Libertarian Papers

Abstract: Libertarian Papers was an experiment in publishing, and one I believe was ultimately successful. Those who contributed—as editors, reviewers, or authors—can be justly proud of their achievements, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate them for their service to the journal. Through their efforts Libertarian Papers became a respectable outlet for a wide range of scholarship on many topics and from many disciplines, and it is with a spirit of gratitude that I will use this editorial to reflect on some of their (and the journal’s) accomplishments.

Keywords: Libertarian Papers, editorial, publishing, history

Download PDF:

Abstract: For several decades the Journal of Libertarian Studies was the key outlet for important interdisciplinary scholarship in the radical libertarian tradition. But by the late 2000s, the Internet was in full flower and the JLS was in decline. One night in early January 2009, I had the idea to form a new journal for libertarian scholarship, which would help fill the gap left by the declining JLS, and also take advantage of new publishing possibilities: entirely online and free, and with no artificial space constraints, but still of high-quality and peer-reviewed. Within just a few days, we had established the website and the basic design, assembled an impressive editorial board, and collected and edited an initial set of articles, which were published later that month, starting on January 18, 2009.

Keywords: Libertarian Papers, editorial, publishing, history

Download PDF:

Abstract: This paper explores whether the case against intellectual property can be strengthened by appealing to the work of F.A. Hayek. It strives first to establish a Hayekian research agenda on copyright by providing a unified reading of Hayek’s scattered remarks and positioning them within a broader picture of the contemporary philosophy, politics, and economics of IP. Secondly, exploring peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and copyright infringement through a Hayekian lens suggests what might be a useful analogy between the ability of torrent downloads and prices to convey information. Last but not least, the paper ends on a skeptical note concerning the moral and economic foundations of copyright by presenting what I consider a more Hayekian alternative: crowdfunding platforms.

Keywords: Intellectual property, copyright, torrents, knowledge, F.A. Hayek

Download PDF:

Abstract: I am grateful to Fabian Wendt for responding to my evaluation of his work on Moderate Libertarianism. Wendt’s efforts are important because they focus on foundational issues of justice and there is a dearth of quality work on those issues these days. Due to lack of space, the most productive way to structure this brief rejoinder is to focus on two general issues before touching on one smaller point. First, I explain why Wendt offers something like an empirical justification of libertarianism. Here I will be clearer than I originally was about why this is a problem that Wendt needs to address better than he has. It is my hope that this initial discussion paves the way for me to demonstrate my second point—namely, that Wendt’s statement of his own argument for the proviso is either question-begging or unsurprising. I conclude by saying a little bit about Wendt’s discussion of positive obligations.

Keywords: sufficiency proviso, consequentialism, positive rights, self-ownership

Download PDF:

Abstract: I thank Lamont Rodgers for critically discussing my work and giving me the chance to clarify and elaborate several points about the sufficiency proviso and moderate libertarianism in general. I hope this exchange will help us better understand where the main points of disagreement lie. After a very brief summary of what moderate libertarianism and the sufficiency proviso are (section 1), I try to answer his main allegations: that I advance a problematically “consequentialist derivation of rights” (section 2) and a questionably “robust conception of ‘care’” (section 3). Both allegations invoke a good deal of misunderstanding, as I will explain. I then discuss the role of personal responsibility (section 4) and whether self-ownership rights are mitigated in a problematic way (section 5) and thereby try to refute arguments against my view that many not-so-moderate libertarians will be inclined to make. The last section provides a short discussion of an issue I did not take up earlier: how practices of private property are to be individuated (section 6).

Keywords: sufficiency proviso, consequentialism, care, responsibility, rights, self-ownership

Download PDF:

Abstract: Fabian Wendt proposes combining libertarian foundations with a proviso that requires a just system of private property to ensure that everyone has a sufficient amount of resources to pursue projects. He calls this proviso a sufficiency proviso. This proviso is said to have advantages over all rival provisos “because it better coheres with the most plausible rationale for endorsing a libertarian theory of justice in the first place” (Wendt 2018b, 169). Given these advantages, he expresses surprise that no other libertarians have defended a sufficiency proviso. I trace Wendt’s argument and identify several weaknesses in it. I argue that, at is stands, the argument for a sufficiency proviso fails.

Keywords: sufficiency proviso, consequentialism, justice, care, self-ownership

Download PDF:

Abstract: The rights to liberty championed by classical liberal and libertarian theorists may be supported as products of practical reason. The foundations for these rights rest initially on the idea that the separateness of persons is embedded in the circumstances of life that make justice a meaningful concept. We can discover the duties justice imposes on us through a procedure for identifying principles of justice based on the concept of reasonableness that supports a method for testing proposed principles for human interaction. This procedure, which I present as a contractualist method of ethical justification, vindicates principles that establish duties to others that also constitute rights to liberty and rule out some kinds of purported rights that cannot be justified through the proffered contractualist method.

Keywords: rights, liberty, liberalism, contractualism, justification

Download PDF:

Abstract: This book makes interesting reading not only because of the subject but also because of the authors’ approach to it. It is, in fact, an energetic and thought-provoking dialogue between a libertarian political economist, Nikolai G. Wenzel, and a conservative political philosopher, Nathan W. Schlueter. By setting aside the journalistic urge for simplifications and catering to the biases of partisans—a stance summed up in the title of the book—the authors are laying the groundwork for intellectually honest investigation of the key principles of conservatism and libertarianism and the main arguments that stem from them.

Keywords: libertarianism, conservatism, natural law, natural rights, public choice, immigration, education, marriage

Download PDF:

Abstract: In the end, there can be no credits or purchasing power but that which comes from the production of wealth and services and the putting of these into the course and channels of exchange. It is, at the last, only by freedom of production and freedom of exchange in unrestricted markets that authentic credits can be established as instruments of exchange. It is only in this way—by freedom of production and exchange—that just and rightful purchasing power can be created and maintained. When this truth becomes well understood, it will be practiced; and all the mystery and all the menace of inflation will have passed away.

Keywords: Banking, credit, inflation, deflation, exchange

Download PDF:

Abstract: Accusations of infeasibility or utopianism are common in debates over libertarian institutions, but exactly what we mean when we say an idea is “utopian” or “infeasible” is often left unspecified. After reviewing recent philosophical work attempting to clarify the concept of “feasibility,” I consider how the concept has been deployed in the debate among libertarians over anarchy and the minimal state. I find that the diversity of feasibility claims is too great to be captured by a single formulation of the feasibility concept and instead endorse the method of elimination as a way of overcoming vagueness. Whenever “feasibility” or related terms are used as part of a political claim, those putting forward the claim should be capable of reformulating it in a way that avoids vagueness by eliminating the offending terms. Such reformulation can help clarify real sources of disagreement, and if such reformulation is not forthcoming the claim need not be taken seriously as it is either overly vague or empty rhetoric. This method provides a useful tool in the debate between anarchists and minarchists, and the feasibility claims made in this debate cast doubt on the feasibility of constructing a general concept of feasibility.

Keywords: Feasibility claims, anarchy, minimal state, utopia

Download PDF: “Feasibility Claims in the Debate over Anarchy versus the Minimal State”

Abstract: The economic system of innovative dynamism is often accused of harming the environment. The opposite is true. As economies flourish through innovative dynamism, birth rates decline, new ways to extract old resources are invented, and previously useless materials are turned into useful new resources. Human and nonhuman animals are often adaptable and resilient in the face of environmental change. Flourishing economies can better afford to protect current species, create new species, and possibly revive some currently extinct species. The rate of global warming is likely to be slow enough that humans and most nonhuman species can adapt to it. If the rate quickens and creates high costs, entrepreneurial geoengineering, enabled within the system of innovative dynamism, can slow or even reverse the warming. We should not shackle the innovative-dynamism system that enables us to live long and flourish.

Keywords: Innovative dynamism, environmental economics, population growth, climate change, global warming

Download PDF: “Innovative Dynamism Improves the Environment”

Abstract: Newhard (2017) recommends that anarcho-capitalist societies acquire nuclear weapons and adopt aggressive territorial-defense postures. This paper substantiates the argument for the necessity of such actions under reasonable assumptions. In particular, these societies are likely to be relatively small in geographic size, population, and economic output, inhibiting strategic depth and military spending. Deterrence and defense will therefore require that anarchists seize the offensive to achieve quick and decisive victory in any conflict through a combination of preventative and preemptive strikes and massive retaliation. Given the likely decentralized and asymmetric character of private armed forces, I recommend a strategic doctrine of disproportionate force modeled after Israeli doctrine.

Keywords: Anarcho-capitalism, private defense, national defense, war-making, Israel

Download PDF: “A Strategic Doctrine of Disproportionate Force for Decentralized Asymmetric Warfare”

Abstract: The system of policing in the United States is costly and ineffective, perhaps because of the government monopoly on residentially assigned police departments. A system of private or public police choice could introduce competitive pressures into the market for policing and improve overall quality levels. I discuss current and historical examples of private policing and respond to the most common criticisms of systems of police choice. These criticisms can be placed into one of the following six categories: (1) conflicts between customers of different agencies, (2) situations in which one agency prevents the rights of another company’s customer from being violated, (3) rights protection as a public good, (4) rights protection having positive externalities, (5) certain types of violations’ having costs that are spread out across several members of society, and (6) rights protection’s being too important to leave to private profit-seeking firms. I also propose possible police-choice policy options that could be used to achieve a society with stronger rights protection and fewer rights violations.

Keywords: Police choice, school choice, vouchers, savings accounts, chartered police agencies, public goods, externalities

Download PDF: “Police Choice: Feasible Policy Options for a Safer and Freer Society”

Abstract: Meaningfully defining “nationalism” is particularly challenging in a twenty-first-century context. Combined with overlap with related concepts, such as “statism” and “patriotism,” there exists an ever-present risk of losing the ability to effectively identify the main features of nationalism, and therefore a risk of losing our awareness of its influence. However, the resurgence of nationalism under the Trump administration provides a unique opportunity to reassess this powerful cultural phenomenon. In the spirit of Rothbard’s “Anatomy of the State,” this article seeks to provide a fresh, critical, and contemporary description of nationalism based on (a) three recent essays published in Hillsdale College’s Imprimis, and (b) a critical comparison of the inaugural speeches of Presidents Obama and Trump. After this analysis, the article concludes by listing eight features of contemporary nationalism.

Keywords: Nationalism, anatomy of nationalism, Imprimis, Donald Trump, Barack Obama

Download PDF:

Abstract: The point of this book is to exhibit the deficiencies in the classical and neoclassical arguments that underpin the claim that a territorial monopoly of force is both desirable and inevitable to ground the supposedly public goods of law and defence. When you have finished reading this book, you might be inclined to think that it is really a not-too-thinly disguised argument for libertarian anarchism, and in thinking this you would not be far wrong. However, although the book is strongly, very strongly, sympathetic to libertarian anarchist concerns, its point of departure is neither ethics nor politics but economics, specifically economics in the Austrian praxeological tradition.

Keywords: Public goods, national defence, Austrian economics

Download PDF: “Book Review: The Economics of Law, Order, and Action: The Logic of Public Goods“

Abstract: This paper argues for the consistency of adverse possession in land with a strict Lockean-liberatarian understanding of property rights due to the impermanence of man-made improvements by which unowned property is originally appropriated. This approach to property rights reconciles left- and right-libertarian positions as end points on a continuum of “temporal attitudes” toward property retention. The adoption of adverse possession within a libertarian framework also dampens the potential tension between extensively held private property and the “Lockean Proviso.”

Keywords: Adverse possession, property rights, homesteading theory, John Locke

Download PDF: “Reconciling Competing Systems of Property Rights through Adverse Possession”

Abstract: A virtually unknown philosopher of the twentieth century, Spencer Heath (1876-1963) was nevertheless well-known as a pioneer in the early development of commercial aviation. He retired from business in 1931 to devote the last thirty years of his life to his long-time interest in the philosophy of science and human social organization. He developed a comprehensive philosophy of creative capitalism and outlined an authentic natural science of society (a society that would be capable of generating dependable technology). In his philosophy Heath correlated three fields: the natural sciences with their uniform laws; the established uniform practices, productive and creative, that constitute the business system; and the realm of non-necessitous activities pursued for their sake alone, which he called the spiritual life. In the societal field, he drew on examples from the natural sciences, from history (seen as growth of social relationships) and from all but the political or criminal in current affairs. In so doing, he emphasized the customary modes of action, self-enacting and self-enforcing, wherein each man benefits others as they benefit him and civilization progresses as a result. Aesthetic and religious experience he saw as alike in their social function of lifting the individual out of his mundane existence and inspiring him to discover and utilize his creative potential. He regarded this inspiration as the psychological prerequisite for discovery, most especially discovery in the nascent science of society. Heath found important correspondences between the beauty of voluntary human social institutions and Judeo-Christian teachings. In this tradition he discovered a rich language of discourse for conveying the beauty he saw in evolving society, thereby counteracting the poor image capitalism has received at the hands of collectivists.

Keywords: Spencer Heath, capitalism, Christianity, natural science, science of society, social organization

Download PDF:  “A Summary of the Philosophy of Spencer Heath”

Abstract: In a recent essay, “Forcing Nozick Beyond the Minimal State: The Lockean Proviso and Compensatory Welfare,” I argue that Nozick’s own reading of the Lockean Proviso commits him to a welfare state. In a forceful response, Jan Narveson calls my argument into question by arguing for an especially austere reading of the Lockean Proviso as a mere extension of the principle of liberty. In this reply to Narveson, I argue that any proviso derived from the principle of liberty will require compensatory welfare for the contemporary poor. This is because liberty only has value if it can be used and many people lack the resources to do so in any substantive way. The only way Narveson can avoid this argument is to retreat to an anemic sort of liberty, but this would abandon what makes classical liberalism attractive in the first place: the preservation of substantive personal liberty.

Keywords: Jan Narveson, Lockean proviso, welfare state, wealth redistribution

Download PDF: “The Lockean Proviso and the Value of Liberty: A Reply to Narveson”

Abstract: Libertarians have long been divided over how best to interpret the Lockean proviso, which requires that one leave “enough and as good” in common for others after one’s appropriation. This article sheds light on this exegetical question in relation to its qualitative part (“as good”) through a contextual analysis of Locke’s often neglected writings on viticulture and interest rates, as well as through his comments in the Second Treatise itself. I show that the proviso demands qualitative equality of resources, as left-libertarians have argued, but in terms of its content actually comes closer to centrist libertarianism that requires only qualitative sufficiency for survival and comfort to satisfy the demand of qualitative equality. The article also shows how Locke’s peculiar conceptualization of equality makes the proviso immune to right-libertarian criticisms that a demand for qualitative equality is untenable. Moreover, it shows how this reading of the proviso can defend itself from a colonialist implication embedded in an unspecified application of the proviso’s demand for qualitative equality.

Keywords: John Locke, Lockean proviso, appropriation, land, left-libertarianism, centrist libertarianism, right-libertarianism

Download PDF: “Quality Check: A Contextual Analysis of the Lockean Proviso”

Abstract: Adam Blincoe (2018) aims  to show that libertarianism, at least in Robert Nozick’s version, is faced with a dilemma: “Either (a) Nozick must admit that taxation for the purpose of guaranteeing a compensatory level of welfare (and not merely for protection from harm) is legitimate or (b) he must admit that his entitlement theory cannot satisfy the Lockean proviso.” I discuss Blincoe’s thought experiment involving “Farmer John,” and take issue with his underlying arguments on a number of grounds. I discuss in turn some problems relating to Nozick’s views on the Lockean proviso, the question of how to define an appropriate welfare benchmark for establishing redistributive obligations, and some issues of those obligations.

Keywords: Robert Nozick, minimal state, Lockean proviso, wealth redistribution, entitlement theory

Download PDF: “Would-Be Farmer John and the Welfare State: A Response to Blincoe”