About

Libertarian Papers is a peer reviewed, exclusively online journal of libertarian scholarship established January 22, 2009.  We publish articles as they are submitted throughout the year, instead of by issue or other groupings.  The first volume is Vol. 1 (2009), containing all articles published in 2009, with articles numbered consecutively. We provide PDF, Word, and (where possible) Audio versions of all articles.

History and Mission

There exists a gap in libertarian publishing.  For authors with scholarly papers on libertarian topics, their choices are limited.  They may publish in one of a few traditional paper-based journals, such as The Independent Review, Reason Papers, or (until it ceased publication) the Journal of Libertarian Studies.  The number of such journals that serve as outlets for libertarian scholars is in any event too small, as the number of libertarian thinkers continues to grow with every generation.  And these excellent paper-based publications do not take full advantage of the Web: authors wait a long time (sometimes over a year) for publication, and cannot always instantly share an electronic link of their publication.  Because these journals are paper-based, there are also space limits—this limits both the size of articles and the number of articles that can be published.  Unfortunately, a traditional journal also requires a great deal of resources: for copyediting, design, administration, and printing.

Existing online libertarian- or free-market-oriented publications, such as LewRockwell.com and Mises Daily, typically focus on shorter, more popular-format articles, and thus are not suitable for lengthy, academic, or heavily-footnoted works.  With the advent of the web and blogging, authors also now have the option of self-publishing: they post the paper to their own site or some private site, link it in a blog post, or post a “working paper.” But this is obviously not an acceptable way to publish—working papers are not usually polished or final, there is no acceptable citation format or journal name, and, of course, no presumption of quality garnered by the peer review process.

A web-based scholarly journal is what is needed. Such a journal need not be limited to shorter or popular-format pieces.  And it need have no arbitrary space limits—articles may be any size; no suitable articles need be turned away—and can be published very quickly after the peer review process is complete.  The cost can be almost zero and almost no staff is required, other than an Editor, Editorial Board, and network of referees to assist with reviewing.

Enter Libertarian Papers. Published by the Mises Institute, Libertarian Papers is an online journal that welcomes scholarly submissions on a range of topics of interest to libertarians.  In addition to articles in the traditional academic format, we welcome book reviews and review essays, as well as other formats, such as lectures and essays. We also publish English translations of foreign-language libertarian articles. Other than such translations, our focus is on previously unpublished works, with some exceptions made for important works that are inaccessible (such as two forthcoming articles by Bruno Leoni).

As noted on the submissions page, after review and upon acceptance, the article is formatted and published online.

Finally, wherever possible, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. We even provide the Word file of the article—our “source code”—to make it easier for others to republish, incorporate, print-on-demand, or cut-and-paste (this also gives authors a final copy of their published article in editable form, which is unheard of). We want our ideas read, spread, and copied. As Cory Doctorow notes, “for pretty much every writer—the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.” We do not, of course, oppose the profit motive, as some who cling to state-granted intellectual property laws might allege, but we do recognize the stifling effect copyright has had on the communication of ideas.  And as spreading the ideas of liberty is the end of our action, in Misesian terms we are indeed seeking a handsome profit by unshackling these ideas to spread them as widely as possible. And in the spirit of open discourse and the free flow of ideas, unlike most other academic journals we allow comments on our articles, via the blog posts announcing them.

Enjoy!

(See also our inaugural post Welcome to Libertarian Papers! (Jan. 22, 2009).)

Editor

Libertarian Papers is edited by Stephan Kinsella, a libertarian writer and attorney in Houston. LL.M., King’s College London-University of London; J.D., Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University; B.S.E.E., M.S.E.E., Louisiana State University. Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute; General Counsel for Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.; formerly a partner with Duane Morris LLP and adjunct law professor at South Texas College of Law. Kinsella was Book Review Editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies (2000-04), and has published many libertarian articles in journals such as The Freeman, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Reason Papers, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, LewRockwell.com, and Mises Daily. His libertarian publications include the recent monograph Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008); Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido HĂĽlsmann; Mises Institute, 2009); and the forthcoming The Ethics of Action: Fundamentals of Libertarian Legal Theory (Mises Institute, forthcoming 2010). Kinsella’s legal publications include International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (co-author, with Noah Rubins; London: Oxford University Press, 2005; second edition forthcoming 2010), five other legal treatises published by Oxford University Press or Oceana Publications, and the forthcoming Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary (co-author, with Gregory Rome; forthcoming 2010).

The O.P. Alford III Prize in Libertarian Scholarship

As announced in this post, the O.P. Alford III Prize in Libertarian Scholarship, has been, from 2002 to 2008, a $1000 prize awarded by the Mises Institute bi-annually to the paper published in the preceding two-year period that best advanced libertarian scholarship. The award is named for a great entrepreneur and friend of the Mises Institute, O.P. Alford III. Going forward, the $1000 Alford prize will be awarded annually–instead of every other year–to the best article published in Libertarian Papers in the preceding calendar year. The next Alford prize will be awarded at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 to the best article from Libertarian Papers published in 2009, as chosen by the journal’s Editor and Editorial Board.

Indexed/Abstracted

Libertarian Papers is included in:

Our ISSN is 1947-6949 (WorldCat ISSN entry).

Colophon

Canaletto_(II)_017The black-and-white header image for this site is taken from Canaletto’s Piazza San Marco: Looking South-East (1735-40) (elsewhere referred to as The Square of Saint Mark’s, Venice), which in one scene portrays commerce, society, freedom, individualism, civilization, civility, and intellect. Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), better known as Canaletto, was a Venetian artist famous for his landscapes of Venice. A high-resolution version is available here.

The typeface chosen for our articles is Garamond, which conveys fluidity and consistency along with a sense of conscious refinement. We hope you find it pleasing to read.

Miscellany

Intro and exit music for our podcasts is excerpted from “Asturias” by Dylly pursuant to a Creative Commons License.

Readers of Libertarian Papers may find of interest Murray Rothbard’s 1977 Editorial in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, explaining the goals and purpose of the founding of that journal.