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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 116.

This is my recent appearance on Michael Shanklin’s Triple-V: Voluntary Virtues Vodcast with Michael Shanklin (my segment starts about around 1:11:23 of the video below). We discussed a variety of topics fraud and contract theory, and so on. Apparently Christopher Cantwell was on before I joined, but as we had had some words previously, he ducked out before I joined and then rejoined after I came on. It seemed a bit like an ambush to me, but I tried to be patient and explain things to him he was confused about, regarding fraud, his facebook page being taken down due to a complaint, contract and property theory, and so on.

Some background material for these topics can be found at:

• A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability;
• Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach;
• What Libertarianism Is;
• The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld;
• Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and “Rearrangement Rights”;
• Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value;
• “Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:48 — 104.8MB)

In 1978 or so, in seventh grade at St. George, a Catholic elementary school in Baton Rouge, one of my favorite teachers was Mr. Owens. In 1989, when I was in grad school, I sent him the following letter (somewhat edited here). He was by then the principal of St. George and a friend who visited years later said he saw a copy of my letter pinned on the bulletin board being Mr. Owens’s desk. I took that to mean he was happy to have gotten the letter. He passed away a few years ago.

***

Sunday, July 30, 1989

Mr. Jim Owens, Principal
St. George Elementary School
7880 Siegen Lane
Baton Rouge, LA 70809

Dear Mr. Owens,

I don’t know if you remember me or not.  I used to be a student of yours at St. George, when I was in the 7th grade.  I think that was in 1978 or so.  You taught me religion.

You might not remember this either, but I haven’t forgotten.  You always gave us puzzles and riddles to work out.  For example, if you have 99 marbles of one color and 1 of the other color in a bag, what is the most you would have to pull out to be sure what the dominant color is.  Or, in the famous Alpha (truth tellers) and Beta (liars) puzzle, what do you ask the native at the bridge to see if the bridge is safe.  Etc. [The solution is: you ask the native: if you were a member of the other tribe, and I asked you if the bridge were safe to cross, what would you answer? And then the answer is the opposite of the answer.]

Well, one puzzle you gave us was:  if you have three cities at the top, and three at the bottom, can you draw a road from each city at the top to each at the bottom without crossing roads?  We tried and tried, all of us students, to get that one; no one could find a solution.  We always had to cross some lines.  When we told you we thought it was impossible, you said, “Ahh, but can you prove it’s impossible?”  Which none of us could.

I am writing to present you with the proof. [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 115.

I was interviewed back in May 2012 by Redmond Weissenberger, [RIP] Director of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. We had a long-ranging discussion of the issue of corporations and limited liability, and we touched on other issues as well including causation and responsibility and the praxeological structure of human action; intellectual property; gay marriage and language; human rights as property rights, and free speech; corporate size and international trade in a free society, vs. left-libertarian claims to the contrary; nuclear power, energy, and environmentalists; eminent domain and the Keystone pipeline; Peter Klein and Murray Rothbard on the calculation problem and the upper limit to the firm; state monopolies versus the market; and practical and moral aspects of tax evasion and tax avoidance.

For background on some of the issues discussed, see my post Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation; also Causation and Aggression and California Gay Marriage Law Overturned: What Should Libertarians Think?; Peter Klein’s chapter “Economic Calculation and the Limits of Organization,” in The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur: Essays on Organizations and Markets; The Effects of Patent and Copyright on Hollywood Movies; Leveraging IP.

For some more recent discussions of the corporation issue, see these podcasts: KOL100 | The Role of the Corporation and Limited Liability In a Free Society (PFS 2013) and KOL 026 | FreeDomain Radio with Stefan Molyneux discussing Corporations and Limited Liability.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:26:46 — 79.4MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 114. Stef and I talk about libertarian ethics, UPB, self-ownership, argumentation ethics, careers, schooling, and related matters—back from November 2013.

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 113.

Audio version (narrated by Carlos Morales) of my article “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide,” Mises Daily (May 27, 2011).

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 112.

Update: see KOL419 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Corey Deangelis: School Choice

From the vault. This is from 1989, an interview by my good friend Jack Criss, then host of a libertarian AM radio talk show on WJNT in Jackson, Mississippi (now the editor of BAMSouth). Jack interviewed lots of libertarian luminaries on that show, including Murray Rothbard and many others.

At the time of this podcast I was an LSU law student and was talking in favor of educational vouchers—something I completely disagree with now, by the way. But I had not yet at the time reached the full flower of my current Austro-libertarian-anarchist radicalism. To my ear, too, I think I had a thicker Louisiana accent back then.

Good times.

For criticism of voucher:

• KOL419 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Corey Deangelis: School Choice
• Lew Rockwell, Education and the Election
• William Anderson, The Trouble with Vouchers
• Jacob Hornberger, “School Vouchers Are Anti-Libertarian,” Hornberger’s Blog (Future of Freedom Foundation) (July 5, 2022)
• ———, “More on Anti-Libertarian School Vouchers,” Hornberger’s Blog (Future of Freedom Foundation) (July 6, 2022)
• Bob Murphy Show ep 105: Corey DeAngelis Makes the Case for School Choice
• Jacob Hornberger Makes the Case AGAINST School Vouchers (with Bob Murphy — Bob Murphy show ep. 248)
• Tom Woods Show: Ep. 2325 Corey DeAngelis and Connor Boyack: The State’s Schools Are Beyond Repair
• Tom Woods Show: Ep. 2211 Corey DeAngelis on the School Choice Movement
• Kinsella, “Negates freedom of choice,” Letter to the Editor, The Morning Advocate (Dec. 21, 1988), and related correspondence related to the voucher system and school choice, 1988–89 (Note: Written in a more Randian “Objectivist” phase, and before I came to oppose voucher systems.)

Related:

• Rose City Catholics Fight for LGBTQ Rights—and Start a War With Portland’s Archbishop (July 5, 2023)

Update: Soho Forum Debate: resolved: “Today’s school-choice movement in the U.S. is worthy of support by libertarians…” (taking the negative), vs. Corey DeAngelis, New York City (Aug. 21, 2023) (tickets)

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:29 — 68.1MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 111.

This was my appearance on Daniel Rothschild’s youtube channel on Jan. 20, 2014; we discussed a variety of topics, getting really into the nitty-gritty of a lot of aspects of libertarian legal theory.

For some background on some issues discussed, see:

• Trademark versus Copyright and Patent, or: Is All IP Evil?
• The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld
• Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach
  

Previous podcast with Daniel: KOL095 | Interview with Daniel Rothschild on Children’s Rights, Aggression, Contract Theory, Self-Ownership, Voluntary Slavery, and More. See also: KOL004 | Interview with Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:40 — 56.7MB)

Legislação e direito em uma sociedade livre, Portugese translation of “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010). Translations of my other writing is here.

I did a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread recently, on the anarcho-capitalist sub-reddit, here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/1vd8s9/i_am_stephan_kinsella_anarcholibertarian_writer/.

Previous Reddit AMA’s I did: Reddit Ask Me Anything Thread. One I did a year ago is at My reddit “ask me anything”.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 110.

I appeared recently on the Canadian libertarian podcast Ed and Ethan: The Voice of Liberty in Canada (Dec. 29, 2013) (I was a guest last year as well). We discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other matters. This is my segment only; for the full show, go to Ed and Ethan’s show page for Episode 90.

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 109. This is the audio for episode 005 of Liberty Talk, a weekly-ish Google hangout-based podcast with Jeffrey Tucker and me (Google Plus page; Youtube Channel). Though it’s been a month since our last one. Hey, it happens.

Today: we discuss Adam Kokesh and his recent brush with the “law” (see FDR2561), Liberty.me, 3D Printing, libertarian activism, nonscarce goods, intellectual property, The Mises Seminar Australia, trade secrets, and more.

Next week: we discuss Richard Posner, Richard Epstein, and the Chicago school, and their argument for IP.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:25 — 76.0MB)