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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 416.

Part 2 of my video commentary on Larken Rose’s recent comments on IP. For more information, see the description and links at KOL415: Commentary on Larken Rose, “IP: The Wrong Question”: Part 1.

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 415.

Last year Larken Rose and I appeared on Patrick Smith’s Disenthrall show,¹ after Rose had posted some videos criticizing libertarians who pirated the HBO show “The Anarchists” as “poopheads,”² even though he technically opposes IP. Or claims to. According to Rose, you should “throwing a couple dollars towards HBO” or something, to avoid being a poophead. He granted that someone pirating an already-leaked video file is not committing aggression (they have no contract with the creator), but they are a “jerk.” Or “poop head.” After all, the “creator” of the “content” put his “labor” into it and didn’t “want it” to be pirated. And his “business model” depends on people “not pirating it.”³

Or something. So you are a “poophead” if you mess up their unrealistic business model. [continue reading…]

1. See KOL389 | Disenthrall, with Patrick Smith and Larken Rose: The Morality of Copyright “Piracy”. [↩]
2. See “Pirating” Poopheads. [↩]
3. See KOL037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory. [↩]

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 414.

Regarding this post, Libertarian Answer Man: Breach of Contract, Binding Obligations, and Impossibility, my old and longtime buddy Jeff Barr, a brilliant attorney and legal scholar and fellow Hoppean-Rothbardian (Jeff studied at UNLV under Rothbard and Hoppe),¹  discussed these issues in further depth today. (Part 2: KOL418 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part II.)

[continue reading…]

1. See Murray Rothbard as a Teacher: The UNLV Years—A Panel with Rothbard’s Former Students (AERC 2023). [↩]

A libertarian colleague asked me something like this:

Some time ago, I recall you wrote a piece on property rights where you argued (I think) that the inability to pay on a credit transaction was not a fraud because of the doctrine of impossibility. (I’m clearly paraphrasing in hopes that you will recognize the piece to which I’m referring.) I can’t seem to find it. (Perhaps it’s in the JLS or some reply to Van Dun.)¹

If you know the piece, could you direct me to it?

[continue reading…]

1. He is referring to “Reply to Van Dun: Non-Aggression and Title Transfer,” a revised version of which will appear in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023) [LFFS]. [↩]

From this facebook post, referring to this Youtube video:

(discussed at KOL361 | Libertarian Answer Man: Oaths: With Kent Wellington):¹ [continue reading…]

1. Go to around 32 minutes; from the transcript: “Just like in the US, in the federal court system, all these guys that they call judges, the federal judges, the Supreme Court judges, they’re not really judges. They’re just state agents whose job is to interpret the words written down on paper by other state agents.  That’s it.  Their job is not to do justice, which is what a real judge does.  A real judge tries to resolve a dispute between two parties based upon principles of justness and fairness.  These federal judges can’t do that because their job is to interpret the Constitution and federal law, which are just positive enactments written down on paper by a bunch of elected bureaucrats and members of the state.  So I don’t think they’re actual judges.  They’re not actually doing law.  What they’re interpreting is not law. [See Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes]” [↩]

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Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 413.

I was asked to make a guest appearance on SwanBitcoin’s Café Bitcoin Tuesday today Aug. 1, 2023), where we discussed law versus legislation, the impacts of sound money on social character, and related matters.

It was also posted on their podcast feed (iTunes; Spotify; google) and I include here my segment.

Related:

• Legal Foundations of a Free Society (2023)
  • Chapter 13, Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society
• Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes (Oct. 14, 2009)
• Classificationism, Legislation, Copyright, C4SIF (Oct. 25, 2011)

Adapted from my recent Facebook post:

This article on Mises.org is disappointing (Daniel Lacalle, “Price Inflation Slowed to 3 Percent. That’s Still Far Too High,” Mises Wire (July 24, 2023). I guess it’s a blessing they seem to have disabled comments. Because this would be my comment:

This is not how Austrians think—at least, not Misesian-Rothbardians. The title gives it away: “Price Inflation Slowed to 3 Percent. That’s Still Far Too High.” As if there is a desired inflation rate—say, zero percent (in nominal terms).

And this line: “Inflation is caused by the constant increase in the quantity of currency in circulation well above real demand.” [continue reading…]