The present paper investigates the question of whether right-libertarians must accept easements by necessity. Since easements by necessity limit the property rights of the owner of the servient tenement, they apparently conflict with the libertarian homestead principle, according to which the person who first mixes his labor with the unowned land acquires absolute ownership thereof. As we demonstrate in the paper, however, the homestead principle understood in such an absolutist way generates contradictions within the set of rights distributed on its basis. In order to avoid such contradictions, easements by necessity must be incorporated into the libertarian theory of property rights and the homestead principle must be truncated accordingly.
The article is devoted to the problem of the structure of libertarian theory of justice. It tries to present a map of the main concepts and principles of this theory and to investigate its possible justifications. It explains such fundamental concepts as original appropriation, homesteading, labour theory of property or first possession theory of original appropriation. The article shows merits and drawbacks of alternative libertarian principles of justice in first acquisition and proposes a sketch of an original justification for the first possession theory of original appropriation.
I criticize Hoppe’s concept of argumentation ethics, which is used to give a “Letztbegründung” (final, incontestable proof) of libertarian ethics and Austrian economics, from the point of view of Popper’s critical rationalism.
I also evaluate various arguments against Popper in libertarian literature and find them misguided: They criticize only an empiricist straw version of Popper’s [critical] rationalism.
I argue that the libertarian theory – ethics as well as economy – have to be based on critical instead of classical rationalism.
Stephan Kinsella shares his views on libertarian attacks on Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Hoppe’s actual positions on immigration and monarchy, and the differences between libertarian universalism and decentralization.
From the recently-concluded Sixteenth Annual (2022) Meeting of the PFS, Bodrum, Turkey (Sept. 17, 2022). The video as well as slide presentation is also streamed below (ppt).
For others, see the PFS YouTube channel, including the PFS 2022 YouTube Playlist (forthcoming).
From Robert’s Episode notes: “Stephan Kinsella is an American intellectual property lawyer, author, and deontological anarcho-capitalist. He joins me for an in-depth conversation about the book “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics” by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.”
It is also argued that both business people and companies “give up” the right to complete freedom when engaging in cartelization and the restriction of production because such behaviour violates the rights of potential consumers. We encounter here a great misunderstanding of rights: the producers have their property (as property owners or mandated managers) and possess all the rights associated with it, including the absolute right not to use their property at all; consumers have full rights over their property, including the absolute right to spend or not their own money. In the most common approach, freedom is the right of a person to dispose of his body (self-ownership), of what he firstly appropriated from nature through processing (homesteaded) or obtained voluntarily. And no other arrangement can be argued as being non-contradictory, for each act of argumentation involves mutual recognition of the selfownership along with the ownership of the other belongings of the participants, qua “teleological extension” of their persons, necessary to the full comfort of the dialogue (Hoppe, 1993; Kinsella, 1996).
For example, back in 2019, Magness tried to link Hoppe’s views on immigration and race to his PhD adviser Habermas (see this 2019 Facebook post and his article Racial Determinism and Immigration in the Works of Ludwig von Mises). As I pointed out in the comments to the FB post, however, the critique was confused. More on this in the Appendix below.
Later, Magness started ramping up his accusations and insinuations, such as this tweet: [continue reading…]
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