In attempting to outline how a “society without a state” — that is, an anarchist society — might function successfully, I would first like to defuse two common but mistaken criticisms of this approach. First, is the argument that in providing for such defense  or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself, I am simply smuggling the state back into society in another form, and that therefore the system I am both analyzing and advocating is not “really” anarchism.

[The Old Curmudgeon was a regular feature of Murray Rothbard’s Libertarian Forum. Here are his New Year’s wishes for the libertarian movement in the December 1975 issue, available in PDF.]

From The Old Curmudgeon

Ethernet pioneer Bob Metcalfe recently gave a free-market-esque speech at an energy summit in Massachusetts. Below are a couple of choice quotes. Note: FOCACA stands for freedom of choice among competing alternatives:

My school offers two main elective history courses for seniors: Government and Economics. Due to scheduling limitations, not many kids are able to take both. I’ve noticed something interesting as the year has progressed. The students who are taking the government course are increasingly endorsing leftist ideologies while the economics students are becoming increasingly right wing.

Greg Mankiw offers his thoughts on the question

[This article is excerpted from the first 5 chapters of The Ethics of Liberty. Listen to the MP3 version.]

[This article is excerpted from Professor Hoppe’s introduction to the 1998 edition of The Ethics of Liberty. An audiobook version is available for download.]

I know nothing about the tire market but it seems clear that the unions have set out to destroy another company. I’m in the market now for tires, and I would like to buy Goodyear if only to support “capital” over “labor” (how absurd to think that their interests are naturally opposed!). But the car parts guy tells me that I can get a better Michelin tire for $50 less. Maybe he is not telling the truth but if it is true, it gives a hint as to what needs to happen at that company.

One argument against intellectual property is that property rights should be recognized only in scarce (rivalrous) resources. Some refer to this quality as “tangibility,” somewhat inaccurately in my mind, but it’s at least a similar concept. Anyway, the basic idea is that, say, “software” is not property because it is not tangible or scarce; therefore, copyright in software is illegitimate.

On Sunday, December 10, General Augusto Pinochet of Chile died, at the age of 91. General Pinochet deserves to be remembered for having rescued his country from becoming the second Soviet satellite in the Western hemisphere, after Castro’s Cuba, and, like the Soviet Union, and Cuba under Castro, a totalitarian dictatorship.