I majored in electrical engineering at LSU from 1983 to 1987. I had to take one economics course, my very first semester, which I ended up making an A in. But I did not like it. Never did like the idea of supply and demand curves, “elasticity” etc. I don’t think I had read much Austrian economics yet, though I had read a good deal of Ayn Rand’s nonfiction before I started college, and might have already read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Maybe that is what turned me off to the conventional approach taught in Econ 2030.

I remember vividly that when the Phillips Curve was presented I knew something was wrong with mainstream economics. Here was a curve showing an inverse relationship between inflation and employment. That can’t be right, I thought–suppose all the unemployed people in the country died overnight. Most of them are unproductive or on welfare, so their loss would not harm the economy, so why would it make inflation go up? By my pro-capitalist lights, a free market could have zero inflation and almost full employment. I told the teacher my problem with the Phillips Curve; he explained that if all the unemployed people died, so that there was technically now 0% unemployment, the curve would “shift” to account for the new situation. Something like that. But that is cheating, just moving the goal post. It means it’s not really a curve, not really a relationship that explains anything.

When I discovered Austrian economics–mainly of the Misesian, Rothbardian, and Hoppean variety, I started to love economics.

From the Mises blog:

uFollow has created a page to index and follow my articles and blogs at Mises and my personal page here: http://www.ufollow.com/authors/stephan.kinsella/. Nice service. I have asked them to update some info and add feeds to my blog posts at C4SIF and The Libertarian Standard too. I dimly recall that I also occasionally blog at other places (Libertarian Papers, Against Monopoly, HansHoppe.com, Property and Freedom Society, KinsellaLaw.com), but let it pass.

[From my Webnote series]

For reasons why, see my post Happy We-Should-Restore-The-Monarchy-And-Rejoin-Britain Day!.

Related: Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Introduction” to Democracy: The God That Failed

See also my related posts:

• Rockwell on Hoppe on the Constitution as Expansion of Government Power
• Would YOU sign the Declaration of Independence?
• Richman on the 4th of July and American Independence
• The Murdering, Thieving, Enslaving, Unlibertarian Continental Army
• Black Armbands for “Constitution Day”
• Revising the American Revolution
• The Declaration and Conscription
• ‘Untold Truths About the American Revolution’
• Goodbye 1776, 1789, Tom
• On Constitutional Sentimentalism
• Bill Marina (R.I.P.) on American Imperialism from the Beginning
• Re ‘Untold Truths About the American Revolution’
• Jeff Hummel’s “The Constitution as a Counter-Revolution”
• Untold Truths About the American Revolution’
• Down with the Bill of Rights: Heller and the Central States Cheerleaders (2008)
• Re: Happy Bill of Rights Day — The Problem with the Fourteenth Amendment (re Norman Singleton, Happy Bill of Rights Day)
• The Bad Bill of Rights
• Napolitano on Health-Care Reform and the Constitution: Is the Commerce Clause Really Limited?
• Was the American Revolution Really about Taxes?

See also:

• Hurrah for King George!, by John Attarian;
• Lew Rockwell, The Enemy Is Always the State
• Sheldon Richman, The Articles of Confederation Versus the Constitution
• John Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law
• Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, The Constitution as Counter-Revolution (mp3; pdf)

This post from the “Absurd Results: Econ, Law, Sports, and Politics” blog picks me as the top choice for a Ron Paul Supreme Court nominee (others: Richard Epstein, Alex Kozinski, Randy Barnett, Janice Rogers Brown). I’m honored, and in some alternate reality, I’m getting impeached for my first “unconstitutional” ruling 🙂

See also: Andrew Napolitano for Chief Justice; Kinsella for Associate Justice; Higher Law.

I’m working on a book containing an edited collection of my essays on libertarian theory. The working title is The Ethics of Action: Fundamentals of Libertarian Legal Theory–the main title borrows from the titles of two Rothbard books: The Ethics of Liberty and The Logic of Action (a remaining permutation was taken by Buchanan in his The Logic of Liberty). The title evokes a recurring theme or goal of my writing—of libertarian theory in general: an exploration of the  ethics that guide action, and of ethics implied by certain classes of action.

Trusted friends advise me it’s a bad title–dull and pompous. I think I need a better title: something more exciting. The title Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed is an example of a nice title, as is the title for Jeff Tucker’s books It’s a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, as well as his Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo.

I already have an image I want to use for the cover, discussed here. But I need a better title. The book is basically an edited collection of my articles about foundations, extensions, and applications of libertarian theory and basic principles. Most of the articles involve arguments about the nuts and bolts of libertarian theory and principles, informed by Austrian, Rothbardian, and anarchist principles, and all heavily revolving around property rights, justice, and the non-aggression principle.

Suggestions welcome!

This is how I feel when I argue with liberals, opponents of nuclear power, conspiratoids, and IP advocates:

From the Mises blog (archived comments below):

***

Update: Jason Kuznicki:

Capitalist Acts between Consenting Adults

Me in a robe, 1991

Walter Block has a LRC article up today, Andrew Napolitano for Chief Justice, where he lists lots of libertarian lawyers he’s aware of who would be potential candidates for Ron Paulian Supreme Court nominations, and his favorites, which include Judge Andrew Napolitano, Professor Richard Epstein, and yours truly.

See also my previous post, Reason on Who Should Reign Supreme?–or, Justice Kinsella.

[From my Webnote series]

From the Appendix to my post Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation Metaphors, quoted below. See also “Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation Metaphors”; “Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor”; “Thoughts on Intellectual Property, Scarcity, Labor-ownership, Metaphors, and Lockean Homesteading“; also Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright, text at note 21.

See also related comments in Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), at

Appendix: On the dangers of metaphors in scientific discourse

The following observations and quotes assembled from previous email and other conversations re same:

See the following, from Mark Thornton’s The “Market” for Academic Research: this is a great quote; I think it would be a useful project to collect various comments on dangers of the use of metaphors into one place:

“For it would be an absurd undertaking to banish from the language of economic theory every manner of speaking that is not literally correct; it would be sheer pedantry to proscribe every figure of speech, particularly since we could not say the hundredth part of what we have to say, if we refused ever to take recourse to a metaphor. One requirement is essential, that economic theory avoid the error of confusing a practical habit, indulged in for the sake of expediency, with scientific truth.”

–Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, (1881), “Whether legal rights and relationships are economic goods.” In H. Sennholz (Ed.), Shorter classics of Böhm-Bawerk, Volume I. Spring Mills, PA: Libertarian Press, 1962, p. 135. As Mark noted on a list: “Bohm Bawerk took up this issue [of misuse of metaphors] in Shorter Classics. I quote him at the opening of this paper (attached). The whole public choice agenda is based on the use of market metaphors for government institutions.”

NSK:

I’ve long noticed the over- and mis-use of metaphors. For example Paterson or Lane’s use of “energy circuits” …. very scientistic. Similar to the way people talk about the “momentum” of a football game or the “energy” of a crowd or a crystal.

Or in the idea of mixing or owning labor, or owning ideas, or in the idea that prices “convey knowledge”.

Also, as I noted elsewhere: “Mixing labor” is horribly misleading and a sloppy metaphor: if I turn a piece of land into a farm, did I *actually* mix my labor? I mean, is there like an amount of labor “in” the soil? It’s really sloppy and imprecise.

I’ve always liked this observation of Huelsmann’s:

Only in a metaphorical sense could one say that prices reflect or contain information on present conditions. …

… It is asserted that prices communicate abridged relevant information. This, however, is only a metaphorical expression.

It is not prices that coordinate the actions of sellers and buyers of tin; prices are the outcome of (coordinated) action, not its coordinators. It is property, rather than knowledge, that coordinates the separate actions of different people. The terms coordination and communication rather obfuscate than adequately express this fact. This is another example of the dangers linked to the use of metaphors in scientific discourse.

From p. 29 of this article

And Rothbard:

“The term “consumers’ sovereignty” is a typical example of the abuse, in economics, of a term . . . appropriate only to the political realm and is thus an illustration of the dangers of the application of metaphors taken from other disciplines. “Sovereignty” is the quality of ultimate political power; it is the power resting on the use of violence. In a purely free society, each individual is sovereign over his own person and property, and it is therefore this self-sovereignty which obtains on the free market. No one is “sovereign” over anyone else’s actions or exchanges. Since the consumers do not have the power to coerce producers into various occupations and work, the former are not “sovereign” over the latter.”

On Mises:

“Mises rightly criticised treating imaginary things (collectives, analogies, metaphors, etc.) as real and warns us to be very cautious when using fictitious auxiliary constructs to explain things” —Benjamin Marks

Also, from others’ comments about this on an email discussion list:

Roderick Long:

“Ironically, in his memoirs Mises accuses Bohm-Bawerk (in their dispute over Cantillon effects) of being led astray by the idea of “friction” and other metaphors from the physical sciences.”

On a thread, I had written: “Right, and this is the danger of metaphors (BTW I wonder if anyone has examined this issue in any detail–? The dangers overuse of metaphors in scientific discourse?).” Roderick Long replied: “Right, such a study might be called “How Scientific Discourse is Being Savagely Bitten to Death by Rabid Metaphors.” Tom DiLorenzo’s reply:

“A fun paper (Vedran, are you listening?) would be to ridicule the metaphors in macroeconomics with all the talk of “injections,” “Leakages,” shocks,” etc. I would start by comparing it all to the movie Young Frankenstein, where they tried to “shock” the monster to life, just as “infusions” of money or tax dollars supposedly shock the economy out of a recession. Then when shock therapy didn’t work, Gene Wilder pulled out a giant needle and “injected” the monster, just as money is supposedly injected into the economy by the Fed. The possibilities are endless.”

John Brätland:

In this connection, I would put in a strong plug for Peter Lewin’s paper: “Methods and Metaphors in Capital Theory.” (Advances in Austrian Economics, vol. 2B).

I might add that important parts of Mises’ “Ultimate Foundations… ” and “Theory and History” deal with the issue of inapt and misleading metaphors in economic science.

See also The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression, discussing problems resulting from uncareful use of concepts like “fraud” in libertarian reasoning.

Update: See also:

It is not particularly helpful to think of real and intellectual property as structurally unified. The differences matter significantly and resorting to rhetorical metaphors distracts attention from critical issues. As Judge (later Justice) Cardozo cautioned in 1926, “[m]etaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it.”

–Peter S. Menell, quoted here

For more on Böhm-Bawerk, as quoted in my book Legal Foundations for a Free Society (ch. 24).

Böhm-Bawerk makes a similar point about the necessity of continuing to use some inaccurate terms in economics. As he writes:

[We do aught but recognize that, from the economic viewpoint, such “goods” as family, church, love and the like are merely linguistic disguises for a totality of concretely useful renditions of service. …

No matter how clearly I may have proved that payment-claims and good-will relationships are not genuine goods, no matter how clearly I have therefore proved that, whenever, in practical economic life rights and relationships are bought and sold, it is not, in truth, those intangibles that are meant and are valued and transferred, but that actually it is material goods and renditions of service that are so dealt in; no matter, I say, how clear my proof, I am not going to pretend to believe that economic practice will submit to any slavish accuracy in the matter. It will in the future continue to be the custom, and rightly so, to say that A’s wealth consists in payment-claims, that B sold his good will for $50,000 to C, and that the state, the church and the family are valuable “goods.” Yes, I believe even economic theory will, quite properly, continue talking that same language because it is the language that all the world talks and understands. For it would be an absurd undertaking to banish from the language of economic theory every manner of speaking that is not literally correct; it would be sheer pedantry to proscribe every figure of speech, particularly since we could not say the hundredth part of what we have to say, if we refused ever to take recourse to a metaphor.

One requirement is essential, that economic theory avoid the error of confusing a practical habit, indulged in for the sake of expediency, with scientific truth. ¹

He goes on:

I do make the request that economic theory, when it speaks ex cathedra about goods and categories of goods, substitute the two underlying associates, material goods and renditions of service, for the figurative appellations, “intangible rights” and “relationship-goods.” And I make the further request that, whenever it does employ figures of speech in mentioning these things as goods, it remain at least tacitly conscious of the figurative nature of its expressions. To put it briefly, I think that economic theory should always retain the exact truth in its armory and bring it forth at all times when there is any real necessity for doing so. If it does that, it may be permissible to retain the accustomed terminology of an outmoded error, just as we do in other fields. For do we not still speak of the sun “rising” and “setting,” of its “coming up” and “going down”?

1.  Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, “Whether Legal Rights and Relationships Are Economic Goods,” George D. Huncke, trans., in Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Shorter Classics of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (South Holland, Ill.: Libertarian Press, 1962 [1881]), pp. 173–75 (first emphasis added). [↩]

[From my Webnote series]

Note: This issue is discussed in Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023). See, e.g., ch. 5, at n.16; ch. 8, at n.17; ch. 23, at n.27; ch. 25, at n.36. See also discussion of defamation law in my forthcoming chapter “Defamation Law and Reputation Rights as a Type of Intellectual Property,” p. 286 et pass.

Update: See Hoppe, Hans-Hermann and Walter Block, “Property and Exploitation,” International Journal of Value Based Management 15, no. 3 (2002): 225–36 (also in Walter Block, Iulian Tãnase & Bogdan Glãvan, eds., Building Blocks for Liberty: Critical Essays by Walter Block [Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2010]). Abstract:

The authors contend that what can legitimately be owned in a free society is only rights to physical property, not to the value thereof. You are thus free to undermine the value of our property by underselling us, by inventing a new substitute for our property, etc. But you cannot legitimately physically agress against our property, even if its value remains constant despite your efforts.

See also: Hoppe, “The Justice of Economic Efficiency,” in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (Mises, 2006 [1993]), at 337–38:

Such proposals are absurd as well as indefensible. While every person can have control over whether or not his actions cause the physical integrity of something to change, control over whether or not one’s actions affect the value of someone’s property to change rests with other people and their evaluations. One would have to interrogate and come to an agreement with the entire world population to make sure that one’s planned actions would not change another per- son’s evaluations regarding his property. Everyone would be long dead before this could ever be accomplished. Moreover, the idea that property value should be protected is argumentatively indefensible, for even in order to argue, it must be presupposed that actions must be allowed prior to any actual agreement because if they were not, one could not even argue so. Yet if one can, then this is only possible because of objective borders of property, i.e., borders which every person can recognize as such on his own, without having to agree first with anyone else with respect to one’s system of values and evaluations. Rawls and Nozick could not even open their mouths if it were otherwise. The very fact, then, that they do open them proves what they say is wrong.

Update: see also

• Van Dun on Freedom versus Property and Hostile Encirclement (Aug. 3, 2009)
• “Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism

From Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and “Rearrangement Rights”:

By viewing “values” as things that we create, Objectivists then think there should be property rights in values. They are things, after all, right? But this is a fundamental mistake. As I noted in Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation Metaphors, a common mistaken belief is that one has a property right in the value, as opposed to the physical integrity of, one’s property. For elaboration, see pp. 139-141 of Hoppe’s A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism; also see my comments re same to Patents and Utilitarian Thinking. This assumption sneaks into or lies at the basis of many fallacious notions of property rights, such as the idea that there is a right to a reputation because it can have value. It ties in with the (especially Randian) notion of “creation” as the source of rights, and the confusing admixture of the “labor” idea, when we talk about using our labor to “create” things of “value” (like reputations, inventions, works of art). As Hoppe notes in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: [continue reading…]