StephanKinsella.com

Stephan Kinsella’s Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) is now available in a Chinese translation as 自由社会的法律根基 (Feb. 2025) (pdf) (previous draft mentioned here). The proofread text of the translation is also available below.

The book was translated by Li San (李三) of the Mises Translation and Compilation Society (米塞斯编译社译丛), a group dedicated to translating and editing the classic works of the Austrian School.

As the Society is not licensed to publish, I plan to publish paper and kindle versions of this with Papinian Press. Stay tuned.

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There is apparently yet another new libertarianism-related book in the works: The Freedom Scale: An Accurate Measure of Left and Right, by one Christopher Cook, whom I have never heard of before (h/t Adam Haman). See:

• “Why You Should Read This Book: Teaser and praise for ‘The Freedom Scale’ (Read me first.)”
• Title Page and Dedication

My initial impressions from a quick glance: [continue reading…]

I have argued against voluntary slavery contracts previously (see “A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability,” Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS], Part III.C.1; KOL285 | Disenthrall: Contracts with Stephan Kinsella; see also my query to Grok, appended below).

As I wrote in LFFS:

But in the case of an attempted voluntary slavery contract, the promisor, by saying, “I promise to be your slave,” or “I give my body to you” does not commit an act of aggression. It does not create any victim who has a right to retaliate against him. So if the would-be slave decides to renege on his promise and run off, the would-be master has no right to use force to stop him. It is always current consent that matters. If a girl promises a kiss at the end of the date and the boyfriend an hour later kisses her, she cannot claim it was nonconsensual. In effect, she communicated her consent, she set up a standing presumption that is reasonable to rely on—until and unless she changes her mind. If at the end of the date she announces she no longer wants a kiss, it is that consent that matters. It is always the most recent consent that matters since this is the best evidence for what was consented to. There is nothing in libertarianism that says people cannot change their minds. To simply state that you can make an irrevocable, binding promise is just question-begging since it is just another way of sneaking in the assumption that our bodies are alienable, even though our rights to our body do not stem from homesteading or acquisition but rather from our direct control of them.

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In discussing an article by Ron Johnson, The Government Says Money Isn’t Property—So It Can Take Yours, I mentioned that in previous writing ¹ I had argued that just as bitcoin is not ownable, in today’s world of fiat money even dollars are not exactly ownable—but that I would not want to get the state to accept this argument at present time. A friend asked me: “what would follow if the courts accepted your premise? How could that affect intellectual property law?” [continue reading…]

1.  Nobody Owns Bitcoin and Libertarian Answer Man: Eminent Domain and Ownership of State Monetary Payments. [↩]

From an email:

In my book Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), ch. 5, p. 73, n.23, I provide a quote, “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you are saying.” which I took from an article by Clarence Carson. Carson calls it an “old saw” but provides no attribution.

I have realized this is a version of a quote widely attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. According many sources on the Internet, the original quote is “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Emmet Fox, in The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life (HarperOne, Reissue ed., 2009), provides a subtly different version, also attributed to Emerson: “What you are shouts so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

I found it curious that none of the sources attributing this to Emerson provide a citation. I was unable to find this exact quote anywhere in Emerson’s work. With the help of people on Twitter, I finally came across this: “What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary,” from this paragraph:

Let nature bear the expense. The attitude, the tone, is all. Let our eyes not look away, but meet. Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, “I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

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Interesting recent paper, Norbert Slenzok, “Libertarians Against the American World. A Critical Analysis,” Athenæum: Polish Political Science Studies 84, no. 4 (2024): pp. 7–27 (pdf).

Abstract:

The paper deals with the view of contemporary world politics presented by American libertarians. Specifically, it examines the claims of Murray N. Rothbard and his successors with regard to the role of the United States of America in the international arena. The article argues that since the Cold War, the libertarian account of international relations has been staunchly critical of the US, while exhibiting a soft spot for competing powers, particularly the USSR and the Russian Federation. As the article submits, this asymmetry is supported by two flawed theoretical contentions: the liberal imperialism thesis (LIT) and the American hegemony thesis (AHT). Moreover, the article shows how anti-Americanism impinges on libertarian analyses of contemporary Central- Eastern European politics, in particular the war in Ukraine.

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[UPDATE: See final version here]

Here is a first draft of a translation of Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) into Chinese, translated by Li San (李三). The following is not yet proofread, according to the translator.

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I’ve learned and profited a great deal from libertarian legal scholar Randy Barnett’s work—on contract theory, punishment, constitutional and ninth amendment issues, originalism, and more. ¹

In his really unique and excellent new book, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (2024), which I read cover to cover, he has an intriguing section near the end on “What’s Next for Libertarianism” where he hints a possible future book extending his previous thought on liberty and libertarianism. He suggests several extensions to or possibly modifications to libertarianism that might try to address. For example: “If we are to be libertarians and not propertarians, … libertarians need also to be concerned about threats to individual liberty now posed by privately owned companies. … A good theoretical start would be to separate the “public-private” binary from the “government-nongovernment” binary.” I have concerns about conservatives and libertarians who try to blur the distinction between between private and state actors—for example in attempts to subject big tech platforms to defamation liability out of spite or because they just don’t like them ², or in arguments that private actors (banks, big tech, New York Times) are really “part of the state” and thus it’s fine to subject them to otherwise unjust and unlibertarian laws, such as libel law, or even to justify having the state regulate these corporations, since they are after all effectively state organs ³—but it would be interesting to see Barnett grapple with these matters. [continue reading…]

1. See my review of his book, The Structure of Liberty, “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), and many other references to Barnett’s work in this book. [↩]
2. No, Libertarians, We Should NOT Abolish the CDA §230 and DMCA Safe Harbors! [↩]
3. KOL354 | CDA §230, Being “Part of the State,” Co-ownership, Causation, Defamation, with Nick Sinard; Van Dun, Barnett on Freedom vs. Property; Is Macy’s Part of the State? A Critique of Left Deviationists; on Block’s defamation suit against the New York Times, see Walter Block Defends His Libel Suit Against The New York Times; A Libertarian Analysis of Suing for Libel (“How … can I justify suing the New York Times for libel? It is simple. The libertarian case against suing for libel applies only to innocent people, and this newspaper does not at all qualify. Rather, this organization is a member in good standing of the ruling class, and all bets are off for criminals of that ilk.”), and others here. [↩]

Dear Mr. Kinsella:

If you have the time I wanted to ask for some clarification regarding your views on positive obligations and their relationship with aggression and bringing children into the world.

In your article “How we come to own ourselves” you argue libertarianism is not inherently against positive obligations just unchosen obligations. You say one can incur positive obligations by commiting aggression. You use the analogy of pushing a person into a lake (aggressing against them) that creates a positive obligation to rescue them. You then say bringing an infant into the world with certain needs is akin to pushing a person into a lake.

My question is, does this mean bringing an infant into the world is aggression which then creates a chosen obligation to feed the infant (rescue them from the situation you’ve put them in)? Is this an accurate reading of your argument? [continue reading…]

Interesting new article: Stephen Crosswell, “The Common Law and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations,” Journal of Global Trade, Ethics and Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2024): 1–33.

Adam Smith developed a theory of the ‘four-stage’ advancement of society as England was entering the Industrial Revolution (the fourth stage) and becoming the leading commercial centre in the world. That transition was raising new and novel legal issues that required legal solutions more complex than the earlier three stages in human advancement, as innovation gave rise to new technologies and ways of working. He and other juridical thinkers saw the debate about whether legislation could effectively drive that transition as the central question of their time, the answer to which would, in the long run, affect the fate of nations and Empire. They had a clear view on this, informed by the study of thousands of years of human history. For them, the common law was vastly superior.

This article examines the debate that took place on these issues, the Benthamite revolution that followed and the modern basket of rights that obfuscate the key question that policy-makers should be asking in our generation: if the common law was so successful in driving the Industrial Revolution, what confidence can we have in a legislated approach as we move into the fifth stage, the Technology Revolution? This is one of the most important issues facing the world as societies decide what legal framework(s) will regulate humanity’s move into a digital society and the efforts to discover and invent the technologies that will support us on that journey.

Related:

• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution: An Explanation of Social Evolution (PFS 2009)
• Stephan Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023)