1) Although articles will continue to be published as soon as they complete the peer-review process, issue  numbers and continuous page references are being added for each new volume, starting with volume 4. Consequently, the citation style for volumes 4 onward conforms to standard journal format. Information on old and new citations is available on the web pages of the different volumes, as well as those of individual articles.

2) The guidelines for manuscript submission have been updated and clarified.

3) The “About” page has been revised to include an “Aims and Scope” section.

Abstract: This article offers a critical examination of theories that emphasize the importance of governmental provision of self-esteem to citizens. Self-esteem is the feeling that one’s abilities and achievements are positively appraised by the surrounding society, and in some cases the legal system. Such theories are becoming fashionable, following the influence of scholars such as Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, and others.

The author argues that such theories face major challenges, on two accounts. First, trying to provide universal self esteem would imply that people would be under a duty to positively appraise the achievements of any given person, and that might violate the free exercise of judgment. Second, the dominant theories of recognition also emphasize the importance of self-respect. Such theories usually understand self-respect as ‘the relation of a person to herself/himself, that concerns their intrinsic worth’. The ability to positively or negatively appraise the conducts/achievements of other people is an integral part of this ‘intrinsic worth’. The attempt to provide universal positive appraisals (and therefore self-esteem) means therefore that a simultaneous achievement of self respect and self esteem is not possible as a social goal. Recognition theories face therefore not only an external critique by libertarian and (many) liberal approaches, but also internal problems of consistency between different parts of their own theories.

Stephan Kinsella will serve as Executive Editor.

So far, sales for the ebook versions on Kindle, Nook, etc., are pretty low, and, while paper sales are a bit higher, those are pretty low as well. At present the cost to prepare the epub and Createspace files, plus the ebook-aggregator service (Bookbaby) and Createspace fees is probably too high to be recouped by sales. I’d like to gauge reader interest in both the ebook, and paper, versions, to determine how to proceed going forward (although the sales are already telling me something).

What we will probably do, going forward, at least for now, is publish paper versions only, since the majority of the cost per issue lies in the epub preparation fees and the Bookbaby fees. The costs for preparing the Createspace file and its fees are much lower, and might make this sustainable going forward.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or email me.

Volume 3, Part 1, has just been released as well, in several formats. It’s 290 pages, and includes the first 13 articles published so far this year:

1. “Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization” by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
2. “Plato and the Spell of the State” by Patrick C. Tinsley
3. “Review of Kosanke’s Instead of Politics” by Don Stacy
4. “Response to Wisniewski on Abortion, Round Two” by Walter E. Block
5. “Unity and Integration in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged” by Edward W. Younkins
6. “Response to Block on Abortion, Round Three” by Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski
7. “Well-Being and Objectivity” by Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski
8. “Truth in Philosophy” by Tibor R. Machan
9. “The Economic Nobel Prize” by Nikolay Gertchev
10. “Free Markets, Property Rights and Climate Change: How to Privatize Climate Policy” by Graham Dawson
11. “Review of Eagleton’s Why Marx Was Right” by Morgan A. Brown
12. “Contra Copyright, Again” by Wendy McElroy
13. “The Causes of Price Inflation & Deflation: Fundamental Economic Principles the Deflationists Have Ignored” by Laura Davidson

A couple of changes from the previous releases. First, since the page count is lower (290 pages versus over 400), the price is lower: $11.99 with discount code TV6PLDNW), Amazon ($12.99); Kindle version is $5.99. Second, due to popular request from readers, we are going to use different cover designs for each published issue going forward. The first two volumes used the same image used for the journal’s website–Canaletto’s Piazza San Marco: Looking South-East (1735–40). The cover image for Vol. 3, Part 1 is Canaletto’s The Grand Canal and the Church of the Salute (1730). Ordering information is below:

• Vol. 3 (2011), Part 1: Articles 1-13
  • print: CreateSpace ($11.99 with discount code TV6PLDNW), Amazon ($12.99)
  • epub: Kindle; Nook; Sony Reader; iBookstore (forthcoming)

Apparently each article published in LP has to be manually added to the DOAJ index via our publisher interface. The only article included at present is our very first article; the remaining articles from Vol. 1 (2009) are not yet included, nore are any articles from Vols. 2 and 3 (2010-2011). I need a volunteer to manually add these approximately 100 articles to the DOAJ database manually via the publisher interface. Then I can add new articles to the DOAJ database each time we publish a new article.

If you are interested in assisting, please let me know (contact).