LIBERTARIAN ANSWER MAN TIME

A high school student sent me a question. Here’s my dashed-off reply:

“Lançamento do livro A Grande Ficção, de Hans-Hermann Hoppe” [Permalink: https://perma.cc/2U28-WPJ8], “Afterword,” in Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline (Laissez Faire Books, 2012) and “Afterword” [PDF] (Second Expanded Edition, Mises Institute, 2021).

• Portuguese translation of The Great Fiction.

International Law, Libertarian Principles, and the Russia-Ukraine War

Back in 2019 one Mario Demolidor asked me to field some questions. I replied to one of them at length. It was:

1) People often dislike libertarianism because they do not see how a fully contracted private justice system can work. So, I ask, how can we deal in a libertarian society with criminals or suspects who deny justice and make no contracts to elect a judge? How to get them to trial?

I have just been made aware that he later published an edited and rearranged version of my responses at Stateless Justice | By: Stephan Kinsella (March 10, 2020). I reprint his article below in case his is ever lost (this happens all the time), and append after it my original emailed response to him (unedited) for completeness and in case there are any errors or omissions from his version (I have not checked). [continue reading…]

Bob “Werewolf” Wenzel

This libertarian movement of ours has its fair share of drama, crazy stories, eccentric personalities, losers, weirdos, and so on. I’ve been involved since the late 80s,¹ so have seen my fair share of this bullshit.

I just heard Murray Sabrin, on a fairly recent episode of the Tom Woods podcast (ep. 1988), speak positively about the late Bob Wenzel of “Economic Policy Journal” (sic, as it wasn’t a “journal”; it was just a clickbaity blog) as being the rare person who could give financial and investment advice from an Austrian perspective.

Robert “Bob” Wenzel, Raymond Nize, or whatever his real name was

(You’ll note I said “late.” Bob, or whatever his real name was, allegedly died last year. See David Gordon, “Robert Wenzel, RIP” (May 27, 2021); Robert Wenzel – 1957 to 2021; Taylor Lewis, “Rest in Peace, Robert Wenzel” (June 12, 2021); Walter Block, “Bob Wenzel, RIP” (June 1, 2021); Daniel McAdams, “Robert Wenzel, RIP” (May 26, 2021). I say “allegedly” and express skepticism that Bob Wenzel was his real name for reasons that will become apparent below.)

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1. See How I Became A Libertarian, December 18, 2002, LewRockwell.com [in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians (compiled by Walter Block; Mises Institute 2010)]. Supplementary material:  “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella,” Mises Economics Blog (Feb. 11, 2011) [archived]. [↩]

Interesting discussion re a new book from Billy Christmas, whom I also published in Libertarian Papers: “The Possibility of Thick Libertarianism” (2016), the abstract of which is:

“Abstract: The scope of libertarian law is normally limited to the application of the non-aggression principle (NAP), nothing more and nothing less. However, judging when the NAP has been violated requires not only a conception of praxeological notions such as aggression, but also interpretive understanding of what synthetic events count as the relevant praxeological types. Interpretive understanding—or verstehen—can be extremely heterogeneous between agents. The particular verständnis taken by a judge has considerable moral and political implications. Since selecting a verständnis is pre-requisite to applying the NAP, the NAP itself cannot tell us which one we ought morally to choose. Therefore the application of the NAP calls on moral and political considerations outside of the NAP itself. Since some of these are more consistent with an endorsement of the NAP than others, libertarianism is not a “thin” commitment to the NAP alone, but a “thick” commitment to the NAP and other supporting moral and political considerations.”

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In a recent tweet, I said:

I’m continually puzzled at the hatred some lowbrow libertarians have for the UN and international law. Did they miss the “we are not Birchers” memo?

I got the expected flack. Including a private comment from a friend I respect who said, in essence:

There is nothing good about the UN and nothing bad about the Birchers. The UN is funded by fiat inflation and tax dollars. It’s not a voluntary organization. It’s built on theft. How can a libertarian find that anything but criminal?

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