From Mises Blog, July 12, 2006
Maybe some tax expert can set me straight on the following assumptions, but from what I can tell, federal income tax law technically should make it virtually impossible to have a space program and to have anyone but a billionaire as president. Bear with me. [continue reading…]
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 259-2.
Recorded Feb. 8, 2019.
On Feb. 8, 2019, I delivered a talk at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum in Manchester NH: KOL259 | “How To Think About Property”, New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2019. While there I was a guest on the Vin Armani and Dave Butler (of Vin and Dave’s Destination Unknown podcast) livestream of the Free State Project’s New Hampshire Liberty Forum, Day 1 — we discussed government versus the state, intellectual property, and related issues.
Youtube below. I left in the cool “New Hampshire” song on the video excerpt below, but trimmed most of it out for the podcast feed.
Full episode featuring other guests:
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (20.9MB)
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 347.
My appearance on a new youtube channel, This Time I’m Curious (TTIC) with Jesse Munson, Episode 1 (recorded July 4, 2021).
We talked about a variety of topics — the history/evolution of libertarianism and my involvement in it, Ayn Rand, the Ron Paul movement, animal rights, AI consciousness and AI rights, artificial meat, quantum mechanics, UFO’s, music, movies, guilty Youtube pleasures, Objectivism, The Fountainhead, Kinsella’s place in the libertarian movement, alcohol addiction, etc.
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:51:15 — 101.3MB)
Just came across this article I wrote 10 years ago for the Christian Science Monitor, that I had totally forgotten about. (Note: I did not choose the title. I would not use the term “thief” to refer to anyone who uses ideas of others. See Stop calling patent and copyright “property”; stop calling copying “theft” and “piracy” (Jan. 9, 2012).)
Libertarian guru Andrew Galambos’ intellectual property beliefs were so extreme that he paid royalties to the descendants of Thomas Paine every time he used the world “liberty.” But did he steal his radical ideas from someone else?
A bust of Thomas Paine atop his monument in New Rochelle, N.Y. libertarian guru Andrew J. Galambos’ intellectual property views were so extreme that he paid royalties to the descendants of Paine every time he used the word “liberty,” which he claimed was coined by Paine.
Joe Sohm Visions of America/Newscom/File
Christian Science Monitor
By Stephan Kinsella
Guest blogger
I’ve written before about the quirky scientistic California libertarian guru Andrew J. Galambos, and his extreme, crazy IP ideas. 1 Galambos believed that man has property rights in his own life (primordial property) and in all “non-procreative derivatives of his life”—the “first derivatives” of a man’s life are his thoughts and ideas—these are “primary property.” Since action is based on primary property (ideas), actions are owned as well; this is referred to as “liberty.” Secondary derivatives, such as land, televisions, and other tangible goods, are produced by ideas and action. 2 [continue reading…]
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 346.
I was a guest on the Tatiana Show, with host Tatiana Moroz. (Released July 1, 2021, recorded June 30, 2021).
Transcript below.
Youtube:
Original youtube:
From her shownotes:
COPYRIGHT & SATOSHI’S LEGACY WITH STEPHAN KINSELLA OF THE OPEN CRYPTO ALLIANCE
On June 29, 2021, a UK court found that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is the proper copyright owner of the Bitcoin Whitepaper, awarding initial damages in excess of $48,000 to Wright and demanding that Bitcoin.org remove the Whitepaper from its site. Guest Stephan Kinsella of the Open Crypto Alliance joins Tatiana today to talk about the decision and why it reveals all the most troubling problems with the government-run patent, trademark & copyright system. He discusses the background of the case and the personal financial interest that he believes is driving Wright’s copyright trolling campaign. And he also gives his own thoughts on Bitcoin, blockchain technology, smart contracts and more. [continue reading…]
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:34 — 42.6MB)
Stephan Kinsella, “On Jonah Goldberg’s Youthful Phase,” LewRockwell.com (June 27, 2001).
This piece now includes some broken links. In particular, the piece I was replying to is now here: Jonah Goldberg, “The Libertarian Lobe,” National Review (June 22, 2001).
See also my post I hereby expel Bill Maher from the libertarian movement.
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 345.
Related:
Update: See The Universal Principles of Liberty (Aug. 14, 2025) and Libertarian Nation and Related Projects (cataloging various libertarian “free nation” and related projects)
This was my talk delivered today (June 26, 2021) at PorcFest 2021: “Kinsella’s Libertarian “Constitution,” or: State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code.”
The notes that I roughly followed are below; pix also below. Transcript below.
For a related talk, see KOL359 | State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PFS 2021)
Youtube
This is the video with better audio added after from my iphone recording, with the help of Jacob Lovell.
Below is the original with passable audio
Related:
The description from the PorcFest website (which will probably disappear at some time in the future): [continue reading…]
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (28.3MB)
I started this draft article years ago but never finished it. Including it here for google to index for me.
See also Constitutional Structures in Defense of Freedom (ASC 1998) and Structural Safeguards to Limit Legislation.
Related:
Down with the Bill of Rights: Heller and the Central States Cheerleaders
Stephan Kinsella
Draft
June 2008
“[T]he rule of law is a myth and like all myths, it is designed to serve an emotive, rather than cognitive, function. The purpose of a myth is not to persuade one’s reason, but to enlist one’s emotions in support of an idea. And this is precisely the case for the myth of the rule of law; its purpose is to enlist the emotions of the public in support of society’s political power structure.”
Related:
Other:
Starting in 1995, just after Rothbard’s death and after meeting Hans-Hermann Hoppe, 1 I attended several of the interdisciplinary Austrian Scholars Conferences, held by the Mises Institute in the Spring, in Auburn, AL—at the Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center, before the Mises Institute had its own building completed. I presented various papers at the ASCs, many of which were published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies or elsewhere, many of which will be incorporated into my forthcoming Law in a Libertarian World. The ASC has since been superseded by the AERC, or Austrian Economics Research Conference, held in the Spring at Auburn, and the Libertarian Scholars Conference, held a few times in recent years in New York.
For the Austrian Scholars Conference held April 1998, I chaired the Law and Economics panel, and presented a paper, “Constitutional Structures in Defense of Freedom: Are They Possible?” I did not record my talk nor did I ever officially publish the paper, which was somewhat informal and more sketched out as notes for the talk; it is reproduced below.
“Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella,” Mises Economics Blog (Feb. 11, 2011) [archived comments below]
[Update: see various biographical pieces on my publications page, including Alan D. Bergman, Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025).]
Stephan Kinsella is a registered patent attorney and General Counsel for Applied Optoelectronics, Inc; also Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Editor of Libertarian Papers, and Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF). He has published numerous articles and books on IP law, international law, and the application of libertarian principles to legal topics, including International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (Oxford University Press, 2005); Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary (Quid Pro, forthcoming 2011); and Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008). [continue reading…]
Libertarians & the Religious Right: an Interview with Stephan Kinsella (wayback version), by Alberto Mingardi, Laissez Faire City Times, v. 2.39 (1999)
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N. Stephan Kinsella is co-author of the book Protecting Foreign Investment Under International Law: Legal Aspects of Political Risk (Oceana 1997), as well as co-editor of the legal treatise Digest of Commercial Laws of the World (Oceana 1998). He is actively involved with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, one of the best think tanks around.
“As far as libertarianism goes,” says Kinsella about himself, “I am most interested in rights theory, about which I have written in law reviews and other journals like Reason Papers and the Journal of Libertarian Studies, and law and economics. I have attempted to develop a framework justifying and grounding rights, which is based on the legal concept of ‘estoppel’.” |
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 344.
This is my appearance with Adam Terrell of the Theocracy podcast: 022 Copyrights Are Unlawful with Stephan Kinsella (recorded May 7, 2021). From his shownotes:
Now, some of you know I have a background in media production. And I have gotten royalty checks and benefitted from a copyright “tradition” (I don’t call it law) on multiple occasions, and I have family who have had their entire livelihoods supported by it. So how can I say in the title that “Copyrights Are Unlawful?” Stephan Kinsella is my guest today. I found him through Tom Woods’s podcast years back, and I’ve run in to his talks at Mises University online several times. He’s a patent attorney who has helped me think through these issues practically relating to intellectual property and why it doesn’t exist. I believe there is a Bible verse I can point to as well in Exodus, but we’ll get to that. We get in to some less-than-settled issues as well.
Spotify:
Youtube:
Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:22 — 23.8MB)
Stephan Kinsella is a libertarian writer and retired patent attorney in Houston, Texas. He has published widely on various areas of libertarian legal theory and on legal topics such as intellectual property law and international law. His publications include Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Papinian Press, 2023), Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008), International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (Oxford, 2020), and The Universal Principles of Liberty (2025).
My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–20192025
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