StephanKinsella.com

The crazy is in the “minarchist” corner. https://t.co/7cJPsEPXJK

— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 21, 2025

My new piece for @mises identifies the worst kind of statism: so-called “minarchism.” https://t.co/deoyvvlDJV

— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 20, 2025

Per Bylund, “Minarchism Is Statism Lite,” Mises Wire (Nov. 4, 2025)

It may be true that lovers of liberty, originally steeped in society’s preferred form of social democracy, must travel along the spectrum of the state via small (“minimal”) before reaching the conclusion that the state must go. But logically, this is not the case. To cure cancer, it is not necessary to reduce the size of a tumor bit by bit. The cure is to remove it. Similarly, if a rock upsets the flow of a stream, the solution is not to change the size or shape of the rock, to make it more streamlined, but to simply remove it. [continue reading…]

See posts from Adam Haman below.

Related: re the Flagpole:

• • Ralph Raico, R.I.P.
  • The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats
  • Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases
  • On Pushing the Button–the problem with magic

  • https://t.co/JnjxkMpI1x

  • See also discussion of the flagpole hypo in The Liberty Magazine Polls: 1988, 1999, and 2008: Flagpoles, Parental Obligations, Private Nukes.

https://t.co/JnjxkMpI1x

— Adam Haman (@Rerazer) November 15, 2025

[continue reading…]

Re Vibhu Vikramaditya, “A Blueprint for Decentralized Legal Order: How a Constitutional Floor Can Save Indian Law,” Sindhanaithinktank – Medium (Oct 3, 2025)

Related:

• KOL474 | Where The Common Law Goes Wrong (PFS 2025)
• KOL472 | “What Is Property? And What Is Not? — Part 2 — Fireside Chat on Intellectual Property with Albert Lu,” Capitalism & Morality (Vancouver)
• KOL471 | “What Is Property? And What Is Not? — Part 1,” Capitalism & Morality (Vancouver)

Interesting new article recently called to my attention. See link and excerpts below. Some of the Twitter frother: [continue reading…]

Related:

• Universal Principles of Liberty
• Rights as Metanorms; Rights and Morals as Intersecting Sets Not as Subset of Morals
• Legal Foundations of a Free Society, ch 2, ch. 6 n.22, ch. 14 Part II.A
• LiquidZulu’s Free Course: “The Fundamentals of Libertarian Ethics”
• The “I would never violate rights” is IMO different from the more principled argument Wendy McElroy makes against voting, in her classic article “Why I Would Not Vote Against Hitler.” See https://stephankinsella.com/2023/09/libertarian-answer-man-voting-for-libertarians/#footnote_6_18425 and
  https://libertyunbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Liberty_Magazine_May_1996.pdf

Adam Haman, Misunderstanding the NAP: LiquidZulu attacks Dave Smith… and punches himself in the face. Adam Haman, Haman Nature substack (Nov. 13, 2025)

I just watched (because I’m a masochist) a video over 3 hours in length by a fellow with the handle “LiquidZulu (LZ)”. He used that time to blast Dave Smith for being unsound on libertarian theory and “afraid to debate him” or something. [continue reading…]

Related:

• “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract”
  • A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability
  • Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith
• KOL442 | Together Strong Debate vs. Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery (Matthew Sands of Nations of Sanity)
• KOL004 | Interview with Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery and Inalienability
• Thoughts on Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery, Alienability vs. Inalienability, Property and Contract, Rothbard and Evers
• Batting about voluntary slavery
• Slavery, Inalienability, Economics, and Ethics
• Walter E. Block, “Rejoinder to Kinsella on ownership and the voluntary slave contract,” Management Education Science Technology Journal (MESTE) 11, no. 1 (Jan. 2023): 1-8 [pdf]
• See also KOL395 | Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection (PFS 2022)

From an email discussion with Walter.

I forwarded this email to Walter, that I had sent to some friends. [continue reading…]

Roberta Adelaide Modugno, The Legacy of Murray N. Rothbard: Libertarian and Austrian Economist (Springer, 2025) (Amazon), has just been published. This is a translation of the Italian version published in 2022. I just bought my copy.

Overview:

• Examines how the social and political conditions of the time influenced Rothbard’s ideas and led him to libertarianism
• Outlines Rothbard’s contributions to Austrian economics and the continued importance of his work and ideas
• Explores Rothbard’s engagement with political and social issues, including his opposition to the Vietnam War

[continue reading…]

I stumbled across some pages I had scanned from my notebook for my final semester or so of my first degree, my BSEE at LSU, Fall 1986 and Spring 1987 semesters. My courses included:

• Real Time Computer Systems EE 4770 (Dr. Klinkachorn, Docka Klink)
• Digital Integrated Circuits EE 4250 (Burke Huner)
• Introductory Sociology SOCL 2001
• History of Contemporary America HIST 4065 (Culbert) (with my friend Ben Favrot, or “Fartov”.)

I liked to doodle a lot and was at the time fascinated with Douglas Hofstadter’s “Ambigrams,” making words with mirror images of themselves. (Metamagical Themas; Ambigram (Wikipedia); My Life in Ambigrammia; Ambigrammia.) Nicknames and pet names like Faggot Lip, Smoochball, and so on. Many of my EE buddies were in these classes–Ben Favrot (“Fish”), Chris LeBlanc (“Duck Butter”), Damon Smith, Sal Bernadas, Jimmy1, Jimmy2, “Booger” Wayne LeBlanc, “Pretty” Wayne Speeg, Fat Wayne, and so on. Culbert is the one that had me read Charles Murray’s Losing Ground, Oswald’s Game (which persuaded me Oswald acted alone), and others.

It’s no wonder I went on to grad school and then law school; I loved EE but was sometimes distracted or bored. (For more, see Adopting Liberty: The Stephan Kinsella Story (2025) and various biographical pieces on my site.) ¹ [continue reading…]

1. Such as Yearbook Hijinks, 1984 and 1985, “How I Became A Libertarian,” first published in LewRockwell.com (Dec. 18, 2002), also in Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023); KOL455 | Haman Nature Hn 109: Philosophy, Rights, Libertarian and Legal Careers, discussing my legal career and my avocation and experience in the libertarian intellectual movement; “KOL454 | Interview with my Patent Mentor, Bill Norvell, about Patent Law and Our Days Together,” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (March 10, 2025); “Memories of Meeting Rothbard in 1994“;  “What Sparked Your Interest in Liberty?“; “The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory“; “My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–20192025“; “Interview by The Libertarian“; “Stephan Kinsella on the Logic of Libertarianism and Why Intellectual Property Doesn’t Exist,” an interview with Anthony Wile, originally published in The Daily Bell (March 18, 2012), also in Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023); “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella”; “Libertarians & the Religious Right: an Interview with Stephan Kinsella,” interview by Alberto Mingardi, Laissez Faire City Times, v. 2.39 (1999); “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” interview by Anthony Wile at The Daily Bell (July 20, 2014), also in Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society. [↩]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 477.

As mentioned in the previous episode (KOL476), Alex Anarcho has begun a narration of Against Intellectual Property, with interspersed commentary. He has so far narrated the first two sections the first of which, “Summary of IP Law,” was in KOL476. This episode is Part 2, “Libertarian Perspectives on IP.” I have posted a Youtube video containing both parts. Alex assures me that narrations with commentary of the remainder of the book are forthcoming. These can be found in his Against Intellectual Property series, which includes Part I, What is intellectual property? (KOL476) and Part 2, Libertarian Perspectives on IP (this episode). KOL476 contains the transcript for both parts.

[continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:56 — 77.5MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 476.

Alex Anarcho has begun a narration of Against Intellectual Property, with interspersed commentary. (I appeared on his podcast previously; see KOL444 | Property Rights, Bitcoin, Ideas & Fungibility, with AlexAnarcho.) He has so far narrated the first two sections, the first of which, “Summary of IP Law,” is in this episode. “Libertarian Perspectives on IP” follows in the next episode (KOKL477). I have posted a Youtube video containing both parts. Alex assures me that narrations with commentary of the remainder of the book are forthcoming. These can be found in his Against Intellectual Property series, which includes Part I, What is intellectual property? (this episode), and Part 2, Libertarian Perspectives on IP (KOKL477). [continue reading…]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:24 — 55.1MB)

From Twitter:

Dear
@NSKinsella
, I have a question about argumentative ethics. Isn’t natural law more fundamental, since it is based on human nature, which precedes all language, and therefore much more transcendental than it? Thus being a stronger starting point.

Kinsella:

[From my Webnote series]

Related:

• Mises and Rand (and Rothbard)

Objectivists have long been bitter that libertarians accept most of Objectivism’s politics without accepting the rest of her philosophy: mainly, its metaphysics (objective reality), epistemology (reason), and ethics (self-interest), although most individualist-leaning libertarians more or less do happen to accept these three broad views. Objectivists somewhat crankishly refer to their politics as “capitalism,” just as some anarchist libertarians sometimes use the term anarcho-capitalism. ¹ Objectivism’s capitalism is virtually the same as minarchist libertarianism, ² a term Rand petulantly rejected, even though Objectivism’s “capitalism” is virtually the same as libertarian minarchism; in fact she is one of the main figures behind the modern libertarian movement. ³ [continue reading…]

1. I have for many years tried to avoid the term anarcho-capitalism, since capitalism is just one aspect of the economic system of a free society, and not necessarily the only one. I tend to prefer the term anarcho-libertarian, anarchist libertarian, or libertarian anarchy. See The new libertarianism: anti-capitalist and socialist; or: I prefer Hazlitt’s “Cooperatism”’; Gerard Casey, Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012). [↩]
2. The new libertarianism: anti-capitalist and socialist; or: I prefer Hazlitt’s “Cooperatism”’; The Origin of “Libertarianism”; Rothbard on Leonard Read and the Origins of “Libertarianism”. [↩]
3. Kinsella, “Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?”, in Legal Foundations of a Free Society. [↩]