StephanKinsella.com

Interchange between me and Jessi Cowart on FB, starting here:

Jessi Cowart for LPTexas Vice Chair:

I’m a minarchist, and I reject the notion that this makes me any less libertarian than my brethren who identify as anarchists. This movement is about fighting the state. It’s not a pissing contest to see who’s more “hard core.”

Kinsella:

You are less libertarian. You’re partly libertarian and partly statist. A mini-statist.

Cowart:

Your purity test is tired. Anarchists who try to arbitrarily move the goal post on what it means to be libertarian – and call their allies statists – aren’t helping to advance liberty. [continue reading…]

My new book, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), is festooned with footnotes. One reason for this is I’m used to the style and requirements of law reviews and law journals. Every scholarly discipline has its citation format. I, for one, despise in-line citations {like: (Block 2017a)}, and I also despite endnotes. I prefer a modified version of Chicago-style, and in footnote form, although many people hate footnotes, as I noted previously:

I’ve always liked the following comments by Bryan Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style (page 93). Garner notes that although footnotes can usefully refer you to other references, “you can hardly ignore, at the foot of every page, the notes that ‘run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text.’ These days, the notes are more likely Great Danes than chihuahuas.”¹

In any case, my new book is littered with them. Some may hate them, but not everyone, apparently. From one reader:

In case you had any concerns about all the footnotes and Appendices, I for one am a fan. I read each one that has supplemental commentary. LFFS trivia: the first page of Part 1 has no footnotes. It’s not till page 79 we find another page absent footnotes. Love the meat on the bone!

1. Quoting S.M. Crothers, “That History Should Be Readable,” in The Gentle Reader 172 (1903; repr. 1972). To Footnote or Not To Footnote. [↩]

This is a lightly edited interchange with a libertarian friend.

FRIEND:

Stephan,

I’ve read Robert Hessen’s In Defense of the Corporation and found it excellent. I found it interesting that he disagrees with the notion that corporations are distinct entities, separate from the voluntary association of individuals (shareholders, board, executive, etc.) that makes up the corporation. Also interesting is his careful and insightful description of corporate liability for tort, distinguishing intentional and unintentional/negligence cases, and pointing out that agents (such as board members, executives, etc.) do not escape liability for their actions, i.e. cannot hide behind the corporate veil (though he doesn’t use this term).

[I found Norman Barry’s article “The Theory of the Corporation” very good and clear, too, for the most part, though some of it is somewhat mangled. More on this later… ***.]

(( I discuss and critique Van Dun’s criticism of my and Walter Block’s “libertarian legalism” in “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre,” in Elvira Nica & Gheorghe H. Popescu, eds., A Passion for Justice: Essays in Honor of Walter Block (New York: Addleton Academic Publishers, forthcoming); see also Legal Foundations of a Free Society, pp. __, et pass. ))

However, some legal scholars, such as Frank van Dun, do not think that limited liability entities are compatible with a natural order.¹

[continue reading…]

1. Perhaps he had in mind Frank Van Dun, “Is the Corporation a Free-Market Institution?,” Ideas on Liberty (March 2003). van dun: also: “A note on Austro-libertarianism and the limited-liability corporation“;

   Hessen was also criticized in two articles by Piet-Hein van Eeghen, “The Corporation at Issue, Part I: The Clash of Classical Liberal Values and the Negative Consequences for Capitalist Practices,” J. Libertarian Stud. 19, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 49–70, and “The Corporation at Issue, Part II: A Critique of Robert Hessen’s In Defense of the Corporation and Proposed Conditions for Private Incorporation,” J. Libertarian Stud. 19, no. 3 (Fall 2005): 37–57.  [↩]

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:48 — 27.8MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 421.

This is my appearance on Episode 297 of The Local Maximum with host Max Sklar. Recorded Sep. 13, 2023, published Sep. 27, 2023. From their shownotes:

Max talks to Stephan Kinsella, a libertarian intellectual property lawyer who ardently challenges the very foundations of IP. Kinsella delves deep into the core arguments underpinning intellectual property and the inherent fallacies. They also discuss the impact of generative AI on the copyright landscape.

Transcript below.

[continue reading…]

At the Mises Supporters Summit 2023 this past weekend, a group of us visited the archive room, which was fascinating. Tons of material from Mises, Rothbard, and others. Pat Barnett was there and we were reminiscing. I mentioned the first time I met her and others like Rothbard, Hoppe, Rockwell, and so on, was at the John Randolph Club meeting in late 1994, just a few months before Rothbard died. The meeting was in Crystal City, Virginia, Oct. 21-22, 1994. I have mentioned this in previous writing, e.g. “How I Became a Libertarian,” in LFFS, p. 8; see also “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella”; KOL302 | Human Action Podcast with Jeff Deist: Hoppe’s Democracy; The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory; My Failed Libertarian Speaking Hiatus; Memories of Mises Institute and Other Events, 1988–2019.

Pat found a copy of the original program and gave it to me, which I append here: PDF.

I was also able to get Rothbard to sign my copy of Man, Economy, and State, during a long, private conversation with him.

Podcast (kinsella-on-liberty): Play in new window | Download (16.3MB)

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 420.

From the recently-concluded Seventeenth Annual (2023) Meeting of the PFS, Bodrum, Turkey (Sep. 24, 2023). The slide presentation is streamed below (ppt). Video is also below.

Also podcast as Property and Freedom Podcast PFP265; see also the panel discussion later in the day (video below). [continue reading…]

My book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023) has just been published. When I was mailing copies to some colleagues today, the UPS lady asked me how long it took me to write it. I said “about 30 years,” though in a sense, it is even longer than that. I’ve been studying libertarian ideas for over 40 years, and I wrote the articles in this book over the last 29 years. But a more accurate answer is: about a year. I’ve been working very hard on this for the last twelve months, and it’s gratifying, and a relief, to have it finally out.

For more details, see here.

One tidbit for the curious. Hoppe includes a sort of “Easter Egg” in his Foreword, when he ends with these words:

Henceforth, then, all essential studies in the philosophy of law and the field of legal theory will have to take full account of the theories and criticisms expounded by Kinsella.

This is a callback to Ludwig von Mises’s comments about his student/protege Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. Mises’s comment, from his 1962 review in New Individualist Review, reads:  “Henceforth all essential studies in these branches of knowledge will have to take full account of the theories and criticisms expounded by Dr. Rothbard.”

As Mises was Rothbard’s mentor, so Rothbard was Hoppe’s mentor, and Hoppe was my mentor, more or less, hence the clever callback.