StephanKinsella.com

From a (fairly informal) Facebook post of mine:

First significant thinker to get libertarianism totally right: Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Let me splain.

I view the modern libertarian movement as starting around the 50s or so, with people like Leonard Read, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and a bit later, Rothbard, and the like. Yes there were important forbears—Bastiat, classical liberals, and others. (http://archive.mises.org/18385/the-origin-of-libertarianism/; see also Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?)

But the earlier libertarians always got something major wrong or were missing some major essential points. Most of them were pro-state—not anarchist. Minarchists, classical liberals. That’s a serious problem.

And the ones who were anarchist always seemed to get some major issue wrong. For example, Spooner, who was great on just about everything, was bad on IP (http://c4sif.org/2012/06/tucker-on-spooners-one-flaw/). This flows from a confused concept of the nature of rights and acceptance of the confused idea of the labor theory of property, stemming from Locke’s formulations and overly metaphorical thinking.

Probably the best overall libertarian in pre-modern times was Benjamin Tucker but even he, like lots of the earlier anarchists, was confused on some basic economic issues, the “land” question, etc.—this latter issue even corrupted his heroic opposition to IP: his argument against IP is that it is based on the idea that you own the products of labor (“he who first takes possession of any material production of nature”), but that this would imply you can own land. And we know we can’t have ownership of land, therefore the principle behind IP must be flawed too. [See Land Monopoly and Literary Monopoly]

So Tucker was great, esp. for his time, but not complete.

Further, he was too early to benefit from modern Austrian economics, especially the praxeological-Misesian approach. Which I regard as essential to being a basically modern, complete, systematic, coherent, principled libertarian. You need to be anti-state/anarchist, Austrian (Misesian), and also consistent and very propertarian. Without this it is more proto-libertarian or flawed libertarianism.

Rand was bad on IP (a major issue) and bad on the state. So fail.

Milton Friedman—ditto (at least on the state).

Read was great, and good on IP, and Austrian-ish economics, but he was not an anarchist AFAIK.

Hazlitt was getting closer, but as far as I know he was not an anarchist. In any case, he was not a comprehensive political philosopher.

One of the people I’m learning a bit more about is Sam Konkin III. From everything I know about him he was pretty solid on everything—the state, IP, everything. He was in fact one of the pioneers of the modern anti-IP movement. However, he was more of a minor figure and did not have a fully fleshed out political theory that I am aware of. He is known for “agorism” and his fairly brief (but profound and correct and perspicacious) comments on IP, but ….

So the obvious candidate is Rothbard. Anarchist, radical, propertarian, profound, comprehensive and systematic, steeped in Misesian economics. You might award him this crown. But he misstepped on IP. It is not just a misstep that is the issue here; it is why he did it. He failed to apply his own property rules and contract theory consistently here. And the former was, I think, because he did not emphasize the role of scarcity and conflict at the root of property enough. Being an expert on Misesian praxeology, with its emphasis on the role of scarce means in human action, it’s a bit surprising, but hey, you can’t do everything. Every great thinker stands on the shoulders of giants, as Rothbard himself did (including being influenced Rand’s sort of systematic tying together of various strands of thought into a libertarian-ish whole), even as he was a giant in his own right.

Hoppe, thoroughly steeped in both Mises and Rothbard, finally got it right, IMO. He did not write much about IP but in his brief comments he indicated the right path. And he also focused intensely on property rights, and—crucially, the issue of scarcity and its core relationship to property rights. He built on Rothbard and Mises, with insights from people like Hume (scarcity) and others like Habermas (rights theory, argumentation ethics, which Rothbard enthusiastically endorsed and saw the revolutionary promise of). If you combine Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe, you get the culmination of advanced, consistent libertarian philosophy. (See Hoppe, A Realistic Libertarianism)

Not saying this is perfect or the political philosophy is closed or complete, nor that there is not more work to do. But in my view, the main edifice of modern, radical, principled libertarianism is Rothbardian-propertian-Austro-anarcho-Hoppeanism.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 120.

A computer science student at UT Austin, Adam Camac, asked me to do an interview with him on the referenced topic for purposes of one of his computer science classes. It was an interesting discussion.

Youtube of the video version is below.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:35 — 79.6MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 119.

This is Part 1 of a fairly in-depth discussion I had with Harrison Fischberg (who was on a previous podcast in episode 114) covering various libertarian issues, such as property, the state, strategy and tactics and personal style versus substance, the standard versus Austrian view of homo economicus, Alan Moore versus Alfred Cuzon’s views on anarchy, IP, the importance of technology and the Internet, and so on.

Youtube of the full video version below.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:38 — 66.0MB)

Related:

• J.C. Lester: “Against Against Intellectual Property: A Short Refutation of Meme Communism”;
• “Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism.
• Anarchist Libertarian Jan Lester’s Argument for Intellectual Property;
• The “Ontology” Mistake of Libertarian Creationists;
• Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP
• J.C. Lester: “Against Against Intellectual Property: A Short Refutation of Meme Communism”

Starting around 1:30:00, another deeply flawed attempt to argue for intellectual property. It’s made all the worse in that it comes from an anarchist libertarian, J.C. Lester, author of Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled (conspicuously not online yet. Why some people take time to write books but don’t want to make their ideas accessible is a perennial mystery—but in tune with the IP idea, I suppose). His entire Popperian “conjecturalist” approach is in my view flawed, as his is view that libertarianism is about reducing “impositions,” instead of aggression. See my discussion of some of this in “Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism. See transcript below. [continue reading…]

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 118.

I was a guest on the Tom Woods show on March 28, 2014, Episode 127—our discussion includes an overview of libertarian ideas and an attempt to clear up common confusions.

For more along the same lines, see my Mises Academy course on “Libertarian Controversies” and “Correcting some Common Libertarian Misconceptions,” 2011 Annual Meeting, Property and Freedom Society (May 28, 2011) [podcast here]; also On the Danger of Metaphors in Scientific Discourse.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:55 — 27.4MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 117.

This is the audio for episode 004 of Liberty Talk, an occasional Google hangout-based podcast with Jeffrey Tucker and me (Google Plus page; Youtube Channel).

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:11 — 42.0MB)

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.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:19 — 67.4MB)

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).

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:56 — 9.2MB)