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Ayn Rand had Francisco d’Anconia say in the “Money Speech” from Atlas Shrugged, “Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.” Love that line.

I feel the same about people who denigrate the libertarian notions of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. The alternative to my being a self-owner is that someone else–maybe the person objecting to the “coherence” of self-ownership–owns me instead. That’s slavery. Those who object to the NAP must favor some kinds of aggression–or what we libertarians quaintly call “crime.”

From The Libertarian Standard, Nov. 19, 2010. Any updates to this post will be made here.

Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts…

Rothbard has so many amazing works. Some of my favorite of his articles include “The Mantle of Science,” “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution” (pdf), “Beyond Is and Ought,” “Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics,” “Left and Right: Prospects for Liberty,” and various chapters in The Ethics of Liberty such as “‘Human Rights’ As Property Rights,” “Knowledge, True and False,” and “Property Rights and the Theory of Contracts.” I think my favorite collection of his works is The Logic of Action One and Two–just chock full of classic, amazing pieces [now online as Economic Controversies]. And yet another favorite is The Free Market Reader–one of the best introductions to free market thinking; see Rothbard’s opening chapter, “Ten Great Economic Myths” (also ch. 2 in another great collection, Making Economic Sense).

Case in point is his stunning, amazing article in The Logic of Action One, “Justice and Property Rights” [and, again, this is also in Economic Controversies]. This piece was published in two forms in 1974: first, in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, and is available online here. The second version was also published in 1974, in Property in a Humane Economy, Samuel L. Blumenfeld, ed. (online here). Oddly, The Logic of Action One, at least the version online here, contains the original version of “Justice and Property Rights” from Rothbard’s Egalitarianism book; while Economic Controversies, which is otherwise identical in content to The Logic of Action, contains the Blumenfeld version that contains the extra paragraph.

Now, The Logic of Action is not online and not easy to find, but this article in my copy of that book is heavily underlined. But luckily the Blumenfeld book is online at Mises.org. The two pieces seem identical but the latter version appends an important concluding paragraph that is not present in the first one:

It might be charged that our theory of justice in property titles is deficient because in the real world most landed (and even other) property has a past history so tangled that it becomes impossible to identify who or what has committed coercion and therefore who the current just owner may be. But the point of the “homestead principle” is that if we don’t know what crimes have been committed in acquiring the property in the past, or if we don’t know the victims or their heirs, then the current owner becomes the legitimate and just owner on homestead grounds. In short, if Jones owns a piece of land at the present time, and we don’t know what crimes were committed to arrive at the current title, then Jones, as the current owner, becomes as fully legitimate a property owner of this land as he does over his own person. Overthrow of existing property title only becomes legitimate if the victims or their heirs can present an authenticated, demonstrable, and specific claim to the property. Failing such conditions, existing landowners possess a fully moral right to their property.

This part was no doubt added by Rothbard to combat the arguments of some, such as some left-libertarians, who want to argue that existing property titles are illegitimate because of their non-immaculate origins and, presumably, ought to be wrested from current nominal owners, especially the wealthy, and I suppose redistributed to the proles.

[Update: See Rothbard’s “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle,” from Libertarian Forum, vol. 1.6, June 15, 1969, which may be what Kevin Carson has in mind here:

I’m quite friendly to George, and think the lines between individualism and Georgism are a lot less harsh than (say) Tucker would have believed. But I believe a great deal of rent could be eliminated simply by removing subsidies to economic centralization and positive externalties created by taxpayers–not to mention by removing state enforcement of title to vacant and unimproved land. If as much urban infrastructure as possible were funded by user fees, and cities broken up into lots of mixed-use neighborhoods in which residential areas had their own miniature “downtown” cores, differential rent would be far less significant. I think a majority of George’s aims could be achieved by Tucker’s means, or even by a throughgoing application of Rothbard’s means.]

This piece is just so full of great insights. Hoppe has noted previously that there are arguments in Ethics of Liberty that basically anticipated Hoppe’s “argumentation ethics” defense of libertarian rights (see my post Hoppe and Intellectual Property: On Standing on the Shoulders of Giants). [continue reading…]

My two recent LRC posts. For other posts on the antics of the hilarious Objectivists, see here and here.

Re: The Latest Objectivism Schism: Peikoff vs. McCaskey

The Latest Objectivism Schism: Peikoff vs. McCaskey

I’ll be a guest on the Austin-based radio show “Live and Let Live” tonight, discussing IP. The host is Gary Johnson; the time is 9pm CDT. I’ll be on during the second hour of the two-hour program, which is live on the Rule of Law radio network. It can be heard on www.ruleoflawradio.com and on affiliate stations, including 90.1 FM in Austin. The episode will be archived on ruleoflawradio.com/archive.

Update: audio is here.

[C4SIF]

From the Mises Blog; archived comments below.

State Antitrust (anti-monopoly) law versus state IP (pro-monopoly) law

Archived comments below:

Bennette Sebastian November 12, 2010 at 2:31 pm

Libertarianpress.blogspot.com

REPLY

Ohhh Henry November 12, 2010 at 4:58 pm

It is not unprecedented for different factions of government to fight with each other for the right to control and steal from the public. In Nazi Germany the rivalries between top leaders were notorious. It was said to be one of Hitler’s favorite management techniques, to give ambivalent orders for overlapping responsibilities to two or more of his underlings. In Mao’s Cultural Revolution the factional rivalries apparently got so heated that there were army units fighting in the streets with tanks. In these extreme cases it may have been the deliberate policy of top leaders to divide and control their underlings, or it may be a natural and inevitable result of total government.

Each government department naturally wants to expand forever. When the public has been so tyrannized that there is almost no activity left which is not already controlled by some part of government, the departments must then fight to displace each other if they want to expand. Given the recent lack of fresh, new wealth and unregulated, successful industries to control and plunder in America, perhaps you will see a turf war between the IP Zealots and the Trust Busters.

REPLY

Stranger November 13, 2010 at 1:40 pm

The distinction is really quite obvious. Anti-trust law limits what you can do with your property, while IP laws limit what other people can do with your property (you are still free to limit or not limit other people’s access to your own property).

This makes anti-trust laws anti-economic, while IP laws are pro-economic.

REPLY

Stephan Kinsella November 13, 2010 at 2:25 pm

Stranger, you are confused: IP laws tell others what they can do with their OWN property. For example one effect of a patent on a method for tweaking your engine to get better mileage would be that I cannot tweak my own car’s engine to get better mileage.

REPLY

Stranger November 13, 2010 at 2:45 pm

There’s no need for me to explain this fallacy, as Rothbard already did so long ago in Man, Economy and State.

http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap10e.asp#7._Patents_Copyrights

REPLY

Matthew Swaringen November 13, 2010 at 3:21 pm

You said “IP law” when you should have said copyright then. If you agree only with copyright you should clarify your terms. You engage in (perhaps unintentional) deception when you have spoken in defense of IP only to trump someone who gives a patent example with talk of how only copyright is valid.

Nevertheless, Rothbard was wrong.

“For literary creations are unique products of the individual; it is almost impossible for them to be independently duplicated by someone else.”

One might agree with this statement, but it only applies towards the whole sum of a book. Surely someone can write a similar plot, paragraph, character, or come up with a similar name? And yet copyright applies not only to entire books. There is “fair use” but fair use excludes the right to produce adaptations or extended works. Why would Rothbard disallow this? He might not disallow this, in which case his argument is not for anything like current copyright law. The problem is he doesn’t say, so exactly what copyright entails is entirely unclear.

He does imply copyright could be used for inventions that are sold, requiring the purchaser not to reverse-engineer them. But say that the purchaser does anyway, and a third party benefits who wasn’t party to that agreement. Say the third party has no knowledge of that agreement whatsoever, and produces a similar device. What recourse has the original seller against the third party? And what justification is there for recourse?

Rothbard didn’t think this through. And the reason he didn’t think this through is because the conditions of his time didn’t warrant a lot of thought on the subject. This is unfortunate. I think if Rothbard were from this era he would have come to the right conclusions. You may think differently on that matter, but what should at least be clear is that Rothbard didn’t spend nearly sufficient time to explain the whole of what his copyright entailed in comparison to the state, and all of it’s ramifications in a society where copying is nearly free.

“There would, however, be copyright for any inventor or creator who made use of it, and this copyright would be per­petual, not limited to a certain number of years. Obviously, to be fully the property of an individual, a good has to be perma­nently and perpetually the property of the man and his heirs and assigns.”

This idea is not so devastating when one thinks of an entire book and the rights to print and reproduce that book, except what if the heirs of the man’s heirs are fools and don’t give anyone the right to print the book, a choice the man would not have made? What if knowledge is lost to all because of their choice? This is ok? Perhaps to you it is, but to me it is a travesty.

When I think of land as property, I think of homesteading and improvements made to the land. But if an heir allows the property to be reclaimed by nature, does not exist on the land or use the land… is he the owner of it? I would say he isn’t any longer. One cannot gain land simply by claiming it, one has to do something to earn that ownership. And that something has to continue. To disagree with this principle is to say that ownership should last even when the scarce resources aren’t in use, and to say that I should be able to claim “all unused parts of the world” and shoot anyone who dares enter them.

REPLY

ABR November 14, 2010 at 12:24 am

Rothbard believed that land once homesteaded must remain ‘owned’ until or if the owner declares otherwise.

REPLY

Matthew Swaringen November 14, 2010 at 1:38 pm

I wouldn’t agree with him on that either.

Zorg November 14, 2010 at 8:34 pm

As I recall, he left the door open for abandonment of property in land.
His underlying assumption was that the present owner of record had
the superior *claim*. If another comes along to challenge that claim, then
that newcomer would have to show that his claim is superior.

Rothbard pretty much dismissed other theories of land ownership. He
talked about the importance of land being managed by absentee owners
and speculators even if it’s “unused” at present. I think he correctly sensed that there are a lot of pitfalls here. Some people have gone over the edge and seem
to want to start from scratch. If that is not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know
what is.

Rothbard just said that you’d have to challenge a title and then prove your
case. I don’t think he dismissed the idea that property could be considered abandoned at some point and that a “squatter” could homestead it. But he
was arguing against people – mostly socialists of one kind or another – who
still view property through collectivist lenses even when they give a nod to
private property.

I think there is more work to be done regarding land just like there is more
to be done on IP and other property issues. It does take time for these issues
to unfold and get the attention they deserve. Bad arguments take time to
reveal all their flaws just as good arguments need to be proven over time as they
withstand the attacks of less worthy arguments.

Latarsha Aunkst November 27, 2010 at 11:56 am

I’m sure I will get very angry reading more of this.

1. See Hsieh and Mossoff on IP and Sewing Machines; When Antitrust and Patents Collide (Rambus v. FTC); The Schizo Feds: Patent Monopolies and the FTC; The Schizophrenic State; Intel v. AMD: More patent and antitrust waste; Are Patents “Monopolies”?; Patents, Prescription Drugs, and Price Controls. [↩]
2. See note 10 and accompanying text of my article Reducing the Cost of IP Law (“Once again, as in the case of minimum-wage, social-security, and prounion laws, federal legislation works in favor of big business, … For a recent example, UPS is currently lobbying Congress to enact legislation that would redefine its rival, FedEx, as a trucking company rather than the airline it started out as in an attempt to make it easier for the Teamsters union to unionize FedEx drivers and raise their wage rates—and of course FedEx’s cost structure. See Del Quentin Wilber & Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Taking the Hill By Air and Ground: Shift in Congress Favors Labor, UPS Over FedEx, Washington Post (September 14, 2007).

   See also Murray N. Rothbard, Origins of the Welfare State in America, Mises.org (1996) (“Big businesses, who were already voluntarily providing costly old-age pensions to their employees, could use the federal government to force their small-business competitors into paying for similar, costly, programs…. [T]he legislation deliberately penalizes the lower cost, ‘unprogressive,’ employer, and cripples him by artificially raising his costs compared to the larger employer.… It is no wonder, then, that the bigger businesses almost all backed the Social Security scheme to the hilt, while it was attacked by such associations of small business as the National Metal Trades Association, the Illinois Manufacturing Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers. By 1939, only 17 percent of American businesses favored repeal of the Social Security Act, while not one big business firm supported repeal.… Big business, indeed, collaborated enthusiastically with social security.”); Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “The Economics Of Discrimination,” in Speaking of Liberty (2003), at 99 (“One way the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] is enforced is through the use of government and private ‘testers.’ These actors, who will want to find all the “discrimination” they can, terrify small businesses. The smaller the business, the more ADA hurts. That’s partly why big business supported it. How nice to have the government clobber your up-and-coming competition.”); Rothbard, For A New Liberty (2002), pp. 316 et seq.; Rothbard, The Betrayal of the American Right, 185-86 (2007) (“This is the general view on the Right; in the remarkable phrase of Ayn Rand, Big Business is ‘America’s most persecuted minority.’ Persecuted minority, indeed! To be sure, there were charges aplenty against Big Business and its intimate connections with Big Government in the old McCormick Chicago Tribune and especially in the writings of Albert Jay Nock; but it took the Williams-Kolko analysis, and particularly the detailed investigation by Kolko, to portray the true anatomy and physiology of the America scene. As Kolko pointed out, all the various measures of federal regulation and welfare statism, beginning in the Progressive period, that Left and Right alike have always believed to be a mass movement against Big Business, are not only backed to the hilt by Big Business at the present time, but were originated by it for the very purpose of shifting from a free market to a cartelized economy. Under the guise of regulations “against monopoly” and “for the public welfare,” Big Business has succeeded in granting itself cartels and privileges through the use of government.”); Albert Jay Nock, quoted in Rothbard, The Betrayal of the American Right, 22 (2007) (“The simple truth is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government they can use. Offer them one made on Spencer’s model, and they would see the country blow up before they would accept it.”).

   See also Timothy P. Carney, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money (2006), and also Rothbard, Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal (“This is the general view on the right; in the remarkable phrase of Ayn Rand, Big Business is “America’s most persecuted minority.” Persecuted minority, indeed! Sure, there were thrusts against Big Business in the old McCormick Chicago Tribune and in the writings of Albert Jay Nock; but it took the Williams-Kolko analysis to portray the true anatomy and physiology of the American scene. … As Kolko pointed out, all the various measures of federal regulation and welfare statism that left and right alike have always believed to be mass movements against Big Business are not only now backed to the hilt by Big Business, but were originated by it for the very purpose of shifting from a free market to a cartelized economy that would benefit it. Imperialistic foreign policy and the permanent garrison state originated in the Big Business drive for foreign investments and for war contracts at home.”)

   See also the Wikipedia article on Rothbard: “Rothbard was equally condemning of relationships he perceived between big business and big government. He cited many instances where business elites co-opted government’s monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy in a manner benefiting them at the expense of their competitive rivals. He wrote in criticism of Ayn Rand’s “misty devotion to the Big Businessman” that she: “is too committed emotionally to worship of the Big Businessman-as-Hero to concede that it is precisely Big Business that is largely responsible for the twentieth-century march into aggressive statism…”^[49] According to Rothbard, one example of such cronyism included grants of monopolistic privilege the railroads derived from sponsoring so-called conservation laws.^[50]” [↩]

[From my Webnote series]

From LRC and Libertarian Standard:

Laugh at the State, Mock the Regime

Kathryn Muratore, James Ostrowski and I were recently discussing over email one proposal some people are bandying about as a response to the TSA naked scanner abomination (see Kathryn’s blog Stop TSA Scanners). The proposal is to serve the TSA by filing some kind of “Show Cause Order” in federal court, to demand the TSA “give a reason for them to continue to do these searches which are clearly unconstitutional”–thus you bury the TSA in paperwork and back them into a corner using this “Show Causes” maneuver. Now this sounds a little desperate and crankish to me, sort of like all these “common law court” nuisance liens the gold-fringe-on-the-“admiralty”-flag crowd like to file (which may be heroic, though futile, since the states just criminalize it).

But I don’t know; I’m not a litigator. Ostrowski’s view was: “I’m a big believer in direct action and not litigation. The best way to stop this is through a boycott and/or street theater–make fun of this odious practice.”

He has a good point. Earlier this year I was on a panel (discussed here) with Hoppe and DiLorenzo. In response to a question about the prospects for liberty, I noted the importance of economic literacy, in part to deflate the mistaken belief on the part of decent people that the state is necessary and legitimate. Without the tacit support of the state’s legitimacy, it could not exist. And this is why it is important to laugh at the state.  Hoppe agreed, saying he has actually considered featuring a libertarian comedian at an upcoming  event, and DiLorenzo explained that one reason he often mocks the state and its media cheerleaders is for this very purpose–he gave the example of ridiculing Rachel Maddow in a recent LRC post where he referred to her getting her “panties in a knot”. We need to show these people as buffoons and clowns and to make people take them less seriously. (See also the Mises Daily article Laughing at the Regime.)

So: laugh at them, mock them, ridicule them, jeer them, scoff. Do not take them seriously.

[Cross-posted from LRC]

From Libertarian Papers:

I am seeking volunteer referees to review 7 draft articles submitted to Libertarian Papers. I list the titles and Abstracts of a few of them below.

If you are potentially interested in reviewing any of these, or if you have any particular referee suggestions for any of them, please contact me. I’d be happy to send blind drafts to anyone who is interested in considering reviewing any of these.

***

1. “Government Through The Eyes of Emergence”
Abstract: Examining the legitimacy of government by using Reductionist and Emergent principals. The essay addresses issues on morality, the is – ought fallacy, and the misrepresentation of government.

2. “Choice and Language Shift”
Abstract: What is the adequate normative response to a growing trend of language shift in a given small linguistic community, either a minority or a majority community in a given liberal country? This essay attempts to answer this question. I shall analyze carefully whether the members of this small linguistic community choose to continue (or choose not to continue) to use their mother tongue. Carefully examining the ‘choice’ aspect of the decision to shift from language A to B is important for the analysis of a language shift scenario, as a proper understanding of the ‘shifting decision’ is crucial for any attempt to theorize about the proper governmental response to a language-shift scenario.

I shall analyze the decision to shift from one’s mother tongue to a different language, following three different theoretical perspectives: libertarian, left-liberal, and national/identity. Following which I shall analyze three potential governmental responses to a language shift scenario from the same three theoretical perspectives: libertarian, left-liberal and national/identity. The last part of the essay discusses arguments that may assist us in deciding among the potential governmental responses described.

3. “The Current Evidence for Hayek’s Cultural Group Selection Theory”
Abstract: In this article I summarize Friedrich Hayek’s cultural group selection theory and describe the evidence gathered by current cultural group selection theorists within the behavioral and social sciences supporting Hayek’s main assertions. Before concluding with a few comments on Hayek as a libertarian, I also describe three ways in which current cultural group selection theory has superseded Hayek’s views.

4. “Reexamining the Federal Monetary Powers”
Abstract: The present paper challenges today’s consensus that the Constitution plays no role in limiting the federal government’s exercise of its monetary powers. Noting a growing international consensus regarding the need for monetary reform and reviewing the Supreme Court decisions which led to today’s American monetary system, the author argues that unless the Constitution is returned to its proper role in limiting the federal government’s exercise of monetary powers, a legal system may emerge far beyond the control of the American people and absolutely contrary to their best interests.

5. “Praxeological implications for Belief and the case against Value Pluralism”
Abstract: In this brief essay, I outline the implications of Praxeology for a variety of kinds of Value pluralism. I attempt to show how action, logic and even belief itself, results in a self refutation of these doctrines.

6. “Mises’s Defense of Liberty: A Critique”
Abstract: What this paper attempts to demonstrate is that, in his treatise Liberalism, Mises’ defense of liberty is incomplete because his reasoning in favor of liberty for all is – not of a moral, but – exclusively of an economic kind. Without a moral justification, Mises’s defense –- once the aim of productivity has been abandoned–is forced to affirm with cold indifference that a society of slaves is no better or worse than one of free men. There exists a more comprehensive defense.

7. “Contemporary Philosophy Versus the Free Society“
(from introduction): Some would have it that we can have a philosophy of freedom without, well, a philosophy. In other words, they find it rather pointless to dwell on various philosophical topics, such as free will versus determinism, the problem of knowledge, what is the nature of right conduct and so forth. Instead they wish to focus on so called practical issues, such as how much prosperity or science or satisfaction is produced in a relatively free versus planned society. As if these considerations didn’t have some philosophical dimensions.

Without by any means implying that philosophical issues are exclusively central to a defense of a just system of human community life, it would be of some value to see what philosophy can—indeed, needs to—contribute to such a task. Let me take a brief look at some of the most important of these.

Love this post by Bryan Caplan:

Why T.V. is Great for the Family

Yesterday my baby acquired a valuable life skill: He learned how to watch television.  I’m thrilled for at least three reasons:

1. Television is fun.  I don’t want my son to miss out on one of life’s great pleasures.

2. Television is a cheap electronic baby-sitter that allows parents of young kids to get a much-needed break.

3. When my son is older, the threat to deprive him of television will become one of our most convenient and effective tools of discipline.  The naughty corner‘s usually enough, but when bad behavior persists, it’s time for a night without t.v.

Won’t t.v. stunt my baby’s cognitive development?  Hardly.  Twin and adoption studies find zero long-run effect on IQ of all family environment combined.  Television’s isn’t just a drop in the bucket; it’s a drop in a bucket that doesn’t hold water.

One reason I like it is I’m sick of “Oh, I don’t have a television” snobs. Also of hand-wringing one-size-fits-all humorless drones.

Another development I like is the rise of the slackers and hackers and young who don’t have TVs anymore, not because they are anti-TV pretentious faux-intellectual snobs, but because they are cheap (though some pretend they are not) and prefer to use Hulu, laptops, Netflix streaming, and so on instead of paying for cable.

In recent Leonard Peikoff podcasts, we learn:

• Peikoff forbids the Kindle version of Atlas Shrugged from using the text-to-speech option because he knows Ayn Rand would not have wanted this. I guess there are no blind Objectivists! (Episode 132, at 13:52-)
• The proper use of profanity in sex;
• It’s okay to use porn for masturbation but … maybe not (you might be enabling an immoral career choice);
• If your neighbor has a yappy dog buy an “air” gun to shut him up and when that doesn’t work sue the neighbor;
• It’s okay for the state to ban a political party during wartime, but not in peacetime;
• Why the Tea Party might be somewhat beneficial, but not too much (okay this is a decent commentary);
• What kind of sex life is appropriate for Eddie Willers;
• Is it an Objectivist sin to look at Munch’s The Scream?

From LRC 2010:

Why Is Jonah Goldberg Still Here?