The classic definition of the State involves two elements: a coercive monopolization of defense services over a given geographic area, and the imposition of coercive revenue collection from all of the area’s inhabitants. As Murray Rothbard has pointed out, even if taxes were voluntary, the libertarian must still oppose state control over protective services. By what right does the State prohibit competition in the production of security? By what right does the State force the pacifist or libertarian to subscribe to its service?

Volume 22, Number 1 (2010)

A common argument for libertarianism of the sort associated with writers like Nozick and Rothbard is that it follows more or less directly from the thesis of self-ownership, at least given the assumption that external resources start out unowned. I used to endorse this sort of argument myself, though I do not endorse it (or libertarianism itself for that matter) any longer. One problem I now see with it is that the thesis of self-ownership simply isn’t as determinate as its defenders usually take it to be. There are several reasons for this.

Volume 22, Number 1 (2010)

Liechtenstein has long been recognized as one of the most free and prosperous countries in the world. However, there has been little analysis of Liechtenstein’s development because the scant research that existed was in German and therefore inaccessible to most American scholars. Furthermore, many saw no need to study Liechtenstein, viewing it as an accident of history with an anachronistic political system. Liechtenstein’s Monarchy, unlike the monarchies in most other European states, retains extensive powers and is involved in the day-today operations of government.

It is a common belief that every historian, in trying to describe any episode from the human past, cannot help but color his narrative with the hues of his own political stances, his positions concerning political economy, his visions of a just society, his religious beliefs, and other such subjective tinctures. Those influences will inevitably enter into his interpretation of the “bare, objective facts” of history, and, as a result, the plain facts are merely the raw material from which the historian sculpts his own creation.

Volume 22, Number 1 (2010)

On February 16, 2001, while George W. Bush, President of the United States (U.S.), attended a news conference in Mexico hosted by Vicente Fox, President of Mexico, a distinct difference between the two men became apparent when reporters asked questions about Iraq.

This paper investigates whether the government regulation of insider trading or insider trading laws can be effective.

Volume 22, Number 1 (2011)

If economics is understood as being the science of the implications of voluntary and monetary exchanges among different people (Mises, 1985), the terminology “economics of crime” is a contradiction in terms. Indeed the economic exchange consists in voluntary and peaceful cooperation, whereas crime refers to concepts of violence and coercion (Mises, 1983). The contrast is then more marked between the notion of economics that refers to a process of collaboration and cooperation, and that of criminal activity, which is associated with the invasion of property (Rothbard, 1991 [1970]).

The recently edited Festschrift in honor of Pascal Salin is a highly varied and disparate collection of contributions by colleagues, admirers and friends of the famous French professor of the Université Paris-Dauphine, ranging over a wide variety of subject matters, from personal testimonies and reflections about the methodology of the social sciences to contributions about the relationship between liberalism and Christianity and a plea on behalf of the liberalization of African economies, besides more conventional topics such as the economic analysis of taxation and the theory of

As regards the views about probability of Ludwig von Mises, it is undeniably true that these display considerable nuance and that they can be considered as being of a sui generis variety. Even if Ludwig von Mises’s views on probability exhibit a closer conceptual affinity with Keynes’s philosophy of probability than with the frequency interpretation espoused by his brother Richard von Mises, an important difference between the views of Ludwig von Mises and those of John Maynard Keynes in this respect will nevertheless be acknowledged.

Volume 22, Number 1 (2011)

Libertarian writers including Hoppe, Hummel, and Murphy have attempted to deal with the presence of free riders in theoretical private defense constructs. As with the provision of most public goods, free riders are also a problem in the production of security. This paper proposes a solution toward the free rider problem and analyzes further problems previously unconsidered in the literature.

Volume 22, Number 1 (2011)