The right of one person necessarily entails the obligation of another person or persons. If you have a right to life, I have the obligation not to kill you; if you have a right of free speech, I have the obligation not to stop you from speaking. The first half would be pointless without the second. If any given person has the right to enter the United States, who is it that has the obligation? Every person in the United States? Or only the person whose property the immigrant wishes to inhabit? Or perhaps, no one person in the United States, only the U.S.

Volume 8, Number 1 (1986)

Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia presented his by-now-famous view that “a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified.” He went on to say that only such a state is justified. Since then, the view has been frequently presented that a more extensive state than the one proposed by Nozick is warranted-as has the view that only a less extensive state, or no state at all, is morally permissible.

Volume 8, Number 1 (1986)

In this paper I will attempt to analyze laws limiting emigration, migration, and immigration from the libertarian perspective. I will defend the view that the totally free movement of goods, factors of production, money, and, most important of all, people, is part and parcel of this traditional libertarian philosophy. Like tariffs and exchange controls, migration barriers of whatever type are egregious violations of laissez-faire capitalism.

Volume 13, Number 2 (1998)

In recent years, with the increasing respectability of “applied philosophy” in the academic world, more and more philosophers have been writing extended treatments of specific public issues and offering recommendations as to how, morally speaking, these issues should be resolved. This essay shall review the state of the debate about one rather narrow issue that has just begun to receive some of this attention-the ethics of immigration restriction.

Volume 8, Number 1 (1986)

Volume 13, Number 2 (1998)

The problems posed by free emigration and immigration often lead to confusion among libertarian theorists and lovers of freedom. In the first place, libertarian doctrine traditionally declared itself, with no qualifications or reservations, in favor of the principle of complete freedom of emigration and immigration.

In recent years, as libertarian policy analysts have put their minds to the question of tax reform, some have succumbed to the lure of a broad-based, proportional, or flat, income tax. Under these proposals, the current progressive multirate structure would be replaced by a single rate that would apply to all taxpayers. Moreover, all forms of income would be taxed; in other words, an attempt would be made to create a “perfectly” broad taxbase.

Volume 8, Number 1 (1986)

The influence of moral philosophy on the rise of laissez faire is a topic that several scholars have examined.

What should be a free country’s policy toward foreigners who would wish to live there? This may appear to be a fairly simple question, but it involves many complications.

Volume 13, Number 2 (1998)

Several years ago, in an episode of “All in the Family ,” Archie Bunker proposed a possible solution to the airline highjacking problem. He suggested that the government should arm all the passengers. Potential highjackers, fearing for their lives when confronted by a hundred or so armed adversaries, would no longer carry out these crimes.