[Excerpted from The Man versus the State, 1884]

Most of those who now pass as Liberals are Tories of a new type. This is a paradox which I propose to justify. That I may justify it, I must first point out what the two political parties originally were; and I must then ask the reader to bear with me while I remind him of facts he is familiar with, that I may impress on him the intrinsic natures of Toryism and Liberalism properly so called.

In my 2007 post What Are the Costs of the Patent System? (discussed in “Reducing the Cost of IP Law“) I tried to estimate the cost of the patent system (see also my reply t

I’ve noted before a central error of arguments for intellectual property (IP) is the idea that creation is an independent source of rights (see Libertarian Creationism; Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and “Rearrangement Rights”; Locke, Smith, Marx and the Labor Theory of Value; this comment to “Trademark

[An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Donna Orlando, is available for download.]

It’s over. There can be no hope for the state now. Its time has finally come to an end. If you think this is irrationally optimistic, click here and watch the video. You will see the state’s raison d’être smashed asunder.

The definition of a bribe is rather arcane. It isn’t even clear whether they are harmful. Lew Rockwell and Pierre Lemieux have made the case that public bribes are simply the cost of doing business, similar to taxation, and an opportunity to overcome at least some harmful governmental regulation and gain entry into markets.

I can add two more items to the ways in which government is unraveling civilization. 1) The bans and regulatory restrictions on pesticides are now bringing back the friggin’ stink bug, and 2) The EU is actually threatening to shut down air travel if airlines don’t carbon trade.

This piece on the results of Dell’s August 12 annual shareholder meeting & vote highlights some interesting contrasts between American democracy and corporate democracy.

I’m reading the predictable but still startling story in the New York times called “U.S. Wants to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet.” The idea is that the government wants to wiretap every cell conversation, every email, every transmission, and wants to put the burden of providing for that capacity on private companies.