What follows is a comment on some of the arguments on intellectual property and blackmail presented respectively by N. Stephan Kinsella and Walter Block in their contributions to the Journal of Libertarian Studies “Symposium on Applications of Libertarian Legal Theory.”
We hear a lot of expressed concern about conserving the environment, but no one talks much about producing it. Why not manufacture it competitively and sell it in the free market like other goods and services—and even bundle it with product support? As a matter of fact, that is being done. It is a relatively new product, but its manufacturers stand behind it, and we will doubtless be seeing more of it in the future.
Is government a necessary institution? To answer this question, many theorists begin with an account of a state of nature in which there are no “rules” or institutions to regulate human behavior. They then compare that state of nature with outcomes that are theoretically achieved with a monopoly rule enforcer—a government.
Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, smaller, independent, ethnically-based political entities emerged. In the years since, academics from various disciplines have renewed their interest in the topic of secession. A lively discussion in the academic mainstream on the morality and legality of secession has occurred among predominantly liberal democratic political philosophers, a discussion that was non-existent prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In this article, David Gordon and Roberta A. Modugno review of J.C. Lester’s Escape From Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare, and Anarchy Reconciled.
This article begins by contrasting the distinctive methodological starting points of Weber and Mises, and proceeds to review and discuss each thinker’s analysis of bureaucracy, both as a theoretical construct and as a dynamic element within a society’s structural and cultural organization.
Surveys of libertarian-leaning individuals in America show that the intellectual champions they venerate the most are Thomas Jefferson and Ayn Rand. The author of the Declaration of Independence is an inspiring source for individuals longing for liberty all around the world, since he was a devotee of individual rights, freedom of choice, limited government, and, above all, the natural origin, and thus the inalienable character, of a personal right to property.
In this article, Enrico Colombatto reviews Joseph E. Stiglitz’ Globalization and Its Discontents.
Frank van Dun, in his article “Against Libertarian Legalism,” criticizes prior articles by N. Stephan Kinsella and me. Although his article constitutes, in part, a radical if not blistering attack on my prior article, at least it has the merit of fully understanding that which it criticizes. All too often, negative appraisals of libertarianism address themselves to straw men. Say what you will about Van Dun’s article —and I will have many critical things to say about it—it cannot be fairly asserted that he does not comprehend his target.
In this article, Frank van Dun offers a reply to Walter Block’s paper reviewing one of Dun’s previous works.
