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Libertarian Answer Man: Argumentation Ethics Questions

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From an email:

Hello Mr. Kinsella,

I have been interested in Libertarianism for some time now and Hoppes AE has especially fascinated me. However, I have some questions which were left open. Hoppes central claim seems to be, that you cannot argue without accepting NAP and self-ownership.

Not exactly. It is that all truth claims must be established in argumentation, including claims about what norms or conduct is justifiable. Also, that the activity argumentative justification necessarily presupposes certain norms or values, such as peace, universalizability, non-contradiction, truth, the ability to homestead unowned resources, the ability to control one’s own body, the value of avoiding conflict, and so on; and that these norms–which we may think of as “grundnorms”–cannot be denied without contradiction since they are inevitably presupposed by every participant in argumentative justification; and finally, that any political norm other than libertarianism (that is, all forms of socialism) are incompatible with these grundnorms and thus cannot be argumentatively justified. It is essentially a proof by contradiction: that any non-libertarian political norm contradicts more basic norms that are necessarily presupposed by all participants in argumentation. Socialism is aggression and violence and contradicts the norms presupposed by the participants by virtue of participating in the peaceful activity of argumentation.

I go into some of this in Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) (LFFS), e.g. ch. 2, n. 22, ch. 14 Part II.C, et pass.

But I could be a utilitarian or a moral nihilist, who just uses argumentation to maximise utility or for selfish reasons. It doesn’t require me to accept that me or you own our bodies, just that we control them. Hoppe seems to use ownership and control interchangeably.

I actually address this issue in LFFS, e.g. ch. 22, Part II.G. I think he does use them interchangeably sometimes (English was not his native language) but it does not seriously affect his argument. Hoppe correctly observes that for argument to take place actors must have the ability to control their body, to use standing room, and to have previously acquired and used natural resources; and he also is correct that participants in argumentation cannot object to the right of the parties to have done this. So it does not matter if a nihilist is just pretending to be sincere; it is still the case that it is impossible to argumentatively justify institutionalized aggression, since if and to the extent he is engaging in argumentation then he does recognize the value of peace and the value of he and the other participant being alive and being able to use resources and thus being able to acquire them in a conflict free way, which thus implies grundnorms that are compatible only with libertarianism and not with any form of socialism.

Also saying that one cannot speak is a performative contradiction, but saying that one should not speak seems more like hypocrisy. I would be thrilled, if you could clarify.

I am not sure what you are referring to. AE does not rest on the notion that it is a contradiction to say “one should not speak”.

You should review the more recent literature on this—by Hoppe, me, and others, before coming back with more questions. Many of your questions may be already answered there. See for instance the sources linked below, which I take from an answer to an email I received just a few days ago:

Meanwhile you might check out these in case you are not aware of them: namely, the material listed here, “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide,” including:

these updated chapters in my book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023):

As well as more recent pieces by Hoppe and others listed in the Supplemental Resources and Updates section of that post, e.g.

***

Followup:

Thank you for clarification. One last criticism I have of Hoppe, is that he seems to follow the neo-Kantian mystic tradition of Mises rather than Rothbards Aristotelian approach. However, this is a separate issue.

I think Rothbard’s approach is actually somewhat confused, as the natural rights/natural law idea has flaws, in that it attempts to go from is to ought: e.g., the way something is (its nature) determines what it ought to do. But there is a problem with this approach as Hoppe rightly points out: “[O]ne can readily subscribe to the almost generally accepted view that the gulf between ‘ought’ and ‘is’ is logically unbridgeable.” See Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society, ch. 6, text at n.12 (p. 119). In fact Rothbard himself recognized this:

In a dazzling breakthrough for political philosophy in general and for libertarianism in particular, he [Hoppe] has managed to transcend the famous is/ought, fact/value dichotomy that has plagued philosophy since the days of the scholastics, and that had brought modern libertarianism into a tiresome deadlock. Not only that: Hans Hoppe has managed to establish the case for anarcho-capitalist, Lockean rights in an unprecedentedly hard-core manner, one that makes my own natural law/natural rights position seem almost wimpy in comparison. (Ibid., p. 121)

As for Kant’s “mysticism,” I am not quite sure what you mean but I suppose this is the bound up with the Randian criticism of “mysticism” and Kant and his idealism. In my view, there is nothing mystical about Hoppe’s argument nor about Mises’s own epistemology and methodology which is based on some Kantian concepts and insights (Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics, 3d ed., George Reisman, trans. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2003)).

I assume by mysticism you mean the idealistic interpretation of Kant made by Rand. A few things here. First, I tend to agree with Rand that the Kantian idealism (skepticism, subjectivism) they describe is flawed and their criticisms of it are largely accurate. However, it is far from clear that this is actually what Kant’s views claim. Kant’s writing is complex and sometimes murky, and it appears there are two interpretations of him: the American one which reads him as promoting idealism; and the European interpretation of Kant which is essentially realistic. This latter one is the Kantian approach adopted and employed by Mises and Hoppe, who are realists, and it is perhaps why this realist-Kantian perspective is similar in some respects to the more Aristotelian approach of Rothbard (in ethics, say) and why Rothbard had essentially no problems with the Misesian approach to economics, praxeology, “apriori” truths, and so on, even if he would use different terminology. For more on this see Kinsella, “Mises and Rand (and Rothbard)” and Kinsella, LFFS, ch. 22, n.53; also Rothbard, “The Mantle of Science,” “In Defense of ‘Extreme Apriorism,’” and other chapters in Section One: Method, of Economic Controversies (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011). On Mises’s realism, see Ludwig von Mises, “Epistemological Studies,” in Memoirs, Arlene Oost-Zinner, trans (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009) (formerly Notes and Recollections); Mises’s dismissive remarks on Popper in The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1962), chap. 4, §8 and chap. 7, §4; idem, Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2007 [1957]), chap. 1, §3. See also Edward W. Younkins, “Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond,” J. Ayn Rand Stud. 6, no. 2 (Spring 2005): 337–74, p. 342 et pass. (also in Edward W. Younkins, ed., Philosophers of Capitalism: Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond (Lexington Books, 2005)), and Heidi C. Morris, “Reason and Reality: The Logical Compatibility of Austrian Economics and Objectivism,” Rebirth of Reason (May 10, 2005).)

I do not really trust Rand’s interpretation of Kant; as noted, her critiques of the idealism she is describing are mostly well taken, but it may be aimed at a straw man. As Hoppe wrote:

Among some followers of Austrianism, the Kant interpretation of Ayn Rand (see, for instance, her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology [1979]; or For the New Intellectual [1961]) enjoys great popularity. Her interpretation, replete with sweeping denunciatory pronouncements, however, is characterized by a complete absence of any interpretive documentation whatsoever. On Rand’s arrogant ignorance regarding Kant, see B. Goldberg, “Ayn Rand’s ‘For the New Intellectual,’” New Individualist Rev., vol. 1, no. 3 (1961).

Kinsella, LFFS, ch. 22, text at n.53.

***

My interpretation of Kant came largely from Liquidzulu. I think he is an objektivist. His recent video goes into detail on this topic. You should check out his content sometime. … here are the two sources for my critiques of AE and Kant: https://youtu.be/QoU3KsZaj-M?feature=shared and https://youtu.be/W-NQWJn-AHw?feature=shared

I know of Zulu and like a lot of his stuff. See my post LiquidZulu’s Free Course: “The Fundamentals of Libertarian Ethics”. However I am not sure about all of it and only have limited time at present to look into this.

In any case, this is another reason it’s important not to rely only on secondary (or tertiary) sources, or at least to be wary of it. I think if you are serious about this, about forming views about Kant and how it relates to Hoppe’s work, you need to actually read scholarly works about Kant, at the very least, if not Kant himself, and not just rely on Youtube video especially those by amateur scholars instead of professional philosophers. Unfortunately many younger libertarians seem not to actually read anymore but learn mainly from informal sources like youtube videos. To really understand libertarian theory one must read the world of past thinkers. Like … books.

Ok, I have one question left. Do you consider the Action axiom a law of thought or of reality?

I would not call it an axiom. That is an idiosyncratic usage by Rand to describe truths we know that are self-evident or whose denial leads to contradiction. Instead I would refer to what Mises calls apodictic knowledge or truths–what he would call apriori true knowledge.

Such knowledge includes Descartes’ cogito: I think therefore I am. I.e., I know that I exist, because I (know that) I am thinking. It cannot be denied by any thinking person that he exists. This is apodictic knowledge. Likewise other knowledge like consciousness, the law of non-contradiction, and so on. E.g. see Rand’s comments about consciousness.

To assert that “man acts” reads at first like an assertion fact, like “monkeys eat bananas.” We can imagine a world with no acting men, but to the extent there is anyone wondering about whether man acts, there must be a man in existence to ask the question, and if he exists, he does act: he employs means to achieve ends. This seems apodictic to me, though it is not simple and it is somewhat complicated. For example I accept Mises’s dualist approach where he sees the methods of the natural sciences are appropriate to the study of causal phenomenon and other methods appropriate to the study of teleological phenomenon.

Thus we can view humans in the causal realm as behavers and in the teleological realm as actors, and the latter us usually more useful. Introspectively we are aware that we experience life as a series of actions: choices to pursue a given end in an attempt to overcome felt uneasiness by employing efficacious scarce means to achieve those ends. We reasonably assume that other humans with a similar biological makeup have a similar internal experience and thus we characterize their motions not as mere behavior but as action: we impute meaning to what they do, we impute purposes to their motions. This is neither right or wrong; it is a useful framing. To say that humans act is to say that one way to understand what we observe is to think of it in terms of the means-ends framework.

But it is conceivable to view humans purely causally in which case they do not “act” any more than a lawnmower acts. God could view us this way, for example. Or as Hoppe writes, in Economic Science and the Austrian Method,

“One might hold this conception of freedom to be an illusion. And one might well be correct from the point of view of a scientist with cognitive powers substantially superior to any human intelligence, or from the point of view of God. But we are not God, and even if our freedom is illusory from His standpoint and our actions follow a predictable path, for us this is a necessary and unavoidable illusion”.

But for us, it seems unavoidable to understand what we ourselves do as actions, that is, from the teleological framework, and thus to apply this to understanding what others do as well. It is undeniably useful and probably unavoidable and indispensable. Does this mean humans “really” “act” “instead of” being “caused”? I am not sure. I am not sure it matters to be able to answer this question, and I do not think I am enough of a philosopher to answer this—but I am beginning to suspect no one is. I am a dualist, in the Misesian sense (see Human Action and The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science).

Causality is apriori true since it is presupposed in any action and any inquiry into either the causal or teleological realms of phenomena. As Mises explains, “we may speak of causality as a category or an a priori of thinking and acting. … All we can say about causality is that it is a priori not only of human thought but also of human action.” The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, ch.1, §4.

So it is an undeniable “fact” “that” “humans act”? I would say that it is true enough so as to not matter.

It is a truth; I am not sure how to easily answer the question as to whether it is a law of thought or of reality. I am not sure it is a “law” at all. It is an assertion about one aspect of reality, in the end, but it stems from the way we understand reality conceptually and according to various categories and framings. As Mises writes, “Eminent philosophers have tried to elaborate a complete list of the a priori categories, the necessary conditions of experience and thought. One does not belittle these attempts at analysis and systematization if one realizes that any proposed solution leaves a broad margin for the individual thinker’s discretion.” I.e., it is useful to think of humans as acting; within that framework, yes, humans “do” “act.”

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In my book Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), ch. 5, p. 73, n.23, I provide a quote, “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you are saying.” which I took from an article by Clarence Carson. Carson calls it an “old saw” but provides no attribution.

I have realized this is a version of a quote widely attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. According many sources on the Internet, the original quote is “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” Emmet Fox, in The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life (HarperOne, Reissue ed., 2009), provides a subtly different version, also attributed to Emerson: “What you are shouts so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

I found it curious that none of the sources attributing this to Emerson provide a citation. I was unable to find this exact quote anywhere in Emerson’s work. With the help of people on Twitter, I finally came across this: “What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary,” from this paragraph:

Let nature bear the expense. The attitude, the tone, is all. Let our eyes not look away, but meet. Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, “I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

[continue reading…]

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Slenzok: Libertarians Against the American World

Interesting recent paper, Norbert Slenzok, “Libertarians Against the American World. A Critical Analysis,” Athenæum: Polish Political Science Studies 84, no. 4 (2024): pp. 7–27 (pdf).

Abstract:

The paper deals with the view of contemporary world politics presented by American libertarians. Specifically, it examines the claims of Murray N. Rothbard and his successors with regard to the role of the United States of America in the international arena. The article argues that since the Cold War, the libertarian account of international relations has been staunchly critical of the US, while exhibiting a soft spot for competing powers, particularly the USSR and the Russian Federation. As the article submits, this asymmetry is supported by two flawed theoretical contentions: the liberal imperialism thesis (LIT) and the American hegemony thesis (AHT). Moreover, the article shows how anti-Americanism impinges on libertarian analyses of contemporary Central- Eastern European politics, in particular the war in Ukraine.

[continue reading…]

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[UPDATE: See final version here]

Here is a first draft of a translation of Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) into Chinese, translated by Li San (李三). The following is not yet proofread, according to the translator.

[continue reading…]

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Randy Barnett, “What’s Next for Libertarianism?”

I’ve learned and profited a great deal from libertarian legal scholar Randy Barnett’s work—on contract theory, punishment, constitutional and ninth amendment issues, originalism, and more. 1

In his really unique and excellent new book, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (2024), which I read cover to cover, he has an intriguing section near the end on “What’s Next for Libertarianism” where he hints a possible future book extending his previous thought on liberty and libertarianism. He suggests several extensions to or possibly modifications to libertarianism that might try to address. For example: “If we are to be libertarians and not propertarians, … libertarians need also to be concerned about threats to individual liberty now posed by privately owned companies. … A good theoretical start would be to separate the “public-private” binary from the “government-nongovernment” binary.” I have concerns about conservatives and libertarians who try to blur the distinction between between private and state actors—for example in attempts to subject big tech platforms to defamation liability out of spite or because they just don’t like them 2, or in arguments that private actors (banks, big tech, New York Times) are really “part of the state” and thus it’s fine to subject them to otherwise unjust and unlibertarian laws, such as libel law, or even to justify having the state regulate these corporations, since they are after all effectively state organs 3—but it would be interesting to see Barnett grapple with these matters. [continue reading…]

  1. See my review of his book, The Structure of Liberty, “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), and many other references to Barnett’s work in this book. []
  2. No, Libertarians, We Should NOT Abolish the CDA §230 and DMCA Safe Harbors! []
  3. KOL354 | CDA §230, Being “Part of the State,” Co-ownership, Causation, Defamation, with Nick Sinard; Van Dun, Barnett on Freedom vs. Property; Is Macy’s Part of the State? A Critique of Left Deviationists; on Block’s defamation suit against the New York Times, see Walter Block Defends His Libel Suit Against The New York Times; A Libertarian Analysis of Suing for Libel (“How … can I justify suing the New York Times for libel? It is simple. The libertarian case against suing for libel applies only to innocent people, and this newspaper does not at all qualify. Rather, this organization is a member in good standing of the ruling class, and all bets are off for criminals of that ilk.”), and others here. []
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Dear Mr. Kinsella:

If you have the time I wanted to ask for some clarification regarding your views on positive obligations and their relationship with aggression and bringing children into the world.

In your article “How we come to own ourselves” you argue libertarianism is not inherently against positive obligations just unchosen obligations. You say one can incur positive obligations by commiting aggression. You use the analogy of pushing a person into a lake (aggressing against them) that creates a positive obligation to rescue them. You then say bringing an infant into the world with certain needs is akin to pushing a person into a lake.

My question is, does this mean bringing an infant into the world is aggression which then creates a chosen obligation to feed the infant (rescue them from the situation you’ve put them in)? Is this an accurate reading of your argument? [continue reading…]

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The Common Law and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

Interesting new article: Stephen Crosswell, “The Common Law and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations,” Journal of Global Trade, Ethics and Law Vol. 2 No. 2 (2024): 1–33.

Adam Smith developed a theory of the ‘four-stage’ advancement of society as England was entering the Industrial Revolution (the fourth stage) and becoming the leading commercial centre in the world. That transition was raising new and novel legal issues that required legal solutions more complex than the earlier three stages in human advancement, as innovation gave rise to new technologies and ways of working. He and other juridical thinkers saw the debate about whether legislation could effectively drive that transition as the central question of their time, the answer to which would, in the long run, affect the fate of nations and Empire. They had a clear view on this, informed by the study of thousands of years of human history. For them, the common law was vastly superior.

This article examines the debate that took place on these issues, the Benthamite revolution that followed and the modern basket of rights that obfuscate the key question that policy-makers should be asking in our generation: if the common law was so successful in driving the Industrial Revolution, what confidence can we have in a legislated approach as we move into the fifth stage, the Technology Revolution? This is one of the most important issues facing the world as societies decide what legal framework(s) will regulate humanity’s move into a digital society and the efforts to discover and invent the technologies that will support us on that journey.

Related:

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Rand on the Injuns and Property Rights

In a recent Tweet, I wrote:

Rand on the Injuns

“Now, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you’re a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn’t know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights—they didn’t have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal “cultures”—they didn’t have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using. [continue reading…]

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Labor, Value, Metaphors, Locke, Intellectual Property

From a facebook post by David Veksler:

There is no such thing as “intrinsic value” in economics. Value exists only in the eyes of the beholder. The concept of “value” is made possible by being valuable to a specific person, for a particular purpose. The only thing in the universe that is intrinsically valuable is human beings.

TLDR: Stop with nonsense like “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value”

My comment (lightly edited here): [continue reading…]

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Lowering Taxes Without Spending Cuts

My friend Ryan McMaken has an interesting article up today, “Tax Cuts Without Spending Cuts Won’t Reduce the Taxpayers’ Burden,” LewRockwell.com (Nov. 8, 2024).

I am not sure I agree, though.

In my view, it is always better to cut FedGov spending, even if taxes are not lowered. It is also always better to cut taxes, even if spending is not lowered. It is of course best to do both, and the more cuts the better, but they are independent goals.

Cutting deficits is only a side effect, an ancillary goal, of cutting spending and of cutting taxes. Cutting deficits or balancing the budget is not the main goal or even a real, independent goal; it is just the consequence of lowering gov spending and gov taxation.

[continue reading…]

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I was alerted to a course by LiquidZulu, “The Fundamentals of Libertarian Ethics,” touted as “The single fastest route from novice to expert in Austrian legal theory.” Somewhat amusingly, his site states:

Theres a problem…

Philosophy is big. Learning even a very small part of one specific philosophy could take years, if you even know where to look in the first place.

Theres a solution!

I have spent those years autistically studying philosophy, so I can deliver to you only the parts you need to know to understand what is true, rather than having to slog through thousand-page tomes of utter nonsensical jibberish. (And believe me, a lot of it is jibberish).

Great care has been taken to craft the courses on this website and I refuse to release a course unless it is better than any alternative that I am aware of.

The course is presented in seven modules in written form, free online, and also in video form which can be purchased at whatever price you like. I have only skimmed through some of the modules so far but from what I can tell it looks like a very good introduction to this topic, well organized, written and researched. The site claims the text version takes about 3 hours and the youtube videos (I paid for it) appear to be about 2 and a half hours.

I did a longer course on a similar topic for Mises Academy back in 2011, “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society,” which was well received, so such a course is definitely needed. I may in fact do an updated version of this course later, based on my book, Legal Foundations of a Free Society. Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out LiquidZulu’s course.

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Whiteness and Libertarianism

From an exchange on Twitter.

Jeremy Kauffman  @jeremykauffman
https://x.com/jeremykauffman/status/1852719133915263364
If you ever wonder why you want to center a liberty movement around an ethic rather than an ethnicity, consider these two people
Robert P. Murphy @BobMurphyEcon
https://x.com/BobMurphyEcon/status/1852822312359518681
again, I have whiplash from your posts. You are literally the single libertarian I most associate with racialism and literal attempts to rehabilitate eugenics. Okay, I have processed that about you. And yet now you’re lamenting that some people focus on ethnicity and not ethics?
Jeremy Kauffman @jeremykauffman
https://x.com/jeremykauffman/status/1853044417210294347
A libertarian society will be majority white.
It will (or could) contain a minority of asians, hispanics, and jews, with a sliver of black people.
These are just statistical truths. Libertarians should feel comfortable saying this as easily as “men commit more crimes than women”.
This is not a suggestion that race is deterministic, any more than the above statement about gender is. Nor have I ever made such a suggestion. Sometimes women murder!
I am interested in living in a society that is majority libertarian. If we select for libertarians, we will not get an equal racial mixture.
Since I live in New Hampshire where libertarians are concentrating in absurd numbers, it’s important that Free Staters (libertarians in NH) feel comfortable with the above truths. I’ve tried to normalize them in our community in advance so we don’t freak out about them later.
I’ve never said “only whites can be libertarian”, “only white people should come to New Hampshire”, or anything close to this.
I’ve consistently advocated for libertarians of any race to come here. I point out ethnic differences so that we understand the results we’ll get, as well as understand where and how to market.
I’m sometimes asked “why not just be a white nationalist?”. This post, as well as the thread that started it pointing out how superior Lily Tang Williams is to Maggie Goodlander, is an explanation of why.
Stephan Kinsella @NSKinsella
https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1853103856181297395
“A libertarian society will be majority white. It will (or could) contain a minority of asians, hispanics, and jews, with a sliver of black people. These are just statistical truths.”
News to me. Most white people are stupid socialists like most non-white people. I don’t see any obvious correlation between race and libertarian-ness. Where are you getting this statistic from?
Jeremy Kauffman @jeremykauffman
https://x.com/jeremykauffman/status/1853107290481500254
The best study I’ve seen on libertarians by race is this PRRI 2013 survey: 
https://www.prri.org/research/2013-american-values-survey/
Image
Stephan Kinsella @NSKinsella
https://x.com/NSKinsella/status/1853113126570299508

How does a current factoid about the current racial makeup of libertarians support your assertion: “A libertarian society will be majority white.”

Let’s say that from 2009 to 2024 99% of bitcoiners are whites. This would not justify the assertion “in the future 99% of bitcoiners would be white.” You would need an argument, someting connecting whiteness with bitcoinness.

For libertarianism, I can imagine some arguments you could supply (but have not, afaik) that connect “whiteness” with “being libertarian.” For example here is one possible argument: libertarianism requires high intelligence as well as a propensity for low-time preference, since it requires abstract thinking, curiosity, courage, the ability to understand complex historical, economic, and sociological concepts. These characteristics do not guarantee libertarian views, not sufficient, but they are arguably necessary. In short, libertarians are “superior” beings and only a subset of humans can ever superior enough to be libertarians.

Whites are superior in terms of IQ and the other related factors which explains why most libertarians are white and it also is why it’s reasonable to predict that going forward, the libertarian superior supermen will predominately come from the white race and only occasionally from the few outliers among the non-white races.

So that would be a somewhat coherent argument, but then it would be explicitly racialist, if not racist, and also it would be based on unfounded racist assumptions; it would be incomplete. I myself think this is a ridiculous view, but if you put it this way it lays bare the naked racialism underlying the claims that are now only implicit, and it would make clearer the assumptions your racialist reasoning is relying on that you could then be asked to prove. What’s next, pointing to unprincipled Popperian scientistic Charles Murray’s pseudoscientific work on race and IQ?

My personal view is that humans are basically all sapient and smart enough to grasp common sense concepts about the benefits of liberty, trade, property rights, and that there is no obvious intelligence barrier to any group being libertarian. In the present only a tiny minority of whites are libertarian anyway? If the “whites are superior” reasoning is right it doesn’t explain why 98% of all whites are still inferior statist-socialist idiots.

If liberty is ever to be achieved it will only be because a large mass of people have come to understand the practical and moral benefits of liberty. If it is ever achieved, it proves that it was not low IQ or intelligence that was the barrier. And if it’s not IQ then there is no reason to think only whites would be the ones escaping the socialist-statist way of thinking.

My view is that liberty may be possible. We do not yet know. If it emerges it won’t be because we (white?) libertarians were running around promoting it, but because it works and over time more and more people came to understand this. For example until the USSR fell in 1991 many people could still argue socialism was superior to capitalism. But that was a teaching moment and now millions of people are aware that free markets and private property work better and are essential to human production and prosperity. They learned this from watching history not from reading Hazlitt.

In my view the main hope for liberty is that because the primary source for wealth is the accumulation of technological knowledge, the human race can keep getting richer every generation. The richer we get the less excuse or need for aggression/crime, and the more people can afford to be “liberal” (cosmpolitan, toleratan, empathetic) and also to devote some time to the study of economics and poltiics. Also they will be witnessing in real time the benefits of capitalism, technology, freedom, information, knowledge, individualism, tolerance, cosmopolitanism–all little teaching moments that accumulate over time. Just as we see happening with bitcoin; more and more people will adopt it as its track record gets longer and they get comfortable with it. And so on. To my mind this is the only hope for liberty, but it also means that there is little we, as activists, can do to bring it about. All we can do is hope, and wait. Which also means that what we can do is recognize this fact and devote sufficient time and attention in our lives in a quasi-free society to trying to survive and flourish in this real world. That means not expecting activism to work, at least not any time soon; accepting reality as it is working to prosper in the face of the illiberal challenges we face.

In any case I don’t expect to see substantial liberty any time soon and if it’s ever achieved I don’t expect it to be “mostly white”.

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