The Libertarian Standard

I delivered this speech in September 2012 for the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society in Bodrum, Turkey. The audio of my speech was corrupted due to a technical error, so I re-recorded a version of the speech (available for streaming and download below). For others, see the links in the Program, or the PFS Vimeo channel. The talk was largely based on two previous papers: “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Summer 1995), p. 132.1 Condensed version: Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010) Update: see also Is English Common Law Libertarian? (Powerpoint; PDF) [PFS; SK] Note: I have since changed my mind on the some of the issues regarding the Hayekian “knowledge problem” and Leoni’s work in this regard, as I have noted in subsequent articles, such as the Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law review above, footnote 5. Oh, that I had heeded Jeff Herbener’s comments on an earlier manuscript, but I either got these comments too late, or did not fully appreciate them at the time. More information on the calculation debate. ↩

My 2004 LewRockwell.com article, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” has been trasnalted into Turkish, “Anarko-Kapitalist olmak ne anlama gelir?” (19 Nov. 2012), by Jay Baykal. This is the fifth translation of this article; in all, my publications now appear in fourteen languages, including English. Update: it is now also available on Mises Turkey’s site.

I was interviewed yesterday by Redmond Weissenberger, 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. The video is below; audio file is here (83MB; 1:27 length). Update: now on the KOL115 podcast.

I was interviewed yesterday by Redmond Weissenberger, Director of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada. We had a long-ranging discussion of intellectual property and libertarian theory, including a discussion about exactly how Ayn Rand and other libertarians got off track on this issue, in part because of flaws regarding “labor” and “creationism” in Locke’s original homesteading argument; inconsistencies between Rand’s support for IP and her recognition that production means rearranging existing property; and also the different roles of scarce means and knowledge in the praxeological structure of human action. (For more on these issues, see my blog posts Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and ‘Rearranging’, Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor, Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and ‘Rearrangement Rights’, and The Patent Defense League and Defensive Patent Pooling, and my article “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright.”) The video is below; audio file is here (69MB). (Trivia: I used my iPad, running the Skype app, for this interview. More stable and better camera than a MacBook.) [C4SIF] [now podcast at KOL165]

Recommended podcasts: “How Creativity Works: An interview with Jonah Lehrer,” by June Thomas, Slate’s The Afterword podcast (Friday, March 30, 2012).  “In Imagine: How Creativity Works, Jonah Lehrer explores some of the myths of creativity and discovers that it isn’t a gift possessed by a lucky few, but rather a variety of processes that everyone can learn to use more efficiently. This 32-minute conversation ranges from the origins of the Swiffer, why 3M is such an innovative company, what people who work alone can do to replicate the creative advantages of the busy workplace, to Steve Jobs’ views on proper bathroom placement.” “Ideas Having Sex” A Conversation with John Tierney and Matt Ridley, Reason.tv (April 5, 2012). “Where ideas have sex, is in technologies,” says author and biologist Matt Ridley, “we give far too much credit to individuals for innovation…all of them are standing on the shoulders of lots of other people.” Ridley discussed his views on trade, invention and creativity with the New York Times‘ John Tierney at a Reason Foundation event at the Museum of Sex in New York City on March 8, 2012. The author of “The Rational Optimist,” tells Tierney that “Every technology we possess has ideas that occurred to different people in different times and different places…most innovation happens by perspiration not inspiration, it’s tinkering…rather than geniuses in ivory towers.” Tierney and Ridley also discuss how traders and businessmen, much maligned throughout history as exploiters and “social parasites,” have actually contributed enormously to the spread of ideas and new technological breakthroughs. Ridley describes how Fibonacci, the son of an Italian trader who lived in North Africa, brought the Indian numeral system (the numbers we all know and love today) to Europe as one of the greatest tangible benefits of trade facilitating the exchange of ideas. Ridley implores the public to “Just stop knocking traders, they’re great people, they do wonderful things.”

Update: current audio files can be found on my podcast Kinsella on Liberty, starting at #153. *** Last year I presented four Mises Academy Mises Academy courses: “Rethinking Intellectual Property” (a reprise of one taught previously in 2010); “Libertarian Legal Theory”; “Libertarian Controversies”; and “The Social Theory of Hoppe“. Plus: “Obama’s Patent Reform: Improvement or Continuing Calamity?,” a Mises Academy webinar.1 The audio and slides for the first three courses listed can be found in those links; those for the Hoppe course are appended below. The Hoppe course is discussed in my article “Read Hoppe, Then Nothing Is the Same,” translated into Spanish as “Tras leer a Hoppe, nada es lo mismo“; see also Danny Sanchez’s post Online Hoppe Course Starts Tomorrow. I enjoyed all four courses but my favorite was the Hoppe course. Hoppe has been the biggest intellectual influence of my life, as I detail in “How I Became A Libertarian” (published as “Being a Libertarian” in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians). I agree with Sanchez that “Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the most profound social theorist writing today.” This is one reason I worked with the brilliant Austro-libertarian theorist, and one of my best friends, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, and one of the greatest guys in the world, to produce the well-received and well-deserved festschrift, Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Mises Institute, 2009). The experience of teaching the Mises Academy classes was amazing and gratifying, as I noted in my article  “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course.” This and similar technology and Internet-enabled models are obviously the wave of the educational future. The students received an in-depth, specialized and personalized treatment of topics of interest to them, with tests and teacher and fellow student interaction, for a very reasonable price, and judging by their comments and evaluations, they were very satisfied with the courses and this online model. For example, for the Hoppe course, as noted in A Happy Hoppean Student, student Cam Rea wrote, about the first lecture of the course: Move over Chuck Norris, Hans-Hermann Hoppe is in town! The introduction to “The Social Theory of Hoppe” was extremely thorough. I, a relative newcomer to the Hoppean idea, was impressed by Stephan Kinsella’s introduction to the theory. Mr. Kinsella hit upon all of those who came before Hoppe, and how each built upon another over the past two centuries. In other words, as Isaac Newton stated, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Hoppe is the result thus far of those who came before him in the ideals of Austrian Economics and libertarian principles. Nevertheless, Hoppe takes it much further as in the Misesian concept of human action and the science of “praxeology”, from which all actions branch in life. Overall, the class was extremely enjoyable, the questions concrete, and the answer provided by Mr. Kinsella clear and precise. Like many others in the class, I look forward to more. So tune in next Monday at 7pm EDT. Same Hoppe-time, same Hoppe-channel! There were also rave reviews given by students of the other courses. For my first Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (audio and slides), one student wrote me at the completion of the course, “The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.” “Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.” “Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.” “Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.” “It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.” “Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.” And: Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). … My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem. The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. … [M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team. Students would often give real-time feedback, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts): “Thank you, great lecture!” “Thanks, excellent lecture.” “Great job.” “Great lecture!” “Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!” “Thanks for an excellent talk.” Student reaction to the first lecture of my Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!: “The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.” “Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.” “Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.” “Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.” “It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.” “Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.” Now, that is very gratifying to a teacher. It’s immediate feedback. And it’s a good example of what I mentioned in “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course”: These heartfelt and spontaneous comments reminded me a bit of times past, when students would applaud at the end of a good lecture by a professor. In this sense, and contrary to what you might expect with the coarsening of manners and the increase of informality in typical Internet fora, for some reason the new, high-tech environment created by Mises Academy seems to foster a return to Old World manners and civility — which is very Misesian indeed! Perhaps it is because these students are all 100 percent voluntary, and they want to learn. They are much like students decades ago, who were grateful to get into college — before state subsidies of education and the entitlement mentality set in, turning universities into playgrounds for spoiled children who often skip the classes, paid for 10 percent by parents and 90 percent by the taxpayer. The audio and slides for all six lectures of the Social Theory of Hoppe course are provided below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post. LECTURE 2: TYPES OF SOCIALISM AND THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE   LECTURE 3: LIBERTARIAN RIGHTS AND ARGUMENTATION ETHICS Lecture 4: EPISTEMOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND DUALISM; KNOWLEDGE, CERTAINTY, LOGICAL POSITIVISM (mp3 download) LECTURE 5: ECONOMIC ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS (mp3 download) LECTURE 6: POLITICAL ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS; HOPPE Q&A (mp3 download)   SUGGESTED READING MATERIAL See here for links. Discussed in my article “Obama’s Patent Reform: Improvement or Continuing Calamity?,” Mises Daily, Sep. 23, 2011; I discussed the AIA in further detail in The American Invents Act and Patent Reform: The Good, the Meh, and the Ugly) (audio and slides). ↩

Papinian (Aemilius Papinianus), famous Roman jurist, who wrote, “”It is easier to commit murder than to justify it.” when he refused to come up with an argument justifying a murder, and was himself put to death. Last year I presented a 6 week Mises Academy course, “Libertarian Legal Theory: Property, Conflict, and Society,” discussed in my Mises Daily article “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory.”1 This course followed on the heels of my previous Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (audio and slides), about which one student wrote me at the completion of the course, Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). … My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem. The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. … [M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team. For more student feedback on Rethinking IP, see Kinsella’s Rethinking Intellectual Property course: Audio and Slides. The Libertarian Legal Theory course also received very positive comments and reviews. (Student reaction to the first lecture of the Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!) The students also evidently really enjoyed the lecture. Here are some of the comments from the chat session, near the end of the lecture (unedited except I have removed surnames): [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:12:25 PM EST] Patrick : This is excellent, best Mises class yet [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:46:52 PM EST] Karl : ok, thanks, nice class [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:47:01 PM EST] Jock : very good [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:47:40 PM EST] Robert : thanks for the lecture, it was great! see you guys next time [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:05 PM EST] Kevin : awesome – thanks! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:17 PM EST] Amanda : Thanks for a wonderful class. Good night! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:38 PM EST] Daniel: Thank you! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:41 PM EST] Roger: Terrific class, thanks! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:42 PM EST] Patrick : thank you [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:42 PM EST] Steven: Great lecture. Thanks [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:43 PM EST] George: Great class ‘night [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:44 PM EST] Mark: Very good class. Thanks! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:45 PM EST] Cheryl: Thanks! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:46 PM EST] Danny Sanchez : Thanks for attending everyone! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:46 PM EST] safariman : Good class! Thanks [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:48 PM EST] Patti : thanks. bye [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:50 PM EST] Jonathan: Thanks! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:51 PM EST] Colin: Thanks. [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:52 PM EST] Thomas : Thank You! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:56 PM EST] Erika : Thank you! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:54:56 PM EST] Danny Sanchez : thanks for the great lecture Stephan! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:02 PM EST] Derrick : Thanks [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:14 PM EST] Robert: thx [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:29 PM EST] Noam: Thanks a lot! [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:29 PM EST] Robert: GREAT first lecture [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:33 PM EST] Matthew : Great lecture thanks [Mon 31 Jan 2011 10:55:54 PM EST] Matt Gilliland : Thanks so much! Best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten, I think. This echoed the type of comments students provided in real-time in the Rethinking IP course, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts): “Thank you, great lecture!” “Thanks, excellent lecture.” “Great job.” “Great lecture!” “Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!” “Thanks for an excellent talk.” Now, that is very gratifying to a teacher. It’s immediate feedback. And it’s a good example of what I mentioned in “Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course”: These heartfelt and spontaneous comments reminded me a bit of times past, when students would applaud at the end of a good lecture by a professor. In this sense, and contrary to what you might expect with the coarsening of manners and the increase of informality in typical Internet fora, for some reason the new, high-tech environment created by Mises Academy seems to foster a return to Old World manners and civility — which is very Misesian indeed! Perhaps it is because these students are all 100 percent voluntary, and they want to learn. They are much like students decades ago, who were grateful to get into college — before state subsidies of education and the entitlement mentality set in, turning universities into playgrounds for spoiled children who often skip the classes, paid for 10 percent by parents and 90 percent by the taxpayer. The audio and slides for all six lectures of the Libertarian Legal Theory course are provided below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post. Update: the audio files may also be subscribed to in this podcast feed. LECTURE 1: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (mp3 download) LECTURE 2: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (continued) (mp3 download) LECTURE 3: APPLICATIONS I: LEGAL SYSTEMS, CONTRACT, FRAUD (mp3 download) LECTURE 4: CAUSATION, AGGRESSION, RESPONSIBILITY (mp3 download) LECTURE 5: INTELLECTUAL ROPERTY AND RELATED (mp3 download) LECTURE 6: APPLICATIONS CONTINUED; COMMON LIBERTARIAN MISTAKES (FRAUD ETC.) (mp3 download) SUGGESTED READING MATERIAL The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended below.   LECTURE 1: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW SUGGESTED READINGS Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, chs. 4-5, 15 Kinsella, “Introduction to Libertarian Legal Theory” (all) Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” (all) “Chicago Diversions” section of Hoppe, “The Ethics and Economics of Private Property“ Kinsella, “Utilitarianism” discussion, Against Intellectual Property, pp. 19-23 Rothbard’s discussion of the “relevant technological unit” in “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution“ Kinsella, “The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights” Kinsella, “Empathy and the Source of Rights“ Rand, “Man’s Rights“ Tucker & Kinsella, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce“ Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist”   OPTIONAL READINGS Libertarianism Jacob Huebert, Libertarianism Today (print; scribd; google books) (various topics) [for lecture 1: chapter 1] Dean Russell, “Who Is A Libertarian?“. The Freeman (1955) Rothbard, For A New Liberty, ch. 1 (“The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism”) “Libertarianism,” Wikipedia Austrian Economics “Austrian School” entry, Mises Wiki Rockwell, Why Austrian Economics Matters What Is Austrian Economics? (Mises Institute) Rights, Ethics, Philosophy Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 7 [optional, but highly recommended]; also chs. 1 and 2 James A. Sadowsky, S.J., “Private Property and Collective Ownership“ discussion of Rothbard’s conception of “relevant technological unit” in B.K. Marcus, “The Spectrum Should Be Private Property: The Economics, History, and Future of Wireless Technology“ “Is-ought problem,” Wikipedia Argumentation Ethics Kinsella, “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory“ Kinsella, “Defending Argumentation Ethics“ Anarchy Hoppe, “The Idea of a Private Law Society“ George H. Smith, “Justice Entrepreneurship In a Free Market“ Tannehills, The Market for Liberty Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“ Randy E. Barnett, ch. 14, “Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law [not online; some available on google books] Bibliographies Kinsella, “The Greatest Libertarian Books“ LewRockwell.com Bibliographies: Hans-Hermann Hoppe on Anarcho-Capitalism, David Gordon on Liberty, and Lew Rockwell on Reading for Liberty LECTURE 2: LIBERTARIAN BASICS: RIGHTS AND LAW (continued) SUGGESTED READINGS Tucker & Kinsella, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce“ Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” (all) Kinsella, “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld“ Kinsella, “Why Spam is Trespass“ Kinsella, “Stalking as a Form of Aggression“ Kinsella, “Stalking and Threats as Aggression“ Kinsella, “Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach“ Kinsella, “The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression“ Kinsella, “The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats“ Kinsella, “Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach,” pages 68-69 (re “threats”) Rothbard, “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution“ Kinsella, “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist“ Hoppe, “The Idea of a Private Law Society“ OPTIONAL READINGS Scarcity and Rights Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 7 [optional, but highly recommended]; p. 158 note 120; also chs. 1 and 2 Rights and the Structure of Action Kinsella, “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright“ Argumentation Ethics Rothbard, “Beyond Is and Ought“ Anarchy George H. Smith, “Justice Entrepreneurship In a Free Market“ Tannehills, The Market for Liberty Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?“ Randy E. Barnett, ch. 14, “Imagining a Polycentric Constitutional Order: A Short Fable,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law [not online; some available on google books] Legal Positivism and Logical Positivism Kinsella, “Logical and Legal Positivism“ Legal Positivism legal realism Holmes’s bad-man theory of law Logical Positivism Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, p.5 [logical positivism] Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 127-36 (ch. 6) [logical positivism] Other Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society ch. 4, pp. 93-94 [on “assertoric hypotheticals”] Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, ch. 15 [rights as property rights] Rothbard’s conception of the Relevant Technological Unit LECTURE 3: APPLICATIONS I: LEGAL SYSTEMS, CONTRACT, FRAUD SUGGESTED READINGS Legislation and Legal Systems Kinsella, “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010) Contract Theory Kinsella, A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003) Fraud Kinsella, The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression OPTIONAL READINGS Legislation and Legal Systems Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Summer 1995) Contract Theory Rothbard, Property Rights and the Theory of Contracts Williamson Evers, Toward a Reformulation of the Law of Contracts Randy Barnett, A Consent Theory of Contract (PDF)   LECTURE 4: CAUSATION, AGGRESSION, RESPONSIBILITY SUGGESTED READNGS Kinsella & Tinsely, “Causation and Aggression“ Kinsella, “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld“ Kinsella, “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights“ Kinsella, “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ“ OPTIONAL READINGS Adolf Reinach, “On the Concept of Causality in the Criminal Law” Summary of Richard Epstein’s strict liability views in Posner, Richard A., Epstein’s Tort Theory: A Critique (pp. 458-59) Richard Epstein, Toward a General Theory of Tort Law: Strict Liability in Context   LECTURE 5: INTELLECTUAL ROPERTY AND RELATED Suggested Readings Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property —–, Innovations that Thrive without IP —–, The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files —–, Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging” Optional Readings Kinsella, “Intellectual Freedom and Learning Versus Patent and Copyright,” Economic Notes No. 113 (Libertarian Alliance, Jan. 18, 2011) —–, “Intellectual Property and Libertarianism,” Mises Daily (Nov. 17, 2009) —–,“The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide,” Mises Daily (Sept. 4, 2009 —–, “How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism,” Mises Institute Supporters’ Summit 2010 (Oct. 8-9 2010, Auburn Alabama) —–, “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce” (with Jeffrey A. Tucker), Mises Daily (Aug. 25, 2010) —–, “Reducing the Cost of IP Law,” Mises Daily (Jan. 20, 2010) Other materials at the C4SIF resources page   LECTURE 6: APPLICATIONS CONTINUED; COMMON LIBERTARIAN MISTAKES (FRAUD ETC.) SUGGESTED READINGS Corporations Kinsella, Rothbard on Corporations and Limited Liability for Tort —–, Legitimizing the Corporation and Other Posts —–, Corporations and Limited Liability for Torts —–, In Defense of the Corporation Other Kinsella, How We Come To Own Ourselves   [PFS] See also Danny Sanchez’s post Study Libertarian Legal Theory Online with Stephan Kinsella. ↩

At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society (May 27-29, 2011), I delivered a speech entitled “Correcting some Common Libertarian Misconceptions.” The video is here, and streamed below. It engendered a good deal of discussion and interest, and I could only touch on a small number of the topics I had assembled over the years, so later in the year, I conducted a 6 week Mises Academy course, “Libertarian Controversies” (Mondays, Sept. 19-Oct. 23, 2011), to cover these and related topics in greater depth. The course was planned for 5 weeks initially, but I added a sixth “bonus” lecture at student request. The course is discussed in my Mises Daily article “Libertarian  Controversies.”) The audio and slides for the 6 lectures of the course are provided below, following the PFS lecture, below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post. Earlier courses included “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (discussed on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online; Lecture 1), in late 2010, which I reprised in Spring 2011: “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (discussed in Rethinking IP; and on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online and in Rethinking Intellectual Property: Kinsella’s Mises Academy Online Course); “Libertarian Legal Theory“; and “The Social Theory of Hoppe.” The audio and slides for the Rethinking IP course are available here, and here for Libertarian Legal Theory (Hoppe course material coming soon). In Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course, I offer my reflections on teaching the Rethinking IP class the first time. Here is some feedback provided by past students of the Rethinking IP course: “The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.” “Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.” “Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.” “Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.” “It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.” “Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.” And: Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). … My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem. The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. … [M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team. Students would often give real-time feedback, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts): “Thank you, great lecture!” “Thanks, excellent lecture.” “Great job.” “Great lecture!” “Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!” “Thanks for an excellent talk.” Student reaction to the first lecture of my Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up! “The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.” “Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.” “Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.” “Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.” “It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.” “Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.” *** Update: the audio files may also be subscribed to in this podcast feed. (In iTunes (for Windows) you can subscribe to podcast by copying the feed address to iTunes>Advanced>Subscribe to podcast; on Macs, you can click on the link to have iTunes add it to podcasts.) “Correcting some Common Libertarian Misconceptions,” 2011 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society (May 27-29, 2011) (video) pfs-2011 Stephan Kinsella, Correcting Some Common Libertarian Misconceptions from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.   “Libertarian Controversies”: Mises Academy (Mondays, Sept. 19-Oct. 23, 2011) LECTURE 1: (mp3 download) LECTURE 2: (mp3 download) LECTURE 3: (mp3 download) LECTURE 4: (mp3 download) LECTURE 5: (mp3 download) LECTURE 6: (mp3 download) (lectures 5 and 6 use the same set of slides) SUGGESTED READING MATERIAL The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended below. The links were internal Mises Academy links so would not work here, and I had no time to add individual links for all of them, but until I find time to code in the links, most of these materials can be found on stephankinsella.com/publications, c4sif.org/resources, mises.org, hanshoppe.com/publications, or on Wikipedia or by google search. (If there is a particular link you cannot find online, email me or add to the comments, and I’ll try to find it and update the post with that link.) General background readings are below; other particular links are provided in the slides for each lecture:   Recommended Background Readings Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is” URL “Libertarian Controversies” by Stephan Kinsella URL Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism [TSC], chapters 1-2 URL Optional Background Readings Rothbard, For A New Liberty and Ethics of Liberty (both strongly recommended) URL Huebert, Libertarianism Today (Scribd free version; Vance’s review; Kinsella review) URL Rockwell & Rothbard, eds., The Free Market Reader: Essays in the Economics of Liberty URL Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable URL Frederic Bastiat, The Law URL Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom URL Linda & Morris Tannehill, The Market for Liberty URL Lysander Spooner, No Treason No. VI: The Constitution of No Authority URL Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal URL Kinsella: What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist URL How We Come To Own Ourselves URL Causation and Aggression URL Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach URL Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith URL Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide URL Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan URL New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory URL Against Intellectual Property URL The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide URL The Trouble with Libertarian Activism URL Optional Background Readings: Bibliographies Hoppe, Anarcho-Capitalism: An annotated bibliography URL Kinsella, The Greatest Libertarian Books URL David Gordon on Liberty URL Lew Rockwell on Reading for Liberty URL Others at LRC Bibliographies [PFS]