Legal Foundations of a Free Society

As noted above, the material here was originally intended to appearin footnote 21, above. Due to its length, I include this material in thisappendix.

George H. Smith published “A Killer’s Right to Life” in Liberty magazine in1996, making various arguments and claims about inalienability. I responded inthe Journal of Libertarian Studies, in a piece which complements and supplementsmy previous articles on the inalienability and punishment issues, nowchapters 5 and 9 in the present volume. Despite my disagreements with Smithon this issue, I respect and have learned from his work, such as his great essay“Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market.”

While in law school in Louisiana (the only civil law state in the US), I wasintroduced to the Roman and civil law and also to contract law and theory.It was during my first-year contracts class, in 1988, that I conceived of my“estoppel” based theory of rights. I also became interested in the Rothbard-Everstitle-transfer theory of contract. I presented a paper on this topic in 1999,integrating the views of Rothbard and Evers with various concepts from thecivil law and the common law. I later published an article on this in theJournal of Libertarian Studies, upon which this chapter is based.

In 2001, I presented a paper entitled “Reinach and the Property Libertarianson Causality in the Law” at a Mises Institute symposium on Adolf Reinachand Murray Rothbard. I later collaborated with Patrick Tinsley on an articlebased on this paper, published in 2004 in a related symposium issue inThe Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. This chapter is a substantiallyrevised version of that article.

This chapter is based on an article originally published in 2002 on thenow-defunct site Anti-state.com, as a response to an article by RobertP. Murphy and Gene Callahan (hereinafter, MC), on the same forum,which was critical of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics.Please consider a donation to the Mises Insistute, at https://mises.org/giving

After publishing articles on my estoppel-based theory of rights andHans-Hermann Hoppe’s “argumentation ethics” defense of libertarian rights between 1992 and 1996, I published an article surveying estoppel, argumentationethics, and similar theories in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in1996, entitled “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory.”An updated version of this article was published as “Dialogical Argumentsfor Libertarian Rights” in The Dialectics of Liberty in 2019. This chapter isbased on the latter piece, and is updated still further.Please consider giving to the Mises Institute at https://mises.org/giving

In Part III.C above, I discussed the legitimacy of punishing aggressors, that is, the justice of responsive force—force that is in response to aggression, or initiated force. As noted above, the material here was originally intended to appear in footnote 44, above. Due to its length, I include this material in this appendix.

I published my first article on libertarian theory, “Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights,” in Reason Papers in 1992.* An expanded treatment was published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1996 and a similar version in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review.† This chapter is based on the latter article, also incorporating some material from the JLS article. There I thanked “Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Jack Criss for helpful comments on an earlier draft.”

The Appendix includes references to concepts put forth by Rothbard, Hoppe, Locke, and even Communism proponent G. A. Cohen.Please consider giving to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

Continuing to Part 2, Rights, of the Audiobook, I have demarked it Season 2. Unlike most podcasts that make you wait a year for Season 2, this is an Audiobook and I'm producing as quickly as possible.-Mike Williams, December 2024Chapter 4: Originally published in Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006). The illustrating photochosen by an editor at Mises.org for the original article inspired the imageused on the back cover of this book. See my post “The Story of a Libertarian Book Cover,” StephanKinsella.com (March 4, 2011).Please consider a donation, or small recurring gift, to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

Originally published at LewRockwell.com ( Jan. 20, 2004; https://perma.cc/QAJ6-KHKN); reprinted in Keith Knight, ed., The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes (2022; https://perma.cc/N8UX-4PX4).See also Kinsella, “The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism,” Mises Economics Blog (Aug. 20, 2009).This concludes Part 1: LibertarianismPlease consider giving to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

I waited until now to explain my treatment of footnotes/endnotes, and Appendices.I am not reading the footnotes, only the main body of text in the book. Usually an audiobook includes a free-download of a pdf, containing footnotes, graphs, and the like. But the book I am reading is itself a freely-downloadable pdf. So if you want to reference the footnotes, they are available for your access. Also, reading them would make the audio un-listenable.I include Appendices as separate episodes. I assume some may want to skip them.As Kinsella notes, Chapter Appendices were created when footnotes became longer than the page they are on. As such they are readable, and I presume, listen-able, for those who find them interesting. If that is you, enjoy! If not, Mark As Read in your pod-catcher and drive on.-Mike Williams, December 2024Please consider donating to the Mises Institute at https://mises.org/giving

Originally published in Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella, eds., Mises Institute, 2009). https://www.stephankinsella.com/2009/07/hoppe-festschrift-published/ The original author’s note thanked “fellow Hoppe aficionados Juan Fernando Carpio, Paul Edwards, Gil Guillory, Manuel Lora, and Patrick Tinsley for helpful comments.”Note: There are Appendices to this chapter, that I will record as a future episode.Please consider giving to the Mises Institute at https://mises.org/giving

Kinsella's friend and luminary Hans Hermann Hoppe sets the stage for Kinsella's great work.Please consider contributing to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

The issue of what property rights we have, or should have, what laws are just and proper, has long confronted mankind, and continues to be the subject of debate today.Please consider contributing to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

As noted in the Preface, I’ve been intensely involved in libertarianism for over forty years and, for almost thirty years, with the Mises Institute.Please consider contributing to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

First published as part of the LewRockwell.com autobiography series initiated by Walter Block, as “How I Became A Libertarian,” LewRockwell.com (December 18, 2002). Later included as “Being a Libertarian” in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians (compiled by Walter Block; Mises Institute 2010). Additional biographical pieces may be found at www.stephankinsella.com/publications/#biographical.Please consider giving to the Mises institute at https://mises.org/giving

I am launching this podcast because I prefer to listen to books rather than read them. Kinsella is the great legal mind of the 21st Century. He put out this compendium of how best to live and form a society that works best (albeit not claiming perfection), assuming people desire to be Free.There is irony in making audio to avoid text, because of course now I'm reading the text aloud. I do this in hopes that my fellows who prefer audio will hear these ideas, and spread them.If you wish to contribute to this effort, please INSTEAD consider kicking a few bucks to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving