Libertarian Papers

Abstract: How accurate is Kevin Carson’s characterization of “freed” markets? Carson, a left-libertarian “free market anti-capitalist,” portrays free markets as so radically different from actually-existing markets that they are almost unrecognizable. In The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto, he provides an alternative history of industrialization that argues that large-scale industrial organization and production are largely creatures of state intervention and that truly free markets would be characterized mainly by small-scale production for local markets. This paper evaluates Carson’s narrative in order to determine whether his vision of the freed market is credible. I find that Carson fails to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that, but for government intervention, national markets would only exist for a few goods. Furthermore, many of the features he believes freed markets would possess are based on fallacious views of competition, knowledge, capital, and entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Left-libertarianism, freed market, anti-capitalist, mutualism

JEL Codes: L1, L11, P1, P12, B5

Download Paper: “Kevin Carson and the Freed Market: Is His Left-Libertarian Vision Plausible?”

Abstract: I take issue with the view that libertarian theory does not imply any particular stand on abortion. Liberty is the absence of interference with people’s wills—interests, wishes, and desires. Only entities that have such are eligible for the direct rights of libertarian theory. Foetuses do not; and if aborted, there is then no future person whose rights are violated. Hence the “liberal” view of abortion: women (especially) may decide whether to bear the children they have conceived. Birth is a good dividing line between the freedom to abort and the point at which society is permitted to take an interest. Once born, children detach from their mothers; no invasion of their bodies is necessary to separate them. Yet some ways of bringing them up can have a negative impact on society. There is a thus legitimate interest in protecting ourselves from the results of truly bad parenting.

Keywords: Abortion, natural rights, newborn rights, child rights, parenting

Download Paper: “Resolving the Debate on Libertarianism and Abortion”

Abstract: This study steps beyond the traditional arguments of feminism and examines homebirth from a libertarian perspective. It addresses the debate over homebirth and midwifery, which includes the use of direct-entry midwives as well as the philosophical implications of individual autonomy expressed through consumer choice. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates that the medical establishment gains economic and political control primarily through medical licensing, and uses the state to undermine personal freedom as it advances a government-enforced monopoly on birth. At the same time, empirical studies have established a substantial record of high safety and low medical complication rates for homebirth as compared to hospital births. Ultimately, the state’s restriction on medical choices is incompatible with the nonaggression principle and voluntarism, and therefore, with libertarianism.

Keywords: homebirth, libertarianism, medical licensing, midwifery, voluntarism

Download Paper: “Homebirth, Midwives, and the State: A Libertarian Look”

Abstract: Matt Zwolinski argues that libertarians “should see the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)—a guarantee that all members will receive income regardless of why they need it—as an essential part of an ideally just libertarian system.” He regards the satisfaction of a Lockean proviso—a stipulation that individuals may not be rendered relevantly worse off by the uses and appropriations of private property—as a necessary condition for a private property system’s being just. BIG is to be justified precisely because it prevents proviso violations. We deem Zwolinski’s argument a “Direct Proviso-Based Argument” for BIG. We argue that because this sort of argument for the BIG is in tension with other principles libertarians within the Lockean tradition hold dear, specifically prohibitions on seizing legitimately held property and forcing individuals to labor, the Direct Proviso-Based Argument fails.

Keywords: Basic Income Guarantee, Lockean proviso, Robert Nozick, income distribution, welfare

Download Paper: “The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Guarantee: an Assessment of the Direct Proviso-Based Route”

Abstract: This essay offers a standard by which to assess the feasibility of market anarchism. In anarchist thought, the concept of feasibility concerns both the ability and the willingness of private defense agencies to liberate their clients from state oppression. I argue that the emergence of a single stateless pocket of effective, privately-provided defense for a “reasonable” length of time is sufficient to affirm feasibility. I then consider the failure of private defense agencies to achieve even this standard. Furthermore, I identify five possible explanations for the conspicuous absence of private defense agencies. These explanations are entrepreneurial, technological, or economic in nature, or result from a lack of consumer demand or a lack of incentive for violence specialists to refrain from aggression. Of these, only an economic deficiency renders anarchism intrinsically unworkable.

Keywords: market anarchism, private defense agencies, private production of law, inevitability of government

Download Paper: “On the Conspicuous Absence of Private Defense”

Abstract: Society, based on contract and voluntary exchange, is evolving, but remains only partly developed. Goods and services that meet the needs of individuals, such as food, clothing, and shelter, are amply produced and distributed through the market process. However, those that meet common or community needs, while distributed through the market, are produced politically through taxation and violence. These goods attach not to individuals but to a place; to enjoy them, individuals must go to the place where they are. Land owners, all unknowingly, distribute such services contractually as they rent or sell sites. Rent or price is the market value of such services, net after disservices, as they affect each site. By distributing occupancies to those who can pay the highest price, land owners’ interests align with those of society. Without this, tenure would be precarious—by force or favor of politicians. The 18th-century separation of land from state, so little studied by historians, permitted the development of modern property in land. This change is perhaps “the greatest single step in the evolution of Society the world has ever seen.” When land owners realize that they market community services, they will organize to produce and administer them as well, and society will be made whole.

Keywords: Spencer Heath, Georgism, land ownership, public goods, market process, social progress

Download Paper: “Society, Its Process and Prospect”

Abstract: Latin American religious political thought includes colonial Spanish and Portuguese ideologies that preceded independence but have survived into the post-independence era, authoritarian ideologies supportive of military governments in the twentieth century, and progressive liberation theologies. In this article, I present a distinct tradition: a version of classical liberal thought. This tradition is skeptical of big government, opposed to caste systems, supportive of a high degree of federalism, uneasy with militarism, and supportive of democratic institutions while affirming religious social norms. This ideology was developed in northeastern Brazil in the early nineteenth century by a Carmelite activist named Frei Caneca (Brother Mug), who published a newspaper titled the Typhis Pernambucano (Tiphys of the State of Pernambuco).

Keywords: Classical liberalism, Brazil, Rio, Frei Caneca, Brother Mug, Confederation of the Equator, political philosophy, federalism, regional autonomy

Download Paper: “Freedom from the State in Rio: The Classical Liberal Ideals of Frei Caneca, Leader of the 1824 Confederation of the Equator Movement in Northeastern Brazil”

Abstract: This book is a collection and reworking of research done by Pascal Salin since around 1990. Salin is an economist in the tradition of the Austrian school of economics. He emphasizes the centrality of individual choice in an uncertain world in which individual actions interact to produce spontaneous orders. But he is no mere conduit of established ideas. He also offers his own highly original insights honed after a lifetime as an economist, one who has earned the respect in which he is now held by his peers worldwide. The book makes delightful reading. Salin covers a lot of ground in this book, mostly within the topics indicated by the title, though in the final two chapters he goes beyond these and into the foundations of economic science. The book is divided into five parts: (1) firms, markets and competition, (2) globalization and international economic problems, (3) monetary integration, (4) money, finance and economic policies, and (5) foundations of economic theory.

Keywords: Pascal Salin, Frédéric Bastiat, Austrian economics, classical liberalism, the theory of the firm, monopoly, economic integration, European Union

Download Paper: “Book Review: Competition, Coordination and Diversity: From the Firm to Economic Integration“

Abstract: Stephen Cox writes of the complexities that guided this well-known columnist, literary critic, best-selling novelist, avid reader, and intellectual, Mary Isabel Bowler Patterson, better known as Isabel Paterson or “I.M.P.” This edited collection includes a well-chosen selection of her essays, reviews, and letters. Combining both formal and colloquial prose, Paterson’s writings incorporated quips about such people as Sinclair Lewis and Henry David Thoreau, as well as candid discussions of William F. Buckley, Jr., Buffalo Bill, and Cecil Rhodes. The more than one hundred names mentioned in the collection included such diverse figures as Virginia Woolf, John Pierpont Morgan, H.G. Wells, Henry Hazlitt, and Jasper Elliot Crane.

Keywords: Isabel Paterson, Stephen Cox, Amercian literature, individualism, The God of the Machine

Download Paper: “Book Review: Culture and Liberty: Writings of Isabel Paterson“

Abstract: A critical but underdeveloped part of the libertarian debate about immigration is the question of who, if anyone, owns public property, and the consequences of the answer to this question. Libertarians who favor restrictive immigration policies, such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe,  argue that taxpayers own public property, and that the state, while it is in control of such property, should manage it on behalf of taxpayers in the same way private owners would manage their own property. In other words, it should be quite selective about who may enter. Walter Block, who takes an “open borders” position, does not appear to dispute the claim that taxpayers own public property, but nevertheless argues that immigrants are entitled to ignore the state’s control of, and thus may freely enter, such property. In this article I explore the question of public property ownership using Rothbardian property rights principles. I conclude that, at least with respect to a particular type of public property, neither Hoppe’s nor Block’s reasoning is consistent with these principles. I also consider the idea that the state ought to have a role in managing public property in light of some libertarian anarchist ideas about the state. I conclude that supporting a legitimate role for the state as an immigration gatekeeper is inconsistent with Rothbardian and Hoppean libertarian anarchism, as well as with the associated strategy of advocating always and in every instance reductions in the state’s role in society.

Keywords: Immigration, public property, private property, state-claimed land, immigration controls, open borders

Download Paper: “Public Property and the Libertarian Immigration Debate”

Abstract: The present paper offers a libertarian reading of one of the most important Chinese novels of the twentieth century, The Travels of Laocan, written by Chinese entrepreneur Liu E between 1903 and 1906. I start with an exposition of the ideas associated with the concept of “Asian values,” the evident cultural unviability of this notion, and how “Asian authoritarianism” has been rationalized and justified on the basis of a Hobbesian conception of human nature. Next, I examine Liu E’s life and career as an entrepreneur in a highly interventionist society. Finally, I focus on his magnum opus, The Travels of Laocan, a fictionalized autobiography that explains Liu E’s philosophical and libertarian ideas.

Keywords: Asian authoritarianism, Asian libertarianism, Liu E, The Travels of Laocan, state intervention

Download Paper: “The Case against Asian Authoritarianism: A Libertarian Reading of Liu E’s The Travels of Laocan“

Abstract: Libertarian philosophy asserts that only the initiation of physical force against persons or property, or the threat thereof, is inherently illegitimate. A corollary to this assertion is that all forms of speech, including fraudulent advertising, are not invasive and therefore should be considered legitimate. On the other hand, fraudulent advertising can be viewed as implicit theft under the theory of contract: if a seller accepts money knowing that his product does not have some of its advertised characteristics, he acquires the property title to the customer’s money without voluntary consent, which is theft. The balance between these two logical extensions of property rights—the right of free speech and the right of contract—lies somewhere in the area of communication philosophy, and can be explained through understanding the role of communication in human interactions. Advertising is a form of communication that may convey important information about the conditions of the proposed contract. These conditions are expressed in particular words that may have different meanings in different circumstances. Therefore to determine whether a particular example or “misinterpretation” is mere sophistry or a type of fraud, the judicial system has to approach each issue on a case-by-case basis. The border between legal and illegal should be determined by precedents and by expectations based on commonly accepted definitions of terms—what people commonly understand by the words and other forms of communication they use.

Keywords: fraudulent advertising, freedom of speech, words and deeds, title-transfer theory of contract

Download Paper: “Fraudulent Advertising: A Mere Speech Act or a Type of Theft?”

Abstract: This article offers a libertarian re-examination of Brazilian political history focusing mainly on the first few decades of the 19th century. The article finds two main tendencies lurking behind the various political parties and labels of the time: one, associated mainly with the Conservative Party, leaned dangerously away from the individual liberties advocated by classical liberalism and instead more toward authoritarian forms of government. The other, associated mainly with the Liberal Party, was more libertarian in nature. This article also concludes that other examinations of these budding political parties fall short by overlooking a potentially authoritarian state underlying the Conservative project that dominated politics in Brazil at the time.

Keywords: Brazil, classical liberalism, conservatism, individual rights, slavery, immigration

Download Paper: “A Libertarian Re-examination of Early 19th-Century Politics in Brazil”

Abstract: Although many libertarians share similar moral foundations, they disagree about whether the state can be justified. The most famous libertarian attempt to justify the state is that of Robert Nozick. This attempt has been criticized by, among others, the libertarian anarchist Murray Rothbard. In this article, Nozick’s theory and Rothbard’s critique are discussed, as well as some other attempts to justify the state from libertarian premises. Keeping the criticisms of those theories in mind, an alternative theory, which attempts to bypass the criticisms, is put forward. This alternative theory explains how a state—most probably a nonminimal democratic state—can legitimately be formed in a condition of anarchy without violating anyone’s libertarian rights. One result of this is that the rights-based case for minarchism is severely weakened.

Keywords: Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, John Locke, natural rights, state justification, democracy, state of nature, minarchism

Download Paper: “Justifying the State from Rights-Based Libertarian Premises”

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to address from a normative perspective issues raised by John Mueller (2010) in Redeeming Economics: Rediscovering the Missing Element. Mueller criticizes economists, including Austrians, for failing to properly address unilateral transfers—in particular, charity, childcare, and crime—in economic thought. Mueller challenges economist Gary Becker’s position that giving increases the utility of the giver. Mueller also claims that the ends of action are persons, not utility or satisfaction. Further, unlike Ludwig von Mises and other economists, Mueller maintains that there is not a single preference scale but that there are separate scales for ends and means. In addition, his view is that people give in proportion to love for others and steal in proportion to hatred of others. One of my aims is to integrate my work on unilateral transfers based on Objectivist ethics with some ideas from the Austrian school. I discuss the overlap between some Objectivist principles and those of Austrians such as Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Henry Hazlitt. In so doing, I extend work I have done on crime, childcare, and charity to the Austrian school. I compare this work with Mueller’s, focusing on some heuristics I have derived for childcare and for charitable giving.

Keywords: Objectivism, Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, charity, childcare, crime

Download Paper: “Charity, Childcare, and Crime: From Objectivist Ethics to the Austrian School”

Abstract: The scope of libertarian law is normally limited to the application of the non-aggression principle (NAP), nothing more and nothing less. However, judging when the NAP has been violated requires not only a conception of praxeological notions such as aggression, but also interpretive understanding of what synthetic events count as the relevant praxeological types. Interpretive understanding—or verstehen—can be extremely heterogeneous between agents. The particular verständnis taken by a judge has considerable moral and political implications. Since selecting a verständnis is pre-requisite to applying the NAP, the NAP itself cannot tell us which one we ought morally to choose. Therefore the application of the NAP calls on moral and political considerations outside of the NAP itself. Since some of these are more consistent with an endorsement of the NAP than others, libertarianism is not a “thin” commitment to the NAP alone, but a “thick” commitment to the NAP and other supporting moral and political considerations.

Keywords: thin libertarianism, thick libertarianism, non-aggression principle, praxeology, verstehen

Download Paper: “The Possibility of Thick Libertarianism”

Abstract: In this review, I will focus on how William Irwin’s The Free Market Existentialist manages to take a broad definition of existentialism and narrow it into dogma. Such narrowing limits the appeal of this book and causes an interesting discussion to fall short of its promised goal: a demonstration that libertarianism is compatible, and perhaps a natural fit, with existentialism.

Keywords: existentialism, libertarianism, Søren Kierkegaard, F.A. Hayek

Download Paper: “Book Review: The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism”

Abstract: This paper reviews some points of agreement between Objectivism and the Austrian school of economics. It also discusses some of my points of departure with Objectivism. One such is Rand’s justification for holding life as man’s ultimate value. I present a case that the recognition of death’s inevitability is needed to establish life as man’s ultimate value. Although death’s inevitability is implicit within Objectivist ethics (in its emphasis on a person’s entire life), the focus of Rand’s discussion of the ultimate value is on life’s contingency, not its limitedness. I present an example comparing a being with a contingent and limited life to a being with a contingent but potentially endless life. This illustrates the function of life’s limitedness in valuation. I qualify my position somewhat by exploring one way in which a being with a contingent but potentially endless life may value his life as a whole. I also explain that a being with an endless life might have no ultimate value, but could have an endless number of goals. Finally, I discuss a desert-island scenario that supports the noninterference principle.

Keywords: Ayn Rand, Austrian school, objectivism, is-ought, ultimate value, eudaemonia, Robinson Crusoe, non-aggression principle

Download Paper: “Rand and the Austrians: The Ultimate Value and the Noninterference Principle.”

Abstract: In Marco Polo’s Travels, the market is depicted as a voluntary means of production and exchange, leading to the creation of material abundance and wellbeing, whereas the Mongol state, by contrast, is repeatedly engaged in the extraction of wealth at the point of a sword. This paper examines Polo’s descriptions of the economic and political features of the Mongol empire through the lens of Austrian economics, with particular attention to taxes and tariffs, government spending, predation, state monopolies, currency manipulation, prohibitions and regulations, and control and surveillance.

Keywords: Marco Polo, Kubilai Khan, taxation, monopolization, predatory state, fiat money, inflation

Download Paper: “Marco Polo on the Mongol State: Taxation, Predation, and Monopolization”

Abstract: I offer historical reasons for the relative paucity of discussion of property in land during much of the last century. Insofar as this reflects lack of understanding of the subject, it puts at risk, for lack of adequate theoretical defense, the historic separation of land and state. The destructive attacks by Henry George and Karl Marx in the nineteenth century can be attributed to an uncritical acceptance of Locke’s labor theory of ownership; reliance on an outmoded concept of land as physical, fixed in quantity, and not man-made; and failure to perceive the social function of property in land. These points are discussed in turn. To bring some clarity to this clouded area, Spencer Heath and F. A. Harper sought a more empirical, scientific approach. Heath’s operationalizing of the terms “property” and “capital” solves the Lockean problem and reveals, as a measure of civilization, an evolutionary trend towards property of all kinds being administered as productive capital. With respect to land, the trend manifests most significantly in the recent emergence of multi-tenant properties. These, being specialized communities, privately owned and administered, may be harbingers of an impending new step in social evolution—the provision of all public services by private contract rather than taxation.

Keywords: Henry George, F.A. Harper, Spencer Heath, Institute for Humane Studies, John Locke, community organization, land, multi-tenant properties, ownership, proprietary community, public services, social science

Download Paper: “Freedom’s Ugly Duckling: A Fresh Take on Property in Land”