Abstract: In his paper, “Is There an ‘Anomalous’ Section of the Laffer Curve?”, Walter Block describes some situations in which it appears that a libertarian should violate the non-aggression principle. To rectify this, Block proposes a different perspective on libertarianism which he calls punishment theory. This paper argues that no new theory is needed, as the non-aggression principle can be used to resolve the
apparent conundrums.

There were forty-four articles were published in Libertarian Papers in 2009. The 2009 award was given by Mises Institute President Doug French at the Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 to Gil Guillory and Patrick C. Tinsley, for their article “The Role of Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution in the Future of Liberty.” This paper is a pioneering effort to advance the theory of the private production of justice. Guillory and Tinsley integrate and blend the theoretical and the practical, and set forth a detailed and practical plan to begin to establish such private institutions. Their article is creative and bold, informed by existing libertarian theory while extending it. As one member of the journal’s Editorial Board noted, “This paper presents a carefully worked out business plan for organisations that would provide an effective, superior alternative for tax-funded monopolies in deterring common types of crime and providing restitution to victims of such crimes. It is an original and path-breaking effort not only because of its concern with practical matters but also because of its deep understanding of the issues involved in developing a libertarian theory of social organization. While the paper’s primary focus is on the United States of America, a relatively young but highly developed and complex society, it opens up lines of enquiry and suggests methods that are bound to be of interest to libertarians everywhere.” Guillory and Tinsley are to be commended for their careful, meticulous, and systematic study.

The video of the award presentation is in the first 5 minutes of the following:

First, we were lucky to acquire such an outstanding Editorial Board, with world-class scholars working in the libertarian tradition–a veritable who’s who of Austro-libertarianism. Second, with the generous support of the Mises Institute, we were able to design this handsome and useful website in a short time.

The journal is already included in a number of leading indexing/abstracting services, including Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory; Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities; International Political Science Abstracts; The Philosopher’s Index; Mises Institute Literature Index; Directory of Open Access Journals; HeinOnline; EBSCOhost; and Gale/Cengage. And we have already established the O.P. Alford III Prize in Libertarian Scholarship, a $1000 prize awarded annually to the best article published in Libertarian Papers in the preceding calendar year.

Just as we hoped, the online format of Libertarian Papers has given us the flexibility, speed, and accessibility readers–and authors–love. I am personally most proud of the quality and variety of the 35 articles we have published to date, which include submissions from young and independent scholars–as well as from established libertarian intellectuals such as Narveson, Higgs, van Dun, Salin, Kukathas, Block, and Machan. And, astoundingly, in our first half year we have published five previously unpublished (or, in the case of Leoni, obscure and unavailable) works by towering thinkers such as Mises, Rothbard, Bruno Leoni, and Adolf Reinach.

Further, although we are an online journal, we have produced our first print archive covering the first 17 articles; a second print archive is in the works. And incredibly, we have recruited an army of libertarian volunteers to turn many of our articles into audio versions for our free podcast, and to help copyedit articles. These (mostly young/student) libertarians are amazing, and give reason for optimism about the future in these dark times.

My personal gratitude, therefore, to our Editorial Board, outside referees, volunteer podcast narrators and copyeditors, the Mises Institute, authors, readers, and other supporters.

Stay tuned for things to come! As always, comments and suggestions–and submissions–are welcome.

Yours in liberty, Stephan Kinsella

Homepage Revisions – May 19, 2009 (annotated)

In an effort to increase the usability and highlight the user-interactivity features of Libertarian Papers, we have made some changes to the home page:

• Content is now organized by section.
• RSS and iTunes icons appear next to their respective section headers for increased prominence.
• Content lists appear in a more compact summary format.
• All content is more prominently “dated for freshness.”
• In addition to linked section headers, tabs at the end of each section alert the reader to additional content.
• The “Latest Comments” section has been added to make this particular user-interactivity feature more prominent. Hopefully this will encourage more frequent discussion of the articles contained on this site.
  • Clicking on a commenter’s screen name will lead the reader directly to the contributed comment.
  • Clicking on a title in this section will lead the reader to the article, podcast or news item.

See the accompanying full-size annotated screenshot (PNG, ~179KB) to see the above decsription of the revisions in context.

We hope that this revision proves beneficial to all existing and future readers. Please let us know of any display issues by using the comment box below.