StephanKinsella.com

Related

• KOL337 | Join the Wasabikas Ep. 15.0: You Don’t Own Bitcoin—Property Rights, Praxeology and the Foundations of Private Law, with Max Hillebrand
• KOL249 | WCN’s Max Hillebrand: Intellectual Property and Who Owns Bitcoin
• Extreme Praxeology

Max Hillebrand, The Praxeology of Privacy: Economic Logic in Cypherpunk Implementation (2026)

Amazon description: [continue reading…]

[Cross-posted at PFS and HansHoppe.com]

Libertarians around the world are this year celebrating Murray Rothbard’s 100^th birthday. At the PFS we published a book in his honor, Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) on his 100^th birthday, March 2, 2026.

And next month, on June 27, 2026, comes the event “100 Years with Rothbard” (permalink) in Porto, Portugal.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe Philosopher and Economist | Author of “Democracy: The God That Failed” and “The Great Fiction”

Stephan Kinsella Austro-Anarchist Libertarian Legal Theory | Author of “Legal Foundations of a Free Society”

Anxo Bastos Professor of Political Science | Author of “I Grew Up Without the State” and “Small Is Possible”

Saifedean Ammous Economist and educator | Author of “The Bitcoin Standard” and “Principles of Economics”

This event, organized by Manuel Ogando, is sponsored by several Portuguese libertarian groups: Mises Portugal, Catalaxia, Don’t Trust Verify (bitcoin podcast), ZugaTV (libertarian podcast), and Golpe de Estado Podcast (ancap podcasters), and features a number of speakers including, most prominently, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Rothbard’s most intimate associate, partner, friend, and student for the last decade of his life. Other speakers include Stephan Kinsella, Anxo Bastos, Saifedean Ammous, and others. Possible topics: Hoppe: “What did I have to un-learn on the way to become an anarcho-capitalist”; Kinsella: “Rothbard’s Greatest Hits.”

The event will also feature the presentation of the European Portuguese translation of Kinsella’s Legal Foundations of a Free Society and, possibly, the Spanish translation as well, and also the hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment.

I am very much looking forward to this event.

[From my Webnote series]

Related

• Collectively Homesteaded Easements and the Enclosure Movement
• On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession
• Libertarian Answer Man: Self-ownership for slaves and Crusoe; and Yiannopoulos on Accurate Analysis and the term “Property”; Mises distinguishing between juristic and economic categories of “ownership”
• Creative Common Law Project, R.I.P. and Waystation Libertarians
• Proudhon’s famous quote “property is theft“
• “Enclosure“
• Robin Hood, Magna Carta, and the Forest Charter
• Proudhon on patents: KOL022 | “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society, Lecture 5: Intellectual Property and Related” (Mises Academy, 2011); Proudhon: For Intellectual Monopoly

Q: Hello. As Ludwig von Mises wrote in his book “Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis:

the anarchist/communist who claims that property is theft is not wrong in principle. To take any piece of land on this planet and trace its ownership history, you will have to come to some point in history when it was forcibly taken or plundered from someone. And before that, the previous owner did it to the one before him.

Do you maybe know why did Mises—who otherwise had healthy views – have this particular view? Why did he not recognize homesteading? Thank you.

***

Note: The sender did not provide a link or page number so I am doubtful this is an accurate quote. A search of the text does not find it. However, I found a couple passages that the sender, or his confused AI, may have had in mind:

From Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, Part I, ch. 1, §2, p. 32:

The physical having of economic goods, which economically considered constitutes the essence of natural ownership, can only be conceived as having originated through Occupation. Since ownership is not a fact independent of the will and action of man, it is impossible to see how it could have begun except with the appropriation of ownerless goods. Once begun ownership continues, as long as its object does not vanish, until either it is given up voluntarily or the object passes from the physical having of the owner against his will. The first happens when the owner voluntarily gives up his property; the latter when he loses it involuntarily — e.g., when cattle stray into the wilds — or when some other person forcibly takes the property from him.

All ownership derives from occupation and violence. When we consider the natural components of goods, apart from the labor components they contain, and when we follow the legal title back, we must necessarily arrive at a point where this title originated in the appropriation of goods accessible to all. Before that we may encounter a forcible expropriation from a predecessor whose ownership we can in its turn trace to earlier appropriation or robbery. That all rights derive from violence, all ownership from appropriation or robbery, we may freely admit to those who oppose ownership on considerations of natural law. But this offers not the slightest proof that the abolition of ownership is necessary, advisable. or morally justified.

Natural ownership need not count upon recognition by the owners’ fellow men. It is tolerated, in fact, only as long as there is no power to upset it and it does not survive the moment when a stronger man seizes it for himself. Created by arbitrary force it must always fear a more powerful force. This the doctrine of natural law has called the war of all against all. The war ends when the actual relation is recognized as one worthy to be maintained. Out of violence emerges law.

From Human Action, ch. XXIV, §4:

Private property is a human device. It is not sacred. It came into existence in early ages of history, when people with their own power and by their own authority appropriated to themselves what had previously not been anybody’s property. Again and again proprietors were robbed of their property by expropriation. The history of private property can be traced back to a point at which it originated out of acts which were certainly not legal. Virtually every owner is the direct or indirect legal successor of people who acquired ownership either by arbitrary appropriation of ownerless things or by violent spoilation of their predecessor.

However, the fact that legal formalism can trace back every title either to arbitrary appropriation or to violent expropriation has no significance whatever for the conditions of a market society. Ownership in the market economy is no longer linked up with the remote origin of private property. Those events in a far-distant past, hidden in the darkness of primitive mankind’s history, are no longer of any concern for our day. For in an unhampered market society the consumers daily decide anew who should own and how much he should own. The consumers allot control of the means of production to those who know how to use them best for the satisfaction of the most urgent wants of the consumers. Only in a legal and formalistic sense can the owners be considered the successors of appropriators and expropriators. In fact, they are mandataries of the consumers, bound by the operation of the market to serve the consumers best. Under capitalism, private property is the consummation of the self-determination of the consumers.

A: All this means is there is some taint in ownership chains but this does not invalidate property rights at all. [continue reading…]

Related

• Stephan Kinsella, “How We Come To Own Ourselves,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) [LFFS]
• Kinsella, “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” in LFFS, n. 27
• Kinsella, “Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan,” in LFFS, n31
• KOL468 | Is Group Ownership and Co-ownership Communism?
• KOL443 | Abortion: A Radically Decentralist Approach (PFS 2024)
• Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023), chs. 2, 4, 23; “Objectivists on Positive Parental Obligations and Abortion,” The Libertarian Standard (Jan. 14, 2011)
• Egads, I hate Georgism
• What Libertarianism Is, App. II: Mutualist Occupancy, in LFFS
• A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy

Query:

Dear Mr. Kinsella,

I hope you are doing well.

I consider the homesteading principle to be one of the most consistent and justified foundations for property rights. However, I have recently encountered a concern that I am struggling to resolve. [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 489.

“The Problem with Intellectual Property,” audio. Thanks to Jorge Besada, using AI. I think this is my best comprehensive, recent, yet concise take on IP.

From Stephan Kinsella, “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” Papinian Press Working Paper #2 (May 15, 2025), forthcoming in Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics, 2nd ed., Christoph Lütge & Marianne Thejls Ziegler, eds. (Springer, forthcoming 2026; Robert McGee, section ed.).

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:21 — 20.0MB)

[From my Webnote series]

Related:

• On Bankruptcy in a Free Society
• Kinsella, The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract
• Libertarian Answer Man: Restrictive Covenants and Homeowners Associations (HOAs)
• Libertarian Answer Man: Restrictive Covenants, Reserved Rights, and Copyright
• KOL479 | Co-Ownership Revisited: Property Rights, Exclusion, Contracts, and Edge Cases, with Nick Sinard
• KOL354 | CDA §230, Being “Part of the State,” Co-ownership, Causation, Defamation, with Nick Sinard
• Libertarian Answer Man: Corporations, Trusts, HOAs, and Private Law Codes in a Private Law Society

From some tweets on Twitter. My original tweet below, and reprinted with a few modifications followed by a few followup tweets. [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 488.

Audio version of Stephan Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026). Audio prepared with AI by Jorge Besada.

Related:

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?: Postscript,” Property and Freedom Journal (April 17, 2026)
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026)

From the article: [continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:11:37 — 45.2MB)

Stephan Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026)

Related:

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?: Postscript,” Property and Freedom Journal (April 17, 2026)
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026)
• Audio: KOL488 | My Years with the Mises Institute
• Mises Institute Oral History Project: The Lost Rothbard History (2013) (April 17, 2026)
• Hoppe Removed as Mises Institute Senior Distinguished Fellow (April 1, 2026)
• No Cardboard for Hoppe
• Lew Rockwell Festschrift in the Works
• McMaken: Why Comments Sections Are Not Coming Back to Mises.org

re Tucker’s crucial role in setting up Mises.org

• Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Why Mises University Matters, Mises University 2026 (Youtube; July 19, 2026)
• PFP336 | Doug French, Rothbard as Intellectual Inspiration (Mises University, 2006)

Update: re “My Years with the Mises Institute,” section “Open Publishing Abandoned“, see Jeffrey A. Tucker, comment, “Essay “Against Intellectual Property” by Kinsella is itself protected by copyright.“, The Liberty Archive, Mises Community (Forum) (Feb. 2010):

People are so funny about this stuff. The truth is much more plain and silly. There is a different department that does typesetting. They put that conventional notice in there and it went to print. In the meantime, I’ve been better about checking to make sure that everything says Creative Commons – we didn’t always do that. Of course I should go back and change it to add that but i’m too lazy to pull something and fix it once it is up. If someone want to pull and and add CC and send to me on email, I replace the file that is there.

Introduction

Hans Hoppe recently published “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, which contains various criticisms of the Mises Institute (MI) as it is currently organized.¹ He has since been removed as Distinguished Senior Fellow by MI.² I fully support Hans and do not disagree with anything he wrote.³

Here I would like to mention my own experience with MI, with which I have been associated, on and off, for over thirty years, since 1994. I have discussed some of this history previously,⁴ but as my experience has certain parallels to that of Hans I will go into more detail here than I have in the past.

Despite my critical remarks here I, too, share Hans’s admiration for Lew Rockwell (discussed below) and what he achieved with the Mises Institute. I love the mission of the MI and the role it has played for the last 44 years. It is due to my concern over the decline of MI, and its treatment of Hans, that I publish these remarks. Pursuit of liberty is always a quest for truth. But truth is fragile and seems easily cast aside by those with more base motives. With that in mind, I offer some of my own thoughts on these matters—entreating the reader to judge the reasonableness of my position (and that of Hoppe).

Read more>>

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 487.

Also podcast as Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 323.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:

8. Stephan Kinsella, ^“Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe: An Indispensable Framework”

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:42 — 13.3MB)

Sean Gabb, Literary Essays, 2d ed. (Deal: Hampden Press, 2018 [2011]). An unrelated email search reminded me that I had provided an endorsement for this book back in 2011.

From the Amazon description:

This book sets out to answer the following questions:

• Why bother learning Latin?
• How did the Romans pronounce Greek?
• Should the Elgin Marbles be handed over to the Modern Greeks?
• Did the ancients have market economies?
• Should Epicurus be venerated above Plato and Aristotle?
• Why is Carol Ann Duffy not even a bad poet?
• What makes Macaulay a great historian and L. Neil Smith a great science fiction novelist?
• Why is The Daily Mail — easily the best newspaper in England — not fit for wrapping fish and chips?
• What is the future of the printed book?

Sean Gabb deals with these and other issues in this collection of essays. Lively and provocative, they are written for every lover of ancient or modern literature.

Extract: We, the civilised classes of Western Europe and the English-speaking world, are the true heirs of Greece; and, beyond all reasonable doubt, England has been the Athens of that New Greece. The Elgin Marbles are presently in London, and by all that we may regard as sacred, it is our duty to keep them there.

Pre-publication comments on this book:

“A brightly shining exception to the observations of Lord Acton, Sean is not just a great man, he is a good man. If there were a thousand of him, even a hundred, we could have a decent, livable society tomorrow. We probably will, in the end, and when we do, a very large part of that victory will be his own to claim.” (L. Neil Smith, best-selling author of The Probability Broach and 30 other novels)

“Libertarians have sound ideas but are not always great writers, and are not usually authorities on literature and literary matters. Rarer still is the literary essayist who is not confused or ignorant about politics and economics. It is thus refreshing to encounter Sean Gabb’s literary writing. A long-time libertarian activist and writer who is also a superb novelist and literary essayist, an honest and clear writer, he is our modern libertarian man of letters. This splendid and sparkling collection of essays provides fascinating insights into literature and other literary topics, without the typical leftist baggage and economic illiteracy.” (Stephan Kinsella, Editor, Libertarian Papers; Senior Fellow, Ludwig von Mises Institute)

Related:

• Post-scarcity, Superabundance, Money, and Star Trek Space Cadets
• Petr Beckmann, Einstein Plus Two
  • Einstein Plus Two and dissident material
• Tom Bethell, Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary?
• ——, Rethinking Relativity, and related links
• Tom Bethell, Relativity and the Priesthood of Science

From a conversation with friends (not cleaned up and edited; just a rant): [continue reading…]