international law, then specializing in IP and patent law, and general commercial law as general counsel of a high-tech company. [continue reading…]

1. As I discuss in International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War; see also my discussion there of Dr. Peter Klein on International Law and “Might Makes Right”. [↩]
2. Such as the leftist or socialist tinge of modern international UN resolutions, as mentioned in my article: see, e.g., the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, U.N. GAOR, 217A (III) (1948), at articles 22–26 (reciting, for example, “human rights” to “social security” and to “free” “education”); Khawaja on Socialist Welfare Rights; What Libertarianism Is, n.38. But as I noted in the article below, “the UN has no power to tax or legislate and in any case the UN is not the same as customary international law.[↩]
3. Career Advice by North. [↩]

Objectivists and other statists like to retreat to emotivism and irrelevant issues like manners when debating with libertarian anarchists. The low-IQ Jan Helfeld tried this tack when I debated him years ago. He was upset that I would follow his ridiculous debate rules, to which I retorted that he favors taxing me so he is worse. It led to some pretty funny exchanges. See below. [continue reading…]

The crazy is in the “minarchist” corner. https://t.co/7cJPsEPXJK

— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 21, 2025

My new piece for @mises identifies the worst kind of statism: so-called “minarchism.” https://t.co/deoyvvlDJV

— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 20, 2025

Per Bylund, “Minarchism Is Statism Lite,” Mises Wire (Nov. 4, 2025)

It may be true that lovers of liberty, originally steeped in society’s preferred form of social democracy, must travel along the spectrum of the state via small (“minimal”) before reaching the conclusion that the state must go. But logically, this is not the case. To cure cancer, it is not necessary to reduce the size of a tumor bit by bit. The cure is to remove it. Similarly, if a rock upsets the flow of a stream, the solution is not to change the size or shape of the rock, to make it more streamlined, but to simply remove it. [continue reading…]

See posts from Adam Haman below.

Related: re the Flagpole:

• • Ralph Raico, R.I.P.
  • The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats
  • Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases
  • On Pushing the Button–the problem with magic

  • https://t.co/JnjxkMpI1x

  • See also discussion of the flagpole hypo in The Liberty Magazine Polls: 1988, 1999, and 2008: Flagpoles, Parental Obligations, Private Nukes.

https://t.co/JnjxkMpI1x

— Adam Haman (@Rerazer) November 15, 2025

[continue reading…]

Re Vibhu Vikramaditya, “A Blueprint for Decentralized Legal Order: How a Constitutional Floor Can Save Indian Law,” Sindhanaithinktank – Medium (Oct 3, 2025)

Related:

• KOL474 | Where The Common Law Goes Wrong (PFS 2025)
• KOL472 | “What Is Property? And What Is Not? — Part 2 — Fireside Chat on Intellectual Property with Albert Lu,” Capitalism & Morality (Vancouver)
• KOL471 | “What Is Property? And What Is Not? — Part 1,” Capitalism & Morality (Vancouver)

Interesting new article recently called to my attention. See link and excerpts below. Some of the Twitter frother: [continue reading…]

Related:

• Universal Principles of Liberty
• Rights as Metanorms; Rights and Morals as Intersecting Sets Not as Subset of Morals
• Legal Foundations of a Free Society, ch 2, ch. 6 n.22, ch. 14 Part II.A
• LiquidZulu’s Free Course: “The Fundamentals of Libertarian Ethics”
• The “I would never violate rights” is IMO different from the more principled argument Wendy McElroy makes against voting, in her classic article “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

Adam Haman, Misunderstanding the NAP: LiquidZulu attacks Dave Smith… and punches himself in the face. Adam Haman, Haman Nature substack (Nov. 13, 2025)

I just watched (because I’m a masochist) a video over 3 hours in length by a fellow with the handle “LiquidZulu (LZ)”. He used that time to blast Dave Smith for being unsound on libertarian theory and “afraid to debate him” or something. [continue reading…]

Related:

• “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract”
  • A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability
  • Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith
• KOL442 | Together Strong Debate vs. Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery (Matthew Sands of Nations of Sanity)
• KOL004 | Interview with Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery and Inalienability
• Thoughts on Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery, Alienability vs. Inalienability, Property and Contract, Rothbard and Evers
• Batting about voluntary slavery
• Slavery, Inalienability, Economics, and Ethics
• Walter E. Block, “Rejoinder to Kinsella on ownership and the voluntary slave contract,” Management Education Science Technology Journal (MESTE) 11, no. 1 (Jan. 2023): 1-8 [pdf]
• See also KOL395 | Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection (PFS 2022)

From an email discussion with Walter.

I forwarded this email to Walter, that I had sent to some friends. [continue reading…]

Roberta Adelaide Modugno, The Legacy of Murray N. Rothbard: Libertarian and Austrian Economist (Springer, 2025) (Amazon), has just been published. This is a translation of the Italian version published in 2022. I just bought my copy.

Overview:

• Examines how the social and political conditions of the time influenced Rothbard’s ideas and led him to libertarianism
• Outlines Rothbard’s contributions to Austrian economics and the continued importance of his work and ideas
• Explores Rothbard’s engagement with political and social issues, including his opposition to the Vietnam War

[continue reading…]

I stumbled across some pages I had scanned from my notebook for my final semester or so of my first degree, my BSEE at LSU, Fall 1986 and Spring 1987 semesters. My courses included:

• Real Time Computer Systems EE 4770 (Dr. Klinkachorn, Docka Klink)
• Digital Integrated Circuits EE 4250 (Burke Huner)
• Introductory Sociology SOCL 2001
• History of Contemporary America HIST 4065 (Culbert) (with my friend Ben Favrot, or “Fartov”.)

I liked to doodle a lot and was at the time fascinated with Douglas Hofstadter’s “Ambigrams,” making words with mirror images of themselves. (Metamagical Themas; Ambigram (Wikipedia); My Life in Ambigrammia; Ambigrammia.) Nicknames and pet names like Faggot Lip, Smoochball, and so on. Many of my EE buddies were in these classes–Ben Favrot (“Fish”), Chris LeBlanc (“Duck Butter”), Damon Smith, Sal Bernadas, Jimmy1, Jimmy2, “Booger” Wayne LeBlanc, “Pretty” Wayne Speeg, Fat Wayne, and so on. Culbert is the one that had me read Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, Oswald’s Game (which persuaded me Oswald acted alone), and others.

It’s no wonder I went on to grad school and then law school; I loved EE but was sometimes distracted or bored. (For more, see Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025) and various biographical pieces on my site.) ¹ [continue reading…]

1. Such as Yearbook Hijinks, 1984 and 1985, “How I Became A Libertarian,” first published in LewRockwell.com (Dec. 18, 2002), also in Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023); KOL455 | Haman Nature Hn 109: Philosophy, Rights, Libertarian and Legal Careers, discussing my legal career and my avocation and experience in the libertarian intellectual movement; “KOL454 | Interview with my Patent Mentor, Bill Norvell, about Patent Law and Our Days Together,” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (March 10, 2025); “Memories of Meeting Rothbard in 1994“;  “What Sparked Your Interest in Liberty?“; “The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory“; “My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–20192025“; “Interview by The Libertarian“; “Stephan Kinsella on the Logic of Libertarianism and Why Intellectual Property Doesn’t Exist,” an interview with Anthony Wile, originally published in The Daily Bell (March 18, 2012), also in Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023); “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella”; “Libertarians & the Religious Right: an Interview with Stephan Kinsella,” interview by Alberto Mingardi, Laissez Faire City Times, v. 2.39 (1999); “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” interview by Anthony Wile at The Daily Bell (July 20, 2014), also in Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society. [↩]

From Twitter:

Dear
@NSKinsella
, I have a question about argumentative ethics. Isn’t natural law more fundamental, since it is based on human nature, which precedes all language, and therefore much more transcendental than it? Thus being a stronger starting point.

Kinsella:

[From my Webnote series]

Related:

• Mises and Rand (and Rothbard)

Objectivists have long been bitter that libertarians accept most of Objectivism’s politics without accepting the rest of her philosophy: mainly, its metaphysics (objective reality), epistemology (reason), and ethics (self-interest), although most individualist-leaning libertarians more or less do happen to accept these three broad views. Objectivists somewhat crankishly refer to their politics as “capitalism,” just as some anarchist libertarians sometimes use the term anarcho-capitalism. ¹ Objectivism’s capitalism is virtually the same as minarchist libertarianism, ² a term Rand petulantly rejected, even though Objectivism’s “capitalism” is virtually the same as libertarian minarchism; in fact she is one of the main figures behind the modern libertarian movement. ³ [continue reading…]

1. I have for many years tried to avoid the term anarcho-capitalism, since capitalism is just one aspect of the economic system of a free society, and not necessarily the only one. I tend to prefer the term anarcho-libertarian, anarchist libertarian, or libertarian anarchy. See The new libertarianism: anti-capitalist and socialist; or: I prefer Hazlitt’s “Cooperatism”’; Gerard Casey, Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012). [↩]
2. The new libertarianism: anti-capitalist and socialist; or: I prefer Hazlitt’s “Cooperatism”’; The Origin of “Libertarianism”; Rothbard on Leonard Read and the Origins of “Libertarianism”. [↩]
3. Kinsella, “Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?”, in Legal Foundations of a Free Society. [↩]