Welcome to Libertarian Papers!

To Authors, Readers, and Potential Libertarians:

A new libertarian journal—a new type of libertarian journal—is born today. Libertarian Papers is an exclusively online peer-reviewed journal. Its home is this elegant, fast, easy-to-use website. We invite you to browse around.

Publishing online has allowed us to break free of many of the constraints faced by paper-based journals. Scholars working in the libertarian tradition will find dealing with us to be a refreshing change. For instance, we publish articles consecutively, online, as soon as they are peer-reviewed and a final copy is submitted. No waiting for the next issue or printing delays. We have also done away with arbitrary space limits. And we don’t care what citation style you use, as long as it is consistent, professional, and enables the reader to find the work referenced. Neither our time nor the author’s need be wasted converting from one citation style to another, or wondering whether “2nd. ed.” goes here or there, or whether it should be “2d. ed.” instead. In a digital age, old forms must give way to new forms.

And as our publications are online and open, you won’t find our authors furtively posting a scanned copy of their paper articles on their own sites, while their article is trapped in musty paper on a dark shelf—but if they want to, they are free to do so, since to the extent possible everything here is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Want to republish your piece in a book? No need to ask us for permission. We want to spread the ideas of liberty, not impose DRM on them.

And of course readers will love the ease of access. Subscription is by RSS feed, and free. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or other social media to come. And unlike other academic journals, we allow comments on our articles, via the blog posts announcing them. Libertarian Papers is completely free and open, because readers’ being willing to devote time to studying the ideas of liberty is payment enough for us. It is the profit we seek. And we think having readers who love to use our site and read our articles is what authors want, too.

A few words of thanks are in order. The assistance and support of Jeff Tucker of the Mises Institute, web designer Aristotle Esguerra, and Lew Rockwell and the Ludwig von Mises Institute have been invaluable in getting the website set up and the first non-issue out. Libertarian Papers is also proud to have an outstanding Editorial Board, with world-class scholars working in the libertarian tradition. Their help and commitment was also indispensable in helping this project come to fruition. And various loyal and devoted friends in the libertarian cadre, such as Gil Guillory, Manuel Lora, and Anthony Gregory, helped in various ways behind the scenes. A hearty thanks to them all.

That brings us to our first issue—or non-issue, rather. We’re very proud of our first set of published articles—the seven articles that are being published today, immediately after this post is published (and then rolling them out about one hour apart, consecutively, throughout the day). These pieces include articles by two eminent libertarian thinkers, Jan Narveson (writing on Nozick, justice, and restitution) and Robert Higgs (on depressions and war). Also being published today is a previously unpublished memo from Ludwig von Mises to F.A. Hayek, relaying Mises’s concerns and advice about the then-nascent Mont Pèlerin Society, followed by a previously unpublished memo from Murray Rothbard to the Volker Fund, about libertarian tactics and strategy. The last three articles to be published today—starting about four hours from now—are a fascinating three-part exchange between Nicolás Maloberti and Joshua Katz about libertarianism, positive rights, and the “Possibility of the Legitimate State.”

Several more articles are in the works. We expect to publish throughout the year—and beyond. Stay tuned.

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We welcome submissions of articles and other suitable materials—even in foreign languages, in some cases (more on our About page). And feel free to send feedback, suggestions, or questions to the Editor, via email or through the comments feature on our blog posts. We hope you—authors and readers—also profit from Libertarian Papers.

—Stephan Kinsella