StephanKinsella.com

Nicholas Dykes: Robert James Bidinotto and “The Contradiction in Anarchism”.

I just recalled interesting article by Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center, Randy Barnett and the Destruction of Federalism. I had made some comments on it to someone in email, which are adapted below. I also commented on this previously in Randy Barnett’s Proposed “Federalism Amendment”. In my view, a better view is that amendments are pointless, as the state is construing its own limits. (See on this Hoppe and de Jasay.) [continue reading…]

What we need is an amendment forbidding the circumvention of the Constitution. It could read: “The Constitution shall not be circumvented.” I just got a big laugh from any lawyers who may be reading this.

–Joe Sobran, “Constitutional Legerdemain,” syndicated column of April 11, 1996 (reprinted in Sobran’s, May 1996, Vol. 3, no. 5, page 12) (quoted here).

Other favorite quotes here.

In Carson: Good Reading!, Sheldon Richman commends Kevin Carson’s Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective, which is fine, but then he seems to accept some standard jabs left-libertarians launch at normal libertarians. My reply:

Sheldon: “the modern American economy is far more the product of government-business collusion than of free markets. Contrary to the way free-marketeers tend to talk, we don’t have an essentially free economy except for a thin interventionist crust that needs to be scraped away. Instead, intervention is woven deeply throughout the economic fabric.”

Radical anarcho-libertarians do not deny this at all. We do not say that we have an essentially free market economy that only has a thin crust that needs to be scraped away. We recognize the entire system is distorted and corrupted.

“Thus our economy would have looked very different had laissez faire been the rule.”

Yes, I think we all know this.

“We can’t undo what has been done, of course, but if all privilege and intervention were abolished, the economy would evolve in a radically different direction than if the State’s favors stay in place.”

Again, this is true, but is this news?

“Libertarians really need to come to grips with this if we are to make a contribution to the continuing debate over political economy.”

Come to grips with it? We know it, and oppose it.

“If we keep sounding like Lawrence Kudlow and Ben Stein, we will be irrelevant.”

Agree with this, but I think this refers more to the Objectivists who romanticize our past, the libertarian centralists who think the Constitution is almost libertarian or can be tweaked a bit or that if we can just persuade the judges to see the light we’ll have libertopia. I don’t think anarcho-libertarians need to come to grips with this. We already see the state for the evil it is, and oppose its intervention in the economy. I am not gainsaying your praise of Carson’s elaboration of this but I am often mystified by left-libertarians presuming to preach to regular libertarians as if we are naifs are apologists for corporatism.

Mises Daily has one of the most powerful, withering attacks on antisemitism ever. By Mises himself: The Socialist Calumny Against the Jews, from Omnipotent Government.

[Mises]

See Stephan Kinsella, “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society [LFFS] (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), n.16; Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value; “Defamation as a Type of Intellectual Property,” in A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, edited by Jörg Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024).

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[From this Mises blog post]

A discussion in the comments section of a post about blackmail brings up an issue about which many libertarians are confused. This concerns the idea of “harm.” Libertarians often condemn “harming” others, and this is fine so far as it goes, if it is kept in mind that “harm” here is loosely meant as a synonym for aggression. But “harm” is really a broader category. Libertarianism says that only aggression may be countered with force, that aggression is the only way to violate rights so that a forceful response is justified. Other rightful behavior, even if it is immoral or “bad,” is rightful so long as it is not aggression. (See my What Libertarianism Is, esp. notes 9-11 and accompanying text.) [continue reading…]

In view of the recent passing of Paul Samuelson, it may be worthwhile to recall the “Symposium: On the Occasion of the Eighteenth Edition of Paul Samuelson’s Economics” in the Summer 2005 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, which contained Samuelson and Rothbard: Two Texts and Two Legacies, by Shawn Ritenour, and Samuelson’s Economics: The Continuing Legacy, by Aron A. Gottesman, Lall Ramrattan, and Michael Szenberg. (Hat tip: Koen Swinkels)

(Mises post)

Update: See the version by Roberta Modugno listed here.

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Against Intellectual Property has been translated into Italian by Mr. Robert Newson: Contro La Proprietà Intellettuale (.doc file). Translations into Spanish, Polish, Portugese and Georgian have been made as well.

[Mises; AM]

An article I wrote as an appendix to a book: Economic Calculation Under Socialism, Appendix I to Protecting Foreign Investment Under International Law: Legal Aspects of Political Risk (1997).

I was a guest on the Bill Handel Show today discussing the libertarian perspective on blackmail, with reference to the Tiger Woods and other cases. (See my post Blackmail should be legal: the case of David Letterman.) We also touched on common law versus legislation (see my Legislation and Law in a Free Society), intellectual property, reputation rights and defamation law, prostitution, and extortion. Handel, though apparently not a libertarian, was a very smart and fair host. [For files, see the Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 32]. It it will be up later on the Bill Handel Show podcast.

Someone put up YouTube versions:

[Mises; AM]

John Perry Barlow‘s 1994 Wired article, “The Economy of Ideas: A framework for patents and copyrights in the Digital Age,” tagged: “(Everything you know about intellectual property is wrong.)”, is a classic. Written at the dawn of the Internet, it’s amazing how non-dated it is. It’s a fascinating, well-written, and insightful paper about the problems of applying classical notions of IP to the digital age. A few choice nuggets:

Intellectual property law cannot be patched, retrofitted, or expanded to contain digitized expression any more than real estate law might be revised to cover the allocation of broadcasting spectrum (which, in fact, rather resembles what is being attempted here). We will need to develop an entirely new set of methods as befits this entirely new set of circumstances.
[continue reading…]