Abstract: This paper argues that in attempting to protect the religious life from the sullying influence of worldly affairs, Roger Williams participated, albeit unintentionally, in creating the economic conditions that led to the birth of American capitalism. Although Williams argued for a separation of church and state, he did so not in the interest of defending economic liberty, but instead to preserve the sanctity of the church against the frequent immorality that seemed to him required in worldly governance. Questions of pricing and wages, lending and interest—issues that would until Williams’s intervention have been handled by the church in terms of Aquinas’ just price theory—fell outside of the church’s purview according to the new model described by Williams. The result was the creation of an “amoral” public space where the effective separation between spiritual and material concerns led to a kind of free-by-default economic marketplace. This paper traces the development and inadvertent consequences of this essentially theological idea as it took shape in the colonial era.

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Abstract: This paper builds on the burgeoning tradition of Aristotelian liberalism. It identifies and critiques a fundamental inequality inherent in the nature of the state and, in particular, the liberal representative-democratic state: namely, an institutionalized inequality in authority. The analysis draws on and synthesizes disparate philosophical and political traditions: Aristotle’s virtue ethics and politics, Locke’s natural rights and idea of equality in authority in the state of nature (sans state of nature), the New Left’s conception of participatory democracy (particularly as described in a number of under-utilized essays by Murray Rothbard and Don Lavoie), and philosophical anarchism. The deleterious consequences of this fundamental institutionalized inequality are explored, including on social justice and economic progress, on individual autonomy, on direct and meaningful civic and political participation, and the creation and maintenance of other artificial inequalities as well as the exacerbation of natural inequalities (economic and others). In the process, the paper briefly sketches a neo-Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics and natural individual rights, for which the principle of equal and total liberty for all is of fundamental political importance. And, finally, a non-statist conception of politics is developed, with politics defined as discourse and deliberation between equals (in authority) in joint pursuit of eudaimonia (flourishing, well-being).

[Note: The following font file may be useful for viewing the Greek characters in the Word file above: SPIONIC_.TTF.]

Download Paper: “Immanent Politics, Participatory Democracy, and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia”

Abstract: The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times, David S. Landes, Joel Mokyr, and William J. Baumol, eds., Princeton University Press, 2010, is a dense anthology that provides an “orbital view” of the history of trade and commerce. The essays encompass several theoretic frameworks while following three themes: the creation of enterprises; the distinctions between creative and corrosive capitalism; and the societies that engender those different modes.

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Abstract: In this paper we extend an argument originally developed in Hülsmann (2009) to analyze changes to the structure of production that occur when the demand for money changes. In particular, we show that Hülsmann’s argument, which contrasted such changes under commodity and fiat systems, applies as well to the case of 100% reserve systems contrasted with fractional reserve free banking systems (FR/FB). Specifically, we argue that under a 100% reserve system, the structure of production will change in response to a change in demand for money, and that it will not under FR/FB. In fact, such changes are beneficial. Since one of the central arguments in defense of FR/FB is precisely the fact that it avoids such changes to the structure of production (at least more readily than 100% reserve systems), we conclude that this argument amounts to comparing different mechanisms for attaining different equilibrium states, and hence is invalid as a defense of that mechanism (FR/FB) as such.

Download Paper: “Free Banking and the Structure of Production: A Contrast of Competing Banking Systems”

Abstract: In the inflation-deflation debate, deflationists view credit as the most important factor affecting prices. As far as they are concerned, the credit contraction of 2008 caused prices-in-general to fall, and prices will continue to fall unless bank lending resumes. But are these opinions based on a sound understanding of economics? The first part of this article examines the causes of price inflation and deflation from a theoretical perspective. The analysis is firmly in the Austrian tradition. The theory is then applied to recent historical data to show that the general price deflation that began in the wake of the financial crisis was not the direct result of a contraction of credit. The article concludes with a discussion of the prospects for price inflation and deflation in the future.

Download Paper: “The Causes of Price Inflation & Deflation: Fundamental Economic Principles the Deflationists Have Ignored”

Abstract: This revised version of the author’s 1985 article “Contra Copyright” includes a new, introductory section explaining the background of the author’s path to copyright abolitionism. The main article surveys various libertarian debates on this issue, including the anti-intellectual property (IP) views of Benjamin Tucker and the pro-IP views of Lysander Spooner. McElroy argues that the issue of copyright hinges on the question: can ideas be property? Because only scarce goods can be property, and ideas are not scarce, copyright must be rejected as unjustified.

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Abstract: This article is a critical review of Terry Eagleton’s latest publication, Why Marx Was Right (2011). Eagleton, one of the more celebrated Marxist literary critics in academia, presents his readers with a manifesto of Marxian individualism for the budding theoreticians of market socialism.  This book represents Eagleton’s latest sally from the cloisters of stuffy English departments into the realms of economic theory.  I cover many of the book’s most important talking points, debate his primary theses with ample counterpoints, and probe Eagleton’s vision of the socialist future from an Austrian angle to see where the author succeeds and falls short of his mark.

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Abstract: The goal has been to devise a strategy that protects as much as possible the rights and liberties of all agents, both users of fossil fuels and people whose livelihoods and territories are at risk if the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis is true. To achieve this goal the standard climate policy instruments, taxes and emissions trading, should be discontinued. There are weaknesses in the theoretical perspectives used to justify these policy instruments and climate science cannot provide the knowledge that would be needed to justify their implementation. In their place I propose a privatised policy, based on Austrian and libertarian frameworks of thought, which share an interpretation of climate change as a putative interpersonal conflict rather than market failure. The use of fossil fuels, like any other economic activity, should be subject to side-constraints designed to avoid the infringement of other people’s property rights. Tort litigation on the basis of strict liability would protect these rights, insofar as they need protecting. By providing a public arena for the competitive testing of scientific hypotheses concerning climate change, such litigation would also promote the public understanding and even the advancement of climate science.

Download Paper: Free Markets, Property Rights and Climate Change: How to Privatize Climate Policy

Abstract: Can there be truth in philosophy? A problem: it is philosophy, its various schools, that advances what counts as true versus false, how to go about making the distinction. This is what I wish to focus on here and see if some coherent, sensible position could be reached on the topic.

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Abstract: In this paper, I investigate the issue of whether there exists an objective element of well-being, completely independent of anyone’s desires, interests and preferences. After rejecting health-based and convention-based approaches to objectivity, I conclude that the element in question consists in respecting autonomy, voluntariness of every purposive agent and the principle of non-aggression.

Download Paper: “Well-Being and Objectivity”

Abstract: Block (2011) has offered a second round of counterarguments to my criticisms (Wisniewski 2010a, 2010b) of the claim that his theory of evictionism is compatible with libertarianism. In this paper I attempt to demonstrate that my critique still stands. In particular, I focus on analyzing the argumentative weight of such issues mentioned in Block’s latest response as, among others, the distinction between proper ex post punishment and proper ex ante defense, the question of whether my causal analyses of trespass imply a commitment to positive obligations, Rothbard’s distinction between contracts and premises, the supposed irrelevance of the principle of pacta sunt servanda in the context of abortion, and the extent to which custom can qualify the ambit of applicability of the non-aggression principle.

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Abstract: This article makes an argument for Atlas Shrugged as a highly unified and integrated novel. All of the sections of the paper explain how integration and unity are embodied in Atlas Shrugged. Part one discusses the philosophical and literary structure of Rand’s masterpiece. The next section is concerned with issues of political economy. Section three then examines Rand’s techniques of characterization and character development as demonstrated in Atlas Shrugged. The following part analyzes the philosophical speeches. The final major part considers Atlas Shrugged as a means for social change. The conclusion then discusses Atlas Shrugged as the manifestation of a fully-integrated philosophical novel.

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Abstract: The two main views on the abortion controversy are pro life and pro choice. In my many previous writings on this subject (Block, 1977, 1978, 2001, 2004, 2008, 2010A, 2010B, 2010C, forthcoming; Block and Whitehead, 2005) I have offered a third alternative, evictionism. Wisniewski (2010A) has offered criticisms of this perspective. In Block (2010C) I argued against Wisniewski (2010A), claiming that evictionism was the correct libertarian analysis of this vexing question. Wisniewski (2010B) constituted a rejoinder to Block (2010C), insisting that evictionism constituted an incorrect analysis. The present paper is a response to Wisniewski (2010B), in which I again attempt to defend evictionism against his attacks on this doctrine.

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Abstract: Instead of Politics (Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2010), a new book by individualist John Kosanke, supplies a cornucopia of consequentialist arguments against a political society and for a free-market society.

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Abstract: This essay attempts to show that Plato’s thought makes important contributions to libertarian theory.  Plato diagnoses the state as essentially a state of mind, one in which irrational desires replace natural reason as a guide to ethical conduct.  The statist mindset is therefore marked by profound self-deception about what is truly good.  Importantly, Plato contends that this self-deception plagues the rulers of the state as much as, or more than, the subjects.  They mistakenly believe that wielding unjust power will bring them happiness, when in fact it brings them misery.  The aim of Plato’s philosophy is to convince aspiring rulers of that truth.

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Abstract: In this paper, first, I want to clarify the nature and function of private property. Second, I want to clarify the distinction between “common” goods and property and “public” goods and property, and explain the construction error inherent in the institution of public goods and property. Third, I want to explain the rationale and principle of privatization.

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Abstract: In this article I summarize Friedrich Hayek’s cultural group selection theory and describe the evidence gathered by current cultural group selection theorists within the behavioral and social sciences supporting Hayek’s main assertions. I conclude with a few comments on Hayek and libertarianism.

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Abstract: E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India presents Brahman Hindu jurisprudence as an alternative to British rule of law, a utilitarian jurisprudence that hinges on mercantilism, central planning, and imperialism.  Building on John Hasnas’s critiques of rule of law and Murray Rothbard’s critiques of Benthamite utilitarianism, this essay argues that Forster’s depictions of Brahman Hindu in the novel endorse polycentric legal systems.  Mr. Turton is the local district collector whose job is to pander to both British and Indian interests; positioned as such, Turton is a site for critique and comparison.  Forster uses Turton to show that Brahman Hindu jurisprudence is fair and more effective than British bureaucratic administration.  Forster’s depictions of Brahman Hindu are not verisimilar, and Brahman Hindu does not recommend a particular jurisprudence.  But Forster appropriates Brahman Hindu for aesthetic and political purposes and in so doing advocates a jurisprudence that does not reduce all experience to mathematical calculation.  Forster writes against the Benthamite utilitarianism adopted by most colonial administrators in India.  A tough figure to pin down politically, Forster celebrates the individual and personal relations: things that British rule of law seeks to suppress.

Download PDF: The Oft-Ignored Mr. Turton: The Role of District Collector in A Passage to India

Abstract: This article provides an Austrian overview of the inflation versus deflation debate which has captured the attention of the economics profession in the years following the US housing bust. Much of the Austrian analysis of this debate has focused on the massive expansion of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and attendant creation of new reserves. Several Austrian economists have predicted that the creation of new reserves will cause a massive increase in inflation. The money multiplier theory, on which these predictions are based, is criticized and an overview of the Austrian business cycle theory is provided to explain why banks are reluctant to issue new credit. Finally, an analysis of the politics of deflation is provided and a class theory is presented to explain why a policy of controlled credit deflation is more likely than a policy that would result in mass inflation or hyperinflation.

Download PDF: Why Credit Deflation Is More Likely than Mass Inflation: An Austrian Overview of the Inflation Versus Deflation Debate

Abstract: Many may benefit from revisiting the natural rights support for the fully free society even though the case is on record in several books and numerous scholarly pieces. Here I provide a sketch of that support, with a plethora of references for those who would like to explore the full case.

The basic point is that adult human beings are moral agents and as such require in their communities respect for–and at times expert protection of–their individual natural rights. This is what gives rise to a polity of very limited government or law. Like referees at a game, whoever maintains and defends the law must stick to that job and not stray into other projects lest the work become corrupted. Such a society will not guarantee good conduct or prosperity but will have the best chance at these.

Download PDF: Backing the Founders: The Case for Unalienable Individual Rights

Abstract: Milton Friedman had long declared himself a small “l” libertarian (to distinguish himself from members of the Libertarian Party). But, libertarianism is based on the twin pillars of the non aggression axiom and private property predicated on homesteading and peaceful exchange. Friedman adopts none of this. Instead, he undergirds his philosophy on “tolerance,” which is no part of libertarianism. Thus, his claim to the mantle of libertarianism, big or small “L” it matters not which, is called into question.

Download PDF: Milton Friedman on Intolerance: A Critique

Abstract: If property is defined as something over which an individual should have exclusive control, then the traditional notion of property must be abandoned. Specifically, the idea that a physical object is someone’s property fails to meet the definition given. This paper examines why an individual should not always have exclusive control over physical things, and, if not objects, what exactly an individual should have exclusive control over.

The proposed solution is that property be delineated not by physical boundaries, but by human action. This does not include all action, for scarcity makes certain actions mutually exclusive. Therefore, property is conceived of as proper action, i.e., action consistent with the non-aggression principle. Those physical objects traditionally considered property are then simply means of proper action.

The benefits of this change in perspective are then examined with regard to production, exchange, aggression and other related topics.

Download PDF: Cause No Conflict

Abstract: What this paper attempts to demonstrate is that, in his treatise Liberalism, Mises’s defense of liberty is incomplete because his reasoning in favor of liberty for all is–not of a moral, but–exclusively of an economic kind. Without a moral justification, Mises’s defense–once the aim of productivity has been abandoned–is forced to affirm with cold indifference that a society of slaves is no better or worse than one of free men. There exists a more comprehensive defense.

Download PDF: Mises’s Defense of Liberty: A Critique

Abstract: Some libertarians are impatient with philosophical discussions and even dismiss philosophy as not needed to make the case for the free society. I dispute this and indicate why. As many have found, even to dismiss philosophy, one needs a bit of it! [Note: the Mishan quote in the article is from E. J. Mishan, “Fact, Faith & Myth, Changing Concepts of the Free Market,” Encounter (November 1986), p. 66.]

Download PDF: Discussion Note: Contemporary Philosophy Versus the Free Society