In my exchange with Roderick Long on government and the corporation I made two basic points. First, the corporate form of organization is indeed imperfect, as “left-libertarians” point out, but so are all forms of organization, including networks of independent contractors, worker-owned cooperatives, household production, and so on. Each has benefits and costs which vary according to circumstances.
Though the British mainstream media buried this story for as long as they could, this three-minute speech by Daniel Hannan, a member of the European Parliament, attacking the economic policies of British Labor-Party Prime Minister Gordon Brown, garnered over 2 million viewers through the Internet.
That such a speech arouses this much interest among Britons may portend improvements in the direction of British politics in the next elections, which may be soon.
[Deleting the State: An Argument about Government. By Aeon J. Skoble. Open Court, 2008. Viii + 129 pages.]
[Against Intellectual Monopoly. By Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Viii + 298 pages.]
One of the most important recent advances in libertarian theory has come in the field of intellectual property. Several writers, Stephan Kinsella most notably among them, have argued that patents and copyrights should not form part of a proper libertarian law code. These writers modify and extend the work of Murray Rothbard, who allowed copyrights but not patents.
