Abstract: This article responds to current critiques directed against Hoppe’s justification by performative contradiction of the self-ownership axiom. Maintaining that ethics should be grounded on sound principles, Hoppe observes that only self-ownership can pass the test of performative contradiction. From this idea, he concludes that only libertarianism (the ethical system grounded on the axiom of self-ownership) can be justified. Any other ethic is self-defeating. An important debate in ethics was stimulated by numerous critiques formulated against the performative contradiction and more precisely against the use that Hoppe makes of it in justifying libertarianism. Without endorsing Hoppe’s argumentation, this article prevents some common misunderstandings, systemizes the types of critiques and thoroughly replies to them.

Download Paper: “A Reply to the Current Critiques Formulated Against Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics”

Abstract: When H.-H. Hoppe claimed (in A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, 1989) that the principles of libertarianism were argumentatively irrefutable, both the logical coherence and the relevance of his “argument from argumentation” were criticized. While occasionally some of these criticisms still crop up, this paper defends Hoppe’s claim against them from the vantage point of the author’s own work (in Dutch) on the ethics of dialogue in the nineteen-seventies. It presents a more detailed and systematic presentation of the “argument from argumentation” than Hoppe had need for in the particular context of his book. It makes a distinction between arguments about principles and arguments about particular cases in which these principles may be invoked; and between the normative validity (as a matter of principle) of certain presumptions and the fact that in particular cases these presumptions hold only in principle and can be refuted by the evidence pertaining to the cases.

Download Paper: “Argumentation Ethics and The Philosophy of Freedom”

Abstract: This essay is intentionally one-sided. Almost all other essays by either defenders of capitalism (libertarians) or defenders of government (statists) are oppositely one-sided. They claim that capitalism’s voluntariness or government’s coerciveness mean that capitalism or government better fosters such things as art, happiness, education, jobs and world peace, and never much emphasise factors that may undermine their commentary. This essay emphasises the mitigating factors that others gloss over.

Arguments about the advantages or disadvantages of capitalism or government dominate political debate. This essay contends that these arguments, when they are not just about their author’s feelings, are usually incorrect or misleading. They often use value-judgments on behalf of others, disguised by false measures of happiness invented from economic data or surveys, and then applied across demographics and time. Another common error is to talk only of the positive side of something and ignore the negative. Libertarians spot these errors in statists, yet often do not hold themselves to the same standard.

Download Paper: “Grounding Political Debate”

Abstract: In this paper we assume the contours of the libertarian philosophy, its view toward the unjustified state, and, also, the punishment theory of this perspective. We address the narrow question of what punishment is justified for partaking in statist activities.

Download Paper: “Libertarian Punishment Theory: Working for, and Donating to, the State”

Abstract: This paper, by the late Bruno Leoni, was originally published in the Italian journal Il Politico in 1966. In the article, Leoni reviews H.L.A. Hart’s The Concept of Law (1961). Hart first analyzes the concept of law by resorting to the classical concept of “obligation.” But he later tries a “fresh start” by resorting to the concept of “secondary rules.” In his review, Leoni argues that the former attempt is confronted with serious difficulties, and that the latter attempt (to which professor Hart possibly resorts in view of overcoming some of said difficulties) is ultimately inconsistent with the former.

Download Paper: “On A Recent Theory of ‘Legal Obligation'”

Abstract: This paper, by the late Bruno Leoni, was originally presented at a special meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society (Tokyo, Sept. 5–10, 1966), and was originally published in the Italian journal Il Politico in 1966. The paper displays Leoni’s fondness for Chinese culture, and is essentially a defense of the unity of mankind. Westerners are often of the belief that the Occidental, or Western, individual freedom-based view of liberty is distinct from the Oriental (Eastern) view of liberty. Leoni challenges this perspective. Mill believed that disregard for custom was what made the West both free and different from the rest of the world, while the Oriental approach is more backward and based on blind respect for customs. However, custom has often been invoked both in the East and in the West to oppose and limit the power of tyrants, and to defend or to secure civil or political liberty. Mill argued that disregard of custom accounts for novelty, novelty for diversity of character and culture, and the latter for freedom and progress, but there was an unsurpassed diversity of character and culture when Oriental and Occidental people were put together under the rule of the Roman emperors. Furthermore, the “Orient” was not  monotonous, dull, and homogeneous, as Mill presumed; to the contrary, Europe cannot show in any period of its history a variety of races, languages, cultures, philosophies and religions even slightly comparable to those of India or China. In fact, Buddha and Confucius were both concerned mainly with individual freedom. Confucius’s theory of society, in particular, was very individualistic; he clearly formulated for the first time in recorded history that principle of “reciprocity,” the “golden rule” for any liberal society. He maintained that the very fundamental principle for a happy society is “Not doing to others what one does not wish them do to one’s self.”  Confucius shared, along with the greatest masters of liberal thought in the West, an almost unlimited confidence in education. He believed that everybody could be educated in principle, regardless of his condition, and that coercion is a very limited means of establishing a good society. Though the social and political theories of Confucius in sixth century B.C. China were not the same as those of modern Western liberals, Confucius had a clear and liberal idea of the unsurpassable limits of government in any desirable society. He made quite clear that the government existed for the people and not the people for the government, that no hereditary power whatsoever, but the happiness of the people provided a justification for the rulers. Like Western liberal democracy, Confucianism values freedom and the individual, and denies unlimited authority to the State. In fact, the entire humanistic and liberal background out of which Western democracy grew has much in common with the best traditions of Chinese thought. Ultimately, what is really relevant is neither East nor West, or any other geographical or historical limitation. It is human nature itself.

Download Paper: “Two Views of Liberty, Occidental and Oriental (?)”

Abstract: George Reisman’s magnum opus Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics is a monumental attempt at theoretical integration of leading economic phenomena into one unified whole. Few such books have been published in the history of economics. Still fewer of them contain a comparable proportion of path-breaking innovations both in approach and substance that are integrated in a tightly-spun system of thought that Capitalism does. Yet despite its numerous path-breaking contributions to economic theory, the book has attracted virtually zero attention from the scientific community. History shows that for the most part this has been the fate of all great innovations in science. This review attempts (a) to point out reasons why the book’s content is revolutionary, and (b) to finally start a serious discussion of its substantive ideas. Specifically, the review focuses in some detail on some of Reisman’s most important innovations which all point the way to a wholly new direction in economic theory that promises to provide the hitherto unseen conformity with empirical reality, analytical rigor, and doctrinal integration.

Download Paper: “A Treatise for A New Age in Economic Theory: A Review of George Reisman’s Capitalism”

Abstract: Anthony de Jasay is among the most important social thinkers of our time. His oeuvre offers a sustained critique of government and its defenders. In the book Ordered Anarchy: Jasay and His Surroundings, colleagues and friends pay tribute to the man in the form of an inspiring collection of essays.

Download Paper: “Review of Ordered Anarchy: Jasay and his Surroundings”

Market anarchists are often keen to know how we might rid ourselves of the twin evils institutionalized in the state: taxation and monopoly. A possible future history for North America is suggested, focusing upon the implications of the establishment of a subscription-based patrol and restitution business sector. We favor Rothbard over Higgs regarding crises and liberty. We favor Barnett over Rothbard regarding vertical integration of security. We examine derived demand for adjudication, mediation and related goods; and we advance the thesis that private adjudication will tend to libertarianly just decisions. We show how firms will actively build civil society, strengthening and coordinating Nisbettian intermediating institutions.

Download Paper: “The Role of Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution in the Future of Liberty”

Abstract: The libertarian first principle—a belief in individual freedom—can lead to two different and not necessarily acceptable societies from the standpoint of liberty. One is the “Union of Liberty,” in which communities, associations, and intermediate bodies are held to rigorous standards of voluntariness (and thus face sharp limits on their internal associational freedom because of the knowledge that children will be born into them). In the other, the “Federation of Liberty,” they are not (thereby allowing children to be born into locally unfree environments).

While in any free society individuals may voluntarily join together and waive some of their rights (in institutions such as contract or marriage, for example), hard questions arise when nonconsenting children are born into restrictive environments that their parents may have voluntarily created. An adult who gives up all of his or her property to a communal religious body upon conversion has made a voluntary choice, but what about the child born into that religious community later on? Thus, the Federation of Liberty can, in theory, turn out to contain no communities that actually value or respect liberty; and even slavery might have a lawful place within it. The Union of Liberty, on the other hand, can, in principle turn out to be society ruled by a strong authority with little respect for dissenting moral traditions, including some self-styled libertarian moral traditions.

Libertarians face a stark choice between these “two constructions of libertarianism”; there is no third way, theoretically speaking. Libertarians must choose one of them. Given the necessity to choose one of these constructions, the Federation of Liberty is arguably preferable to the Union of Liberty.

Download Paper: “Two Constructions of Libertarianism”