Related/update:

• Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, “The Libertarian Moment,” Reason (Dec. 2008): “Despite all leading indicators to the contrary, America is poised to enter a new age of freedom.”
  • Discussed in Marc Clair, 541. The “Post Libertarian Moment” with L.B. Muniz, Lions of Liberty podcast (Nov. 29, 2021); see also The Post-Libertarian Moment; Marc Clair, The Horrors of ESG, the Post-Libertarian Dialogue and more with Tommy Salmons, Lions of Liberty podcast (May 30, 2022)
• Jesse Walker, “A Short History of Libertarian Moments,” Reason Online (3.16.2016): “From the 1920s to today”
• Robert Draper, “Freedom Rocks” aka “Has the ‘Libertarian Moment’ Finally Arrived?“,  NY Times (Sunday Magazine) (Aug. 7, 2014): “Rand Paul is to the libertarian movement what Pearl Jam is to rock, according to one prominent libertarian.”
• Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

***

Too many libertarians, especially of the “sky is falling” crowd (the ones who have been predicting major societal collapse for 40 years), are sure we are in End Times. Some previous age was America’s apex, from which we’ve long been in rapid decline. America has gone from being a pretty decent place to a near “police state.” When was this golden period? Not the Founders’ generation (ugh). Not the post-war 1950s or even the post-Civil War 1850s. The 1950’s were better in some respects than the 2010s, but not in every respect. Yes, the police state is worse now but war is down. The draft is gone. Marijuana legalization is on the horizon (and marijuana is super-high quality now in states where it is quasi-legal). Gay marriage, unthinkable in the 50s and even 70s, is inevitable. ¹ Alcohol was legalized long ago and porn’s legal status seems not in doubt.

Air travel is cheaper and safer, and used more and more by the masses. Middle class people take Disney Cruises, vacations zip-lining in Costa Rica, or vacation in Turkey, Germany, Italy, Britain, Australia. Incomes are higher, houses are bigger, air-conditioning is more ubiquitous. Cell phones are cheap; everyone has one. Computers are powerful, inexpensive and portable, and we are all linked by one of the most amazing developments in all human history: the Internet. 3D printing is on the horizon, food is better and cheaper. Diversity is flourishing, as is tolerance: some people are vegetarians, vegans; no big deal. Meat eaters accommodate them when they invite them for dinner. Christians have Jewish and Hindu and atheist and Muslim friends; their kids all associate with a rainbow of colors of kids from all over the country or the world, with different ethnicities, religions, traditions, holidays—no one minds. A waiter from Alabama might good-naturedly tease his LSU-shirt wearing customers, but everyone laughs it off; they have their mild regional and college and geographical identities and alliances, but they are not serious or real. We don’t have soccer hooligans and stampedes at football games here. The era of private spacecraft is upon us too. Tie-died clothes and “peace” teeshirts, once derided as “hippie,” are now cool—college kids and soccer moms wear them. (See: Justin Gaffrey Peace Art.) Some people have nose rings, multiple earrings. Tattoos. Nobody cares. That would have gotten you dirty looks or shunning in the ’50s. Mixed-race couples? Nobody bats an eye.

Food and restaurants are better than ever. There are amazing art museums all over. Movies and especially television are better than ever, and music is healthy and vibrant and proliferating. American universities are the best in the world, as is American technology and business and culture, as seen by the dominance of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Hollywood, and so on.

Libertarianism and free market economics (including Austrian) are on the rise; the numbers of intellectuals, students, etc. who are interested in these ideas today completely dwarfs numbers from even the 1980s, and even more so those of earlier generations.

The state is growing too, but it is also less powerful in some ways—cell phones and cell phone video cameras and the Internet and twitter and facebook and google have put state actions under increasing scrutiny. The threat of a truly major war is remote. And while the state does its usual song and dance  of taking as much as it can get away with, the fact that the state taxes us and even regulates us (in some ways) more is, perversely, some kind of evidence that things are better. Why? The state is parasitical on its host: natural, civil society, the underlying free market economy operating beneath the fascist barnacles. The state is able to extract more from the host only because the host is bigger and richer now. (See Hoppe on Liberal Economies and War.) And it is able to ratchet up “police state” type measures such as surveillance, airport security measures, only because it is dimly aware that its victims usually have no readily available alternative state to move to. If one could fairly easily move from the US to country X and have a similar standard of living, earn a similar amount of money, and have even better freedom and civil liberties and lower taxes, millions would do this. That this doesn’t happen is precisely because those living in the US have it so good—despite the state.

And yes, the U.S. is allegedly slipping on the economic freedom index, but this is partly because  other places are getting more free all the time.

Moreover, the main tools that the state once used to control the economy are becoming more and more non-functioning, and everyone knows it. Fiscal policy is at an end. Monetary policy is not performing either. Regulatory policy is all about a battle between large corporations over who can screw their competition fastest. But in general, the old vision of the state as the master of all things is completely dead in the U.S.—on the left and the right. The energy is with technology, innovation, and the development of private nations within the nation. Technology has permitted smaller, nimble companies and entrepreneurs who don’t need big foundries or staffs, who outsource discrete tasks to other specialists and who outsource themselves without centralized direction, responding to the tugs of supply and demand. They regard the state as a drag, a nuisance, and hop around it like acrobats, focusing on making money, making things, and pleasing customers.

Making observations like these often infuriates libertarians, who in their monomaniacal obsession with the state let thinking about the state permeate everything they do. They think you are making light of state depredations, that you are even excusing or forgiving it, if you admit that it’s possible to live a good, flourishing life even in the presence of the state. They scoff at the suggestion that there are really no “better places” for most Americans to move to … even though they are still here, too. Yes, the state is terrible. Yes, private crime is terrible too. But they are just impediments to life, challenges. Just as natural disasters, wild animals, disease, and even the fundamental facts of scarcity (of resources, of time) are obstacles or challenges that any successful, rational human actor has to overcome to lead a happy life. In some circumstances it is not possible to succeed; here, private crime, or the state, has imposed too much damage. Think of young blacks raised in a culture of violence, ugliness, horrible role models, drugs and drug war violence, fatherless, and suffering from the ravages of the government educational system. Or think of Jews living in ghettos or even concentration camps in Hitler-era Germany. The state can snuff out life.

But tens, maybe hundreds of millions of Americans find ways to navigate and ignore the state. They avoid drugs, since that might send you to jail; they don’t care much, as they don’t want to do drugs anyway. They don’t evade taxes, since they would prefer to keep 62% of their $150k salary than go to prison. And the $93k net they are left with has more purchasing power than their dad’s or grandparent’s net salary from generations past. They go to their children’s plays; they have nice SUVs; they have nice friends and family members; some go to church, some give to charity or work to help the less fortunate. Some have friends all over the world on facebook, and pin their hobbies on Pinterest. Startups burst like popcorn onto the scene all the time; some fail, like Digg, others prosper, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, Apple.

Sure, more state-caused recessions are coming. But I am not persuaded that we know a huge collapse is coming (the kind “worse-is-better” libertarians too often pine for); Austrian economics tells us the state ought not to intervene in markets (if we want prosperity), but the future is uncertain (see my post Verstehen and the Role of Economics in Forecasting, or: If You’re so Rich, Why Aren’t You Smart?). For my part, since I believe in the power of freedom, free markets, and technology, I think it’s reasonable to predict that the economy and innovation will continue to increase, over time, in absolute terms, despite the state’s depredations. I could be wrong. It’s possible. But it seems to me that bugging out is not a viable solution. If doom is coming, doom is coming. For me, it’s not a reason to give up. Far from it; it’s a reason to try to be more successful—to acquire more money and power, to better withstand any coming statist calamities.

I do not believe in optimism for optimism’s sake. I am not a believer in the “power of positive thinking”; I’m a realist. Rothbard, I think, used to say the libertarian has to be a short-run pessimist and a long-run optimist. I suppose I agree: things look “bad” now from the point of view of libertarianism’s odds of success; and we can hope that the free market and freedom will ultimately somehow defeat the state, because they are more right, more productive, more powerful. I suppose. But this is strictly an activist perspective; it’s what someone focusing on libertarianism’s prospects would say. But the goal of each person is his own life. I am a personal optimist in the sense that I think I, myself, and many other people as well, can and will be able to live happy, successful, flourishing lives, despite the state. I view my libertarian involvement not as typical political activism; it is more of my own hobby, or avocation. Others have different interests outside their work and families. I am interested in libertarianism because I happen to like economics and political philosophy, and have a passionate, intense interest in justice and rightness. But as a person I am interested in more than this: in living a good and happy and successful life. So I view the state (and private crime) as evil, yes; and they are evil because of the barriers they put in the way of people who want to live happy lives. It does no good to complain about the possibility of hurricanes or a disease one has; the criminal actions of the state are intentional, so complaining about the state (or, more particularly: voicing objections to, criticizing the state) might have some long-run or even short-run efficacy, but there is no guarantee. So the state, as with private crime, has to be regarded as a type of background danger in life that one has to figure out a way to defeat, evade, escape from, hide from, navigate around, or ignore. And I’m confident that, for at least tens of millions of Americans, this is possible. It’s a shame; it’s an unfortunate cost or drag needlessly imposed on civil society, the economy, and individual human lives; but there you have it. We can still recognize it, take it into account, and prosper despite the state.

The main benefit of doing this is one’s own personal gains. But a secondary benefit, for those of the libertarian avocation, is that you also become a more effective torch-bearer for liberty. As I discuss in Nock and Leonard Read on “One Improved Unit” and the Power of Attraction (see also Living a Life of Excellence and Liberty), if you focus on improving yourself, succeeding, flourishing, instead of trying to improve others (or futilely trying to change the state, instead of recognizing that it’s bad, and exists, and is there), then you generate more light, than heat; and light has the power to attract others.

As Leonard Read wrote in The Essence of Americanism:

I am not at this level but I am aware of it and know some of its imperatives. One imperative is the awareness that the higher the objective is, the more dignified the method must be. If we aspire to such a high objective as advancing individual liberty and the free market, we can resort to no lesser method than the power of attraction, the absolute opposite of using propaganda, indoctrination, and half truths. A good way to test how well one is doing on the objective we have in mind is to observe how many are seeking his counsel. If none, then one can draw his own conclusions!

The sole force that will turn indifference into acceptance is the power of attraction. And this can be achieved only if the eye is cast away from the remaking of others and toward the improvement of self. This effort demanded of each individual is not at all a sacrifice, but rather the best investment one can make in life’s highest purpose.

Well, where can we find such individuals? I think we will find them among those who love this country. I think we will find them in this room. I think that one of them is you.

See also Anthony Gregory’s The Golden Age of Freedom Is Still Ahead.

(Thanks to Jeff Tucker and Anthony Gregory for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this post.)

Update: A lot of discussion of this post on Facebook.

And on a second Facebook post in 2016.

And Tim Sandefur says: “For once I agree with Stephan Kinsella.” For once? Well he has also agreed with me on IP—see his article “A Critique of Ayn Rand’s Theory of Intellectual Property Rights,” Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 9:1 (Fall 2007), pp. 139-61.

See also David Brooks, Relax, We’ll Be Fine,  NYTimes April 5, 2010

1. Update: it ended up happening in 2015. And see my post The Libertarian Case for Gay Marriage. [↩]

Update: See KOL037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory.

Stephen F. Austin State University‘s Young Americans for Liberty chapter and the Charles Koch Foundation will be hosting a conference called “Liberty in the Pines” (facebook event) later this month at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas (about 2 hours N of Houston). I will be speaking on “Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Economics and Political Theory.”  Stefan Molyneux will also be speaking, and Jeff Tucker will deliver the keynote. Walter Block will conduct an “Ask a Libertarian” Q&A session (remotely), and other speakers will appear as well. I’m looking forward to it.

Details:

When is your Event?:
Saturday, March 23, 2013 – 10:00am- 6:00pm local time

Location:
1936 North Street
Nacogdoches, TX, 75962
United States

For some background on some of the issues I’ll touch on, see:

• Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor”
• Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and ‘Rearranging’
• Locke, Smith, Marx and the Labor Theory of Value
• “What Libertarianism Is”
• “How We Come To Own Ourselves“

After much thought and debate about this topic over the last 25 or so years, here is my attempt at a lean, concise, precise definition of what a libertarian is:

A libertarian is a person who believes that the invasion of the borders of (trespass against) others’ bodies or owned external scarce resources, i.e. property (with property allocations determined in accordance with Lockean homesteading rules and contractual transfer rules), is unjustified, because they (for whatever reason) prefer or value grundnorms of peace, prosperity, and cooperation and who have enough honesty, consistency, and economic literacy to recognize that the libertarian assignment of property rules is necessary to achieve these grundnorms.

Such a person, if he is consistent, also cannot help but recognize that the state, being an agency of institutionalized aggression, is inherently criminal and illegitimate.

Note what this does not say: It does not say that the libertarian necessarily believes all aggression is immoral, but rather that it is unjustified; it does not imply that rights are a “subset” of morals. It also does not say why the person values peace, prosperity and cooperation and favors it above interpersonal violent conflict. It also does not make the common mistake of interpreting the libertarian-Lockean property allocation rule as requiring one to prove title all the way back to the very first use of the resource; rather, it says that whoever has the best claim to a disputed resource has a property right in it (is its “proper” owner), and that as between any two claimants, the one having an earlier claim (use) of the property has the better claim. This does not require title to be traced back to the beginning of time but only to the earliest time needed to defeat any actual or potential claimants; though it implies that someone who can trace title back to the first appropriation has the best possible claim of all (unless title has been assigned by contract). Note also that although the libertarian rule is the Lockean rule this does not imply Locke’s reasoning in justifying his homesteading rule was correct—in particular it does not imply that Locke was right to say that labor is owned or that labor-ownership is the reason why first possession of a resource is sufficient to establish property rights in the resource.

For more, see my posts and articles below:

• “What Libertarianism Is”
• “How We Come To Own Ourselves“
• The relation between the non-aggression principle and property rights: a response to Division by Zer0
• The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights
• Empathy and the Source of Rights
• Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas; or, why the very idea of “ownership” implies that only libertarian principles are justifiable
• Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts…
• What is Aggression?
• The problem of particularistic ethics or, why everyone really has to admit the validity of the universalizability principle
• Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor”
• Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and ‘Rearranging’
• Locke, Smith, Marx and the Labor Theory of Value
• “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory”
• “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist”

Also: Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, chs. 4-5, 15; Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, chs. 1, 2, and 7.

Update: See also these related and interesting comments of Rothbard, ch. 6 of Ethics. Rothbard writes:

If Crusoe had eaten the mushrooms without learning of their poisonous effects, then his decision would have been incorrect—a possibly tragic error based on the fact that man is scarcely automatically determined to make correct decisions at all times. Hence, his lack of omniscience and his liability to error. If Crusoe, on the other hand, had known of the poison and eaten the mushrooms anyway—perhaps for “kicks” or from a very high time preference—then his decision would have been objectively immoral, an act deliberately set against his life and health. It may well be asked why life should be an objective ultimate value, why man should opt for life (in duration and quality).” ¹

If Crusoe had eaten the mushrooms without learning of their poisonous effects, then his decision would have been incorrect—a possibly tragic error based on the fact that man is scarcely automatically determined to make correct decisions at all times. Hence, his lack of omniscience and his liability to error. If Crusoe, on the other hand, had known of the poison and eaten the mushrooms anyway—perhaps for “kicks” or from a very high time preference—then his decision would have been objectively immoral, an act deliberately set against his life and health. It may well be asked why life should be an objective ultimate value, why man should opt for life (in duration and quality).[5] In reply, we may note that a proposition rises to the status of an axiom when he who denies it may be shown to be using it in the very course of the supposed refutation.[6] Now, any person participating in any sort of discussion, including one on values, is, by virtue of so participating, alive and affirming life. For if he were really opposed to life, he would have no business in such a discussion, indeed he would have no business continuing to be alive. Hence, the supposed opponent of life is really affirming it in the very process of his discussion, and hence the preservation and furtherance of one’s life takes on the stature of an incontestable axiom.

[TLS]

1. By the way, this is yet another example of Rand’s influence on Rothbard. [↩]

Below is my Introduction to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (Laissez Faire Books, 2012). Earlier editions of the book may be found here.

[Update: here are the epub and mobi files]

Appended below my Introduction is the Editorial Preface by Jeffrey A. Tucker

***

Foreword to the Laissez Faire Edition by Stephan Kinsella

YOU ARE IN for a treat. Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics (1989) utterly captivated and enlightened me when I read it over twenty years ago.

All of Professor Hoppe’s writing is insightful, including his books The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (2003), Democracy: The God That Failed (2001), Economic Science and the Austrian Method (1995), and The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline (2012), published earlier this year by Laissez Faire Books. But TSC has always been my favorite. An integrated, systematic treatise, not merely a collection of related essays, it is truly Professor Hoppe’s magnum opus—his Human Action, his Man, Economy and State.

TSC is so rich with insights that it bears careful reading, and periodic re-reading. In a book review of TSC, Professor Robert McGee noted:

When I read a book, I make marginal notations and underline the points that I think are worth reading a second time. With this book, I found that I had to restrain myself because I was making so many notations that it slowed my reading. Practically every paragraph has at least one point worth reflecting upon. ¹  [continue reading…]

1. Robert W. McGee, “Book Review” [of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism], The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty (September 1989), available at thefreemanonline.org.[↩]

As many of my readers know, I often lecture and speak and give podcast or radio interviews on various libertarian topics and issues, such as intellectual property (IP), anarcho-libertarians, Austrian law and economic, contract theory, rights and punishment theory, and so on. I also blog and comment regularly on such matters in various blogs (primarily The Libertarian Standard, on general libertarian matters, and C4SIF, on IP-related matters), Facebook, and so on—often posting my take on a given issue in response to a question emailed to me or posted online.

This month I am launching a new podcast, Kinsella on Liberty. I expect to post episodes once or twice a week. The podcast will include new episodes covering  answers to questions emailed to me (feel free to ask me to address any issue of libertarian theory or application) as well as interviews or discussions I conduct with other libertarians. I’ll also include in the feed any new speeches or interviews of mine that appear on other podcasts or fora, as well as older speeches, interviews, and audio versions  of my articles, which  are collected for now on my media page). Audio and slides for several of my Mises Academy courses may also be found on my media page, and will also be included in the podcast feed later this year.

Feel free to Subscribe in iTunes or Follow with RSS, and spread the word to your libertarian friends. I welcome questions for possible coverage in the podcast, as well as any criticism, suggestions for improvement, or other feedback.

My general approach to libertarian matters is Austrian, anarchist, and propertarian, influenced heavily by the thought of Ludwig von Mises, Murray N. Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. My writing can be found in articles here and blog posts at The Libertarian Standard and C4SIF, such as:

• How I Became A Libertarian, December 18, 2002, LewRockwell.com (published as “Being a Libertarian” in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians (compiled by Walter Block; Mises Institute 2010))
• “What Libertarianism Is,” Mises Daily (August 21, 2009)
• What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist, January 20, 2004, LewRockwell.com
• How We Come To Own Ourselves, Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006)
• Causation and Aggression, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, vol. 7, no. 4 (Winter 2004)
• A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003)
• Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith, Winter 1998-99, Journal of Libertarian Studies
• Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide, Mises Daily (May 27, 2011)
• New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory, 12:2 Journal of Libertarian Studies (Fall 1996)
• Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach, 12:1 Journal of Libertarian Studies (Spring 1996).
• Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan, Anti-state.com (Sept. 19, 2002)
• Montessori, Peace, and Libertarianism, LewRockwell.com (April 28, 2011)

On IP in particular, which I’ll also cover from time to time in the podcast, see:

• C4SIF Resources page;
• The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide
• Against Intellectual Property
• Selected Supplementary Material for Against Intellectual Property

[C4SIF; TLS; PFS]

[From my Webnote series]

• See also “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society, p. 518 & n.50: “What about the goal of prosperity? Here Barnett could have pointed out, following Mises, that the private-property order and its accompanying price system also permits economic calculation and thus is the only way to achieve this goal. “Knowledge” would have been recognized as merely a technical problem that confronts any individual when choosing means to achieve certain ends and when deciding which ends to pursue. … The need to acquire knowledge faces even Crusoe alone on his island, who has no need for private property rules because there are no other people and thus no possibility of interpersonal conflict.”
  • See also The Problem with Intellectual Property, Part III.A.3; also Intellectual Property and the Structure of Human Action;  Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright; KOL217 | Intellectual Property is the Bastard Child of the Gatekeepers; Another way to explain the problem with IP: Resources v. Knowledge; Ownership v. Possession

I’ve always liked Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s observations regarding how we have to treat aggressors as technical, not ethical, problems. From The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (relevant parts bolded):

while scarcity is a necessary condition for the emergence of the problem of political philosophy, it is not sufficient. For obviously, we could have conflicts regarding the use of scarce resources with, let us say, an elephant or a mosquito, yet we would not consider it possible to resolve these conflicts by means of proposing property norms. In such cases, the avoidance of possible conflicts is merely a technological, not an ethical, problem. For it to become an ethical problem, it is also necessary that the conflicting actors be capable, in principle, of argumentation.

…

Whether or not persons have any rights and, if so, which ones, can only be decided in the course of argumentation (propositional exchange). Justification—proof, conjecture, refutation—is argumentative justification. Anyone who denied this proposition would become involved in a performative contradiction because his denial would itself constitute an argument. Even an ethical relativist must accept this first proposition, which has been referred to as the a priori of argumentation. [continue reading…]

A couple of related posts from the LRC blog a few years back. See also my Mises blog post Libertarian Centralists, and my LewRockwell.com articles A Libertarian Defense of Kelo and Limited Federal Power (June 27, 2005) and Supreme Confusion, Or, A Libertarian Defense of Affirmative Action (July 4, 2003)

***

Constitutional rights?

My Against Intellectual Property has so far been translated into Czech, Georgian, German, Italian, Portugese, and Spanish and, now, into Romanian, as Împotriva Proprietăţii Intelectuale. These are all linked at my Translations page, which includes translations of various of my publications into thirteen languages.

Devices and markets that smartphones have replaced or are replacing, at least in part, or at least supplementing and radically changing. It’s truly amazing:

• calculators
• watches/clocks
• Alarm clocks
• flashlight
• GPS
• maps
• books
• e-readers
• computers
• CD players, MP3 players, Walkman
• DVD players
• video game consoles
• remote controls
• compass
• dictaphone
• land lines
• address books/rolodex
• cameras
• video cameras
• credit card swipers
• wifi hotspots
• broadcast radio
• satellite radio
• broadcast television
• broadband (cable)
• dictionaries
• encyclopedia
• language dictionaries/translations
• tape measure
• levels
• magnifying glass
• pulse sensor
• PDAs
• walkie-talkies/CB/Ham radio
• board games
• display boards for limo drivers at airports
• wallet/money/credit cards
• keys
• paper tickets (to movies, flights)/IDs/Passports (coming)
• scanner
• fax

Update: See The Multifunction Wonder Device: What Has Your Smartphone Replaced?;

A great Cato post and graphic anticipated some of this—there is a lot of overlap between their and my examples:

Dematerialization (update)

Posted by Marian L. Tupy

On June 29, I posted a blog about dematerialization. I used the iPhone as an example of a technological improvement that enables increased output and resource conservation at the same time. I asked the readers of Cato@Liberty to tell me about additional gadgets and physical things (as opposed to services) that they no longer need thanks to their iPhones. Many have written and we have adapted our graphic accordingly. Please share it widely.

Marian L. Tupy • July 12, 2012 @ 12:20 pm

I’ve discussed before my take on whether clickwrap and related agreements ought to be enforceable in The Libertarian View on Fine Print, Shrinkwrap, Clickwrap; see also The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld. (My 2004 Oxford University Press book Online Contract Formation addresses purely legal aspects of such questions.)

A recent Inside Counsel piece, IP: Effective terms of use agreements: Website owners should require users to take an affirmative action to provide evidence that they are aware of and consent to a website’s Terms of Use, discusses a recent case which distinguished the enforceability of clickwrap from browsewrap agreements:

To reduce the risk of transacting business online, virtually all website owners place language on their sites that includes, among other things, forum selection and choice of law clauses, limitations on damages and alternative dispute resolution requirements such as mediation or arbitration. This protective language often is presented in the context of “Terms of Use,” an “End User License Agreement,” or “Terms of Service.” Regardless of what the agreement is called, to effectively reduce their risk, website owners need to make certain that a valid agreement exists with the website users.

A court recently addressed the enforceability of a website’s Terms of Use when Zappos.com Inc. tried to require arbitration of a class action consumer dispute. The plaintiffs, who were Zappos.com customers, claimed their personal information was hacked from the Zappos site. Individual plaintiffs sued in federal district courts across the country seeking relief under state and federal statutory and common law for damages resulting from the security breach. Zappos filed a motion to compel arbitration pursuant to its website Terms of Use. The Terms of Use further stated that: “We [Zappos] reserve the right to change this Site and these terms and conditions at any time,” and “ACCESSING, BROWSING OR OTHERWISE USING THE SITE INDICATES YOUR AGREEMENT TO ALL THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS IN THIS AGREEMENT, SO PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING.”

The Nevada District Court, where the cases were consolidated for pretrial proceedings, denied Zappos.com’s motion to compel arbitration. In doing so, the court distinguished between “browsewrap” and “clickwrap” (or “click through”) agreements. A browsewrap agreement is one in which a website owner seeks to bind website users to terms and conditions by posting the terms somewhere on the website, usually accessible through a hyperlink located somewhere on the website. A clickwrap agreement requires users to affirmatively manifest asset to the terms, for example by clicking an “I ACCEPT” button.

The Zappos.com Terms of Use was a browsewrap agreement with no evidence that the plaintiffs had actual knowledge of the agreement. Therefore, the validity of the agreement depended on whether the website provided reasonable notice of the terms of the contract. In holding that the Zappos.com Terms of Use did not provide reasonable notice, the court reasoned that: …

My recent book, Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary (Quid Pro Books, 2011), co-authored with an  Austro-libertarian legal scholar friend, Gregory Rome, was recently reviewed at the iPhoneJD blog:

November 13, 2012

Review: Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary — ebook of civil law words and phrases

I’ve reviewed several legal dictionary apps for the iPhone and iPad — Black’s Law Dictionary, Barron’s Law Dictionary,Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary, the Book of Jargon series by Latham & Watkins — but considering that dictionaries were traditionally books, it makes sense that an ebook dictionary could be just as useful on the iPhone and iPad as an app.  Proof of this is found in the Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary, an ebook by Chalmette, Louisiana attorney Gregory Rome and Houston, Texas attorney Stephan Kinsella.  You can purchase this ebook in several formats including Kindle and Nook, and this review is based on the iBooks version of the ebook.  The book is published by ebook publisher Quid Pro Books, the brainchild of Tulane Law Professor Alan Childress.  Prof. Childress sent me a free review copy a few weeks ago.

As you may know, unlike the other 49 states where the law is based on English common law, the law here in Louisiana is based on civil law from jurisdictions such as France.  That means that we have concepts in Louisiana that are very similar to common law concepts but have different names (e.g. “liberative prescription” instead of “statute of limitation”), plus we have many civil law concepts that are unique to Louisiana.  Black’s Law Dictionary does a decent job with some civil law terms, but a dedicated source like the one has the ability to offer more … and I was impressed by this book.

The Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary includes all of the civil law terms that I use in my practice and a bunch more that were new to me.  (I may have learned some of them when I took the bar exam back in 1994, but that space in my brain has long since been replaced by other knowledge.)  The definitions are clear and complete, and the book includes lots of hyperlinks that make it easy to jump around in the book.  Plus it is easy to slide the marker at the bottom of this ebook to jump to different sections.

Being an iBook, it also works fine on the iPhone:

Like all iBooks, you can also search for words in the book, which is helpful in a dictionary.

If you practice law in Louisiana, or if you just want to impress your friends with legal terms that almost sound naughty such “naked owner” and “usufruct,” then consider getting this ebook for your iPad and iPhone.

Click here to get Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary ($9.99):  

Click here to get Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary ($9.99) [Kindle version]