Legal Foundations of a Free Society

Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), www.stephankinsella.com/lffs.

Legal Foundations of a Free Society (LFFS) is an edited selection of articles published over a 29 year period (1994 to 2023), dealing with a variety of issues in libertarian rights and legal theory. The chapters have been significantly revised and updated and integrated with each other with extensive cross-references. LFFS has been professionally typeset, by Susi Clark, of Creative Blueprint Design, and proofed, by Susan Bruck, who also prepared the bibliography and index.

LFFS was first published (Sept. 21, 2023) in a limited inaugural print run for presentation at the Property and Freedom Society Annual Meeting, Bodrum, Turkey, September 2023. Hardcover, softcover, and ebook versions will be available Nov. 1 on Amazon and other retailers. The Foreword, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and my Preface, are available here.

I will also post online PDF, epub, and the InDesign files, in due course, and, yes, anyone is free to copy or use this book as they like, as I am publishing it under a Creative Commons 0 (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication (No Copyright). I may do a free audio version at some point as well (or anyone else is free to make one as well, without my permission, since I have freed it of copyright).

As I note in the Preface, for those who want to skip the more extraneous material and focus on the core libertarian theory chapters, I recommend chapters 2–12, 14–15, and 18.

For those who just want a taste of what the book is about, I recommend the Foreword by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, my Preface, and chapters 1 (“How I Became A Libertarian”) and 2 (“What Libertarianism Is”).

Content by chapter, and links to supplementary material and readings are provided below. Errata may be found here.

Content

Legal Foundations of a Free Society

FRONT MATTER [pdf]

• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Table of Contents
• Foreword, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
• Preface
• Acknowledgments

PART I: LIBERTARIANISM

1. How I Became A Libertarian (2002)
2. What Libertarianism Is (2009)
3. What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist (2004)

PART II: RIGHTS

4. How We Come To Own Ourselves (2006)
5. A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights (1997)
6. Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights (1996/2019)
7. Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan (2002)

PART III: LIBERTARIAN LEGAL THEORY

8. Causation and Aggression (2004)
9. A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability (2003)
10. Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith (1998–99)
11. Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection (2022)
12. Reply to Van Dun: Non-Aggression and Title Transfer (2004)
13. Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society (1995)

PART IV: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY [pdf]

14. Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society (2013)
15. Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward (2023)
16. Introduction to Origitent (2018)
17. Conversation with Schulman about Logorights and Media-Carried Property (2018)
18. Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce (2010)

PART V: REVIEWS

19. Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law (1999)
20. Review of Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order (1998)
21. Taking the Ninth Amendment Seriously: A Review of Calvin R. Massey’s Silent Rights: The Ninth Amendment and the Constitution’s Unenumerated Rights (1997)
22. The Undeniable Morality of Capitalism (1994)

PART VI: INTERVIEWS & SPEECHES

23. On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws (2014)
24. Stephan Kinsella on the Logic of Libertarianism and Why Intellectual Property Doesn’t Exist (2012) [pdf]
25. Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned? (2014)

END MATTER [pdf]

• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author

❧

Selected Supplementary Material

• Re the cover, see The Story of a Libertarian Book Cover.

Introductory Works

• Ludwig von Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science
• Murray N. Rothbard, For A New Liberty; The Ethics of Liberty; Economic Controversies; Law, Property Rights and Air Pollution
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism; The Economics and Ethics of Private Property; Economic Science and the Austrian Method; The Great Fiction
• Jacob Huebert, Libertarianism Today

Websites/Other

• C4SIF (Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom)
• C4SIF IP Resources
• Selected Supplementary Material for Against Intellectual Property
• The Libertarian Standard

Media

• Kinsella on Liberty Podcast

Books and Articles

• John Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law
• Randy Barnett, The Structure of Liberty
• Bastiat, The Law
• Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order (London & New York: Routledge, 1997)
• Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law
• Giovanni Sartori, Liberty and Law and Democratic Theory
• The Greatest Libertarian Books, StephanKinsella.com (Aug. 7, 2006)

Blog Posts & Articles

• Abortion Correspondence with Doris Gordon, Libertarians For Life (1996) (June 14, 2023)
• On the Obligation to Negotiate, Compromise, and Arbitrate (April 6, 2023)
• Legislative Positivism and Rationalism in the Louisiana and French Civil Codes (April 6, 2023)
• Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases (Dec. 19, 2022)
• The State is not the government; we don’t own property; scarcity doesn’t mean rare; coercion is not aggression (Dec. 19. 2022)
• Magness on Hoppe; the Kochtopus and the Mises Caucus (Sep. 7, 2022)
• Galambos on Paine (July 4, 2022)
• Human Action and Universe Creation (June 28, 2022)
• Aggression and Property Rights Plank in the Libertarian Party Platform (May 30, 2022)
• Stateless Justice: A Response to Mario Demolidor (2020) (April 13, 2022)
• “On Conflictability and Conflictable Resources” (Jan. 31, 2022)
• The Three Fusionisms: Old, New, and Cautious (Jan. 16, 2022)
• Thoughts on Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery, Alienability vs. Inalienability, Property and Contract, Rothbard and Evers
  (Jan. 9, 2022)
• Four questions for “anti-capitalist” libertarians (Carpio)/Is Capitalism Something Good? (Richman) (2010) (Jan. 6, 2022)
• Homesteading, Abandonment, and Unowned Land in the Civil Law (Mises Blog, 2009) (Aug. 28, 2021)
• Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook: Supplemental Readings (May 20, 2021)
• Libertarian Answer Man: Self-ownership for slaves and Crusoe; and Yiannopoulos on Accurate Analysis and the term “Property”; Mises distinguishing between juristic and economic categories of “ownership” (April 3, 2021)
• Reading Suggestions for Prospective/New Law Students (Roman/Civil law focus) (March 3, 2021)
• The “If you own something, that implies that you can sell it; if you sell something, that implies you must own it first” Fallacies, StephanKinsella.com (June 2, 2018)
• Hoppe: A Précis (June 23, 2017)
• Rothbard on the Main Fallacy of our Time: Marx’s Labor Theory of Value (Dec. 26, 2016)
• Kevin Carson on Confiscating Property from the Rich (April 26, 2016)
• The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory (Mar. 22, 2016)
• My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–2015 (Feb. 29, 2016)
• The Great Mises-Hayek Dehomogenization/Economic Calculation Debate (Feb. 8, 2016)
• The Great Fractional Reserve/Freebanking Debate (Jan. 29, 2016)
• Structural Safeguards to Limit Legislation (Jan. 23, 2015)
• Rothbard on the “Original Sin” in Land Titles: 1969 vs. 1974 (Nov. 5, 2014)
• Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe on the “Original Sin” in the Distribution of Property Rights (Oct. 7, 2014)
• “Second Thoughts on Leoni, Hayek, Legislation, and Economic Calculation,” The Libertarian Standard (May 9, 2014)
• The Golden Age of America is Now (March 14, 2013)
• Who is a libertarian? (Feb. 26, 2013)
• Hoppe on Treating Aggressors as Mere “Technical Problems” (Jan. 5, 2013)
• The Amazing Hume, Libertarian Standard (May 30, 2012)
• Don’t worry–you don’t exist: Or, why long-range planning is really impossible [on simulations] (April 22, 2012)
• The Disingenuous “Liberty Isn’t the Only Value” Attack by Liberals and Conservatives on Libertarianism, The Libertarian Standard (Jan. 17, 2012)
• The problem of particularistic ethics or, why everyone really has to admit the validity of the universalizability principle (Nov. 10, 2011)
• Classificationism, Legislation, Copyright, C4SIF (Oct. 25, 2011)
• Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation, LibertarianStandard.com (Oct. 18, 2011)
• Batting about voluntary slavery (Oct. 5, 2011)
• The relation between the non-aggression principle and property rights: a response to Division by Zer0, Mises Blog (Oct. 4, 2011)
• Why Should the Government be Limited? (Sep. 28, 2011)
• The Origin of “Libertarianism,” Mises Blog (Sept. 10, 2011); see also Rothbard on Leonard Read and the Origins of “Libertarianism” (Nov. 17, 2014)
• Rothbard on Mercantilism and State “Patents of Monopoly” (Aug. 29, 2011)
• State Hypocrisy on Anti-Bribery Laws, Mises Blog (July 10, 2011)
• Slate’s Metcalf on Libertarianism and Nozick, Mises Blog (June 22, 2011)
• Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value, StephanKinsella.com (June 12, 2011)
• On the Danger of Metaphors in Scientific Discourse, StephanKinsella.com (June 12, 2011)
• Hoppe on Falsificationism, Empiricism, and Apriorism and Protophysics, StephanKinsella.com (June 9, 2011)
• Spooner on Knaves, Dupes, and the Constitution; and the Highwayman vs. The State, StephanKinsella.com (June 8, 2011)
• Vulgarism, Left-libertarianism, Taco Bell, and “Power” (June 3, 2011)
• “Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation Metaphors,” Mises Economics Blog (April 19, 2011)
• “Hume on Intellectual Property and the Problematic “Labor” Metaphor” (April 9, 2011)
• “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella” (Feb. 11, 2011)
• Objectivists on Positive Parental Obligations and Abortion (Jan. 14, 2011)
• The Start of my Legal Career: Past, Present and Future: Survival Stories of Lawyers (December 6, 2010)
• Property Title Records and Insurance in a Free Society, Mises Blog (Dec. 4, 2010)
• Randy Barnett’s “Federalism Amendment”–A Counterproposal; and related posts (Dec. 3, 2010)
• Against the Non-Aggression Principle and Self-Ownership? Run! (Nov. 21, 2010)
• Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts…, Libertarian Standard (Nov. 19, 2010)
• State Antitrust (anti-monopoly) law versus state IP (pro-monopoly) law  (Nov. 12, 2010)
• Mises: Keep It Interesting (Oct. 16, 2010)
• The Problem with Natural Rights and True Believer Activism (Oct. 7, 2010)
• The Superiority of the Roman Law: Scarcity, Property, Locke and Libertarianism (Aug. 17, 2010)
• Locke, Smith, Marx; the Labor Theory of Property and the Labor Theory of Value; and Rothbard, Gordon, and Intellectual Property (June 23, 2010)
• Rand’s Immortal Robot and “Values” (June 23, 2010)
• Logical and Legal Positivism (June 23, 2010)
• Hoppe on Covenant Communities and Advocates of Alternative Lifestyles (May 26, 2010)
• Future of Freedom Fund (May 6, 2010)
• The Nature of the State and Why Libertarians Hate It, StephanKinsella.com (May 3, 2010)
• Capitalism, Socialism, and Libertarianism (April 16, 2010)
• Left-Libertarians Admit Opposition to “Capitalism” is Substantive (April 22, 2010)
• Net Neutrality Developments, The Libertarian Standard (April 7, 2010)
• Should Libertarians Oppose “Capitalism”? (March 3, 2010)
• The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights, StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010)
• IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ, StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010)
• Why Spam is Trespass (Jan. 18, 2010)
• Objectivism Schism Form Letter; I break for Randians; Breaking, Broken, Broke: Silly Objectivist Tendencies (Jan. 12, 2010)
• “Aggression” versus “Harm” in Libertarianism (Dec. 16, 2009)
• The Libertarian Case Against the Fourteenth Amendment (Nov. 30, 2009)
• Hülsmann on Argumentation Ethics (Nov. 25, 2009)
• Milton Friedman on Intolerance, Liberty, Mises, Etc. (Nov. 9, 2009)
•  A Libertarian Take on Net Neutrality (Nov. 4, 2009)
• The Unique American Federal Government (Oct. 26, 2009)
• Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes (Oct. 14, 2009)
• Hoppe: Habermas’s Anarcho-Conservative Student (Sept. 19, 2009)
• Rand, Objectivism, and One-World Government (Sept. 17, 2009)
• Objectivism, Bidinotto, and Anarchy (Sept. 17, 2009)
• Libertarian Centralists (Sept. 17, 2009)
• Hoppe Is Not A Monarchist (Sep. 15, 2009)
• Natural Law, Positive Law, Tax Evasion, Rituals and Incantations (Sep. 9, 2009)
• Verstehen and the Role of Economics in Forecasting, or: If You’re so Rich, Why Aren’t You Smart? (Sep. 1, 2009)
• The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld (Sep. 1, 2009)
• BrainPolice’s Critique of “What Libertarianism Is”  (Aug. 23, 2009)
• Hoppe: Marx was “Essentially Correct” (Aug. 22, 2009)
• Left-Libertarians on Rothbardian Abandonment, Mises Blog (Aug. 22, 2009)
• The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism, Mises Blog (Aug. 20, 2009)
• Fractional-Reserve Banking, Contracts of Deposit, and the Title-Transfer Theory of Contract (Aug. 12, 2009)
• Why Airwaves (Electromagnetic Spectra) Are (Arguably) Property (Aug. 9, 2009)
• Was Mises an Anarchist? (Aug. 7, 2009)
• The Problem with “Coercion” (Aug. 7, 2009)
• Van Dun on Freedom versus Property and Hostile Encirclement (Aug. 3, 2009)
• Inability to Abandon Property in the Civil Law (Aug. 3, 2009)
• Rockwell on Hoppe on the Constitution as Expansion of Government Power (Aug. 3, 2009)
• A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy, Mises Blog (Aug. 2, 2009)
• Advice for Prospective Libertarian Law Students (July 28, 2009)
• What Kind of Libertarian Are You? [Cato] (July 8, 2009)
• Mises and Argumentation Ethics (July 5, 2009)
• Statism in Libertarian Thinking (July 5, 2009)
• The Libertarian Case for Gay Marriage, LewRockwell.com (June 24, 2009)
• The new libertarianism: anti-capitalist and socialist; or: I prefer Hazlitt’s “Cooperatism” (June 19, 2009)
• Supreme Court: Innocence is No Defense, LewRockwell.com Blog (June 18, 2009)
• comment on Kevin Carson’s post “Socialism: A Perfectly Good Word Rehabilitated” (June 9, 2009)
• “Compensation Ratio” Restitution vs. Block’s “Two Teeth for a Tooth” (June 6, 2009)
• Ayn Rand Endorses Big Government, LewRockwell.com Blog (May 31, 2009)
• Homesteading, Abandonment, and Unowned Land in the Civil Law (archived comments), Mises Blog (May 22, 2009)
• The Libertarian View on Fine Print, Shrinkwrap, Clickwrap (May 8, 2009)
• The Walmart Question, or, the Unsupported Assertions of Left-Libertarianism (Apr. 26, 2009)
• The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights,” Mises Economics Blog (April 24, 2009)
• Revisiting Argumentation Ethics (March 13, 2009)
• Down With the Lockean Proviso (March 13, 2009)
• Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach (Feb. 3, 2009)
• Left-Libertarians and the Corporate Income Tax (LRC, Dec. 13, 2008)
• Limited Liability, Paleo-libertarianism, Left-Libertarianism: Recent Posts and Debates (Dec. 12, 2008)
• Left-Libertarians on Corporations “Expropriating the Efforts of Stakeholders” (Dec. 8, 2008)
• Dyslexic Vandarchists of the World–Untie!, LewRockwell.com (Dec. 8, 2008)
• The Over-reliance on State Classifications: “Employee” and “Shareholder” (Mises 2008) (Nov. 20, 2008)
• Is Macy’s Part of the State? A Critique of Left Deviationists (Oct. 9, 2008)
• Ayn Rand and Garet Garrett (Oct. 2, 2007; archived comments)
• Shoot the looters!, LewRockwell.com (Sept. 22, 2008)
• Left Anarchists and Progressive Taxation (Mises, 2008) (Sept. 18, 2008)
• Incorporation and the Fourteenth Amendment: The 140 Year Old “Riddle”  (Aug. 18, 2008)
• Regret: The Glory of State Law (July 31, 2008)
• The Blockean Proviso (Sep. 11, 2007)
• “Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas; or, Why the Very Idea of ‘Ownership’ Implies that only Libertarian Principles are Justifiable,” Mises Economics Blog (Aug. 15, 2007)
• Higher Law (July 24, 2007)
• Why I’m a Libertarian–or, Why Libertarianism is Beautiful, Mises blog (Dec. 12, 2006)
• Block on Abortion, Mises Blog (Oct. 2, 2006)
• “Empathy and the Source of Rights,” Mises Economics Blog (Sept. 6, 2006)
• “The Schizo Feds: Patent Monopolies and the FTC,” Mises Economics Blog (Aug. 27, 2006)
• The Other Fields of Praxeology: War, Games, Voting… and Ethics? (Aug. 5, 2006)
• C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism (Aug. 2, 2006)
• Hoppe and Intellectual Property: On Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (July 31, 2006)
• The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The case of Threats (Jul. 27, 2006)
• The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression (July 17, 2006)
• Taxing Astronauts and the President (July 6, 2021 [July 12, 2006])
• Knowledge vs. Calculation, Mises Blog (July 11, 2006)
• “Thoughts on Intellectual Property, Scarcity, Labor-ownership, Metaphors, and Lockean Homesteading” (May 26, 2006)
• The Schizophrenic State (Jan. 13, 2006)
• Hate Crime—Intentional Action and Motivations, Mises blog (Nov. 25, 2005) (archived comments; Facebook discussion)
• Slavery, Inalienability, Economics, and Ethics, Mises Blog (Oct. 11, 2005)
• Austrian Law and Economics, Mises Blog (Sep. 18, 2005)
• The Essence of Libertarianism? “Finders Keepers,” “Better Title,” and Other Possibilities (Aug. 31, 2005)
• Peculium, and the State as Overlord, LRC (Aug. 11, 2005)
• Woops, They Did It Again (Bad Supreme Court! Bad! Bad!) (June 23, 2005)
• Mises and Rand (and Rothbard) (Feb. 4, 2005)
• Hoppe on Liberal Economies and War, Mises Blog (Jan. 25, 2005)