Someone on Facebook reminded me of one of my somewhat informal comments providing a summary explanation of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s argumentation ethics defense of libertarian rights. That post first quoted (a summary of) Hoppe thusly:
The mere fact that an individual argues presupposes that he owns himself and has a right to his own life and property. This provides a basis for libertarian theory radically different from both natural rights theory and utilitarianism.
Someone else posted one of my previous comments about this, which had been posted here and which probably originally came from some older Facebook thread track of which I have lost in the mists of Facebook history:
Think of it this way. You don’t care about all this if people are leaving you alone. You just go about your business. But if there is a dispute over your body—say someone wants to rape you or enslave you. Then either they are willing to try to justify it, or not. If not, then they are just criminals and you have to deal with them with force or whatever. If they try to justify then they have to do so in a peaceful context. And remember: all justification is necessarily argumentative justification. That means any conceivable justification, that is, any possible norm that could conceivably be justified, has to be compatible with the norms of argumentation. And those include: peace; the presumption that there is value to cooperation; the presumption that it is desirable that people have the ability to control their own bodies (not only to argue during the argument, but to have survived in the world to the point of making the argument, which requires (unmolested) use of scarce means; etc.
The point is that you can never justify a socialist or criminal ethic. How could you do so? You would have to make an argument, in the course of a peaceful argumentation, that peace is bad. This cannot be done. It is a contradiction. So if you want to commit aggression, you either have to just do it and give up on the idea that you can justify it; or, if you try to justify it, you have to recognize that it cannot be done. By examining the structure of this from the outside, we can recognize that no socialist ethic can ever, in practice, be argumentatively justified.
And to say you do not own yourself outside of argument, is simply to say that some form of socialism is justified. How can two supposedly civilized, mutually-rights-respecting, peace-desiring people (in an argument) ever argue that it’s okay to hit people who have done nothing wrong? If you make that argument, then you have no grounds for refusing to coerce the other guy into accepting your argument—which is contrary to the nature of argumentation which presupposes that each side has the right to disagree with the other and is not being coerced.
I was interviews for Vrijheid Radio (Netherlands) last week, by host Henri Serton. We talked about libertarian property theory, Locke, intellectual property, and related issues. I think it was a very good interview, maybe one of the best I’ve participated in, due in no small part to Serton’s intelligent prodding and questions.
This is my appearance at a New York University School of Law/Journal of Law and Liberty Symposium: “Plain Meaning in Context: Can Law Survive its Own Language?” (February 18, 2011); my panel was “Intellectual Property Law and Policy.” Our panel was preceded by a keynote speech on a somewhat unrelated topic by Professor Richard Epstein, and featured me and two law professors specializing in IP law.
After Epstein’s keynote speech, 1 my talk was first. The podcast here omits Epstein’s speech and begins with my own talk, and continues with the other two panelists’ talks and the Q&A session in which I answered a few questions. The full video, which includes Epstein’s introductory talk, is online here and included below.
Note: near the end of Epstein’s speech (at 48:11, in the embedded video version) I asked him a question about federalism and the doctrine of selective incorporation; he gave a fair answer, but one I disagree with on the grounds the privileges and immunities clause did not unambiguously mean to incorporate a large set of “fundamental rights” into the Fourteenth Amendment, as Raoul Berger has argued. On the IP panel, a more general Q&A and interpanelist interchange session starts around 1:53:14 in the video (57:35 in this podcast excerpt), with me drawing a lot of the questions from fellow panelists and the audience. I was the only one who used a powerpoint; it cannot be seen from the posted video, so the file is here: The problem with IP, and also embedded also below.
I was a guest recently on Red Ice Radio (Sweden), with host Henrik Palmgren, which was broadcast on the July 3, 2013 show. This is hour 1; hour 2 is available to paying subscribers of Red Ice Radio.
Stephan Kinsella – Hour 1 – Against Intellectual Property
July 3, 2013
Stephan Kinsella is Founder and Executive Editor of Libertarian Papers, Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and a member of the Editorial Board of Reason Papers. A registered patent attorney and former adjunct professor at South Texas College of Law, Stephan has published numerous articles and books on IP law, international law, and the application of libertarian principles to legal topics. In the first hour, we’ll discuss individual property and intellectual property. Stephan explains the purpose of property rules and rights. He’ll discuss John Locke’s principle of first appropriation or the homestead principle. Locke argued in support of individual property rights as “natural rights.” We tie this into the Libertarian debate verses other political parties. Then, Kinsella argues the negative impact of intellectual property. He also explains how intellectual property laws control freedom of speech and violate various constitutional amendments. In the member’s hour, Stephan continues to give examples to state his case against intellectual property. We hear how the state profits from these copyright, trademark and patent laws. And we’ll learn about the inordinate power of the copyright industry. He talks about how we’d prosper if the current gatekeeper, guarding intellectual property, eroded as it does more damage than good. Later, we’ll discuss the true free market. Today laws are in place protecting companies from competition. The hour ends on where things are heading and the impact of technological change.
Contra a Propriedade Intelectual, the Portugese translation of Against Intellectual Property, is now available here. An online version is available here. Amazon (kindle and paper) here.
I was a guest on the Feb. 15, 2011 episode of Thinking Liberty, “an interactive libertarian anarchist talk program.” We talked for quite a while about IP; the hosts asked very intelligent questions. This podcast episode begins with my segment, which originally started about 25:00 into the original episode.
“Why Man Made Law Is Slavery!
In this video I talk to Stephan Kinsella of https://stephankinsella.com
We talk about man made law and how it is better to just have contracts with one another.”
I recorded this one during my morning walk. Forgive the audio imperfections, but I had the audio tweaked so it’s not bad. I discuss the argument for the unconstitutionality of IP, namely patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret, which I discussed in a previous post, Copyright is Unconstitutional. For further details, see that post.
Update: One further argument for the unconstitutionality of copyright that I forgot to mention in the podcast is one I mentioned in the referenced post. Namely, the Patent Clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to award patents “to promote the Progress of Science … by securing for limited Times to Authors … the exclusive Right to their respective Writings….” The copyright clause only authorizes Congress to protect an author’s “writings.” To the extent copyright law covers things other than writings–like paintings, movies, music, sculptures, photographs, software code (or at least look-and-feel aspects), boat hull designs–it is also clearly unconstitutional.
Stephan Kinsella joins us this week to discuss his work as a patent lawyer and libertarian, and how it has brought him to the forefront of the anti-IP movement. We discuss the legalities involving intellectual property, the morality of the concept, and whether or not it serves the utilitarian purposes that are used to justify it. Then, towards the end of the show, we discuss emerging technologies that are challenging the validity of intellectual property.
Why are medical devices protected by patent law while medical procedures are exempt? And what about the government’s use of compulsory licenses to force pharmaceutical companies to produce certain drugs like CIPRO. These are two medical-related examples in a long list of arcane exceptions and arbitrary details written in to intellectual property (IP) law. It is commonly believed that IP rights, such as patents, copyrights, and trademarks are necessary to foster innovation and protect the interests of the people and companies that create new products and ideas. Patent attorney Stephan Kinsella of the Mises Institute, holds an opposite view, and in this podcast with Michael Ostrolenk, discusses the growing movement that views IP law as not only anti-competitive and a barrier to innovation, but also as incompatible with true property rights. Michael and Stephan also talk about the evolution of IP from laws like the 1709 Statute of Queen Ann, an attempt by the monarchy to control the output of book printers, the influence of which carried into the copyright and patent provisions in the U.S. Constitution.
Contra a Propriedade Intelectual, the Portugese translation of 
Stephan Kinsella joins us this week to discuss his work as a patent lawyer and libertarian, and how it has brought him to the forefront of the anti-IP movement. We discuss the legalities involving intellectual property, the morality of the concept, and whether or not it serves the utilitarian purposes that are used to justify it. Then, towards the end of the show, we discuss emerging technologies that are challenging the validity of intellectual property.
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