Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 412. As noted in KOL409 (Part 1: Patent Law) and KOL411 (Part 2: Copyright Law), although I’ve done dozens of speeches and interviews over the past 20 or so years on libertarian aspects of intellectual property, or IP, that is, on IP policy, I’ve never done any in depth lectures for […]
I’ve been fascinated with the inter-Austrian debate on fractional-reserve banking for years.1 My view has long been that fractional reserve freebanking (FRB) is not inherently fraudulent and should not be illegal; but that economically it makes no sense. I think Huerta de Soto’s Roman legal analysis of irregular deposit warehouse banking is correct,2 and that […]
I have profited from Professor Boudewijn Bouckaert’s insightful essay “What Is Property?”, Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 13, no. 3 (Summer 1990): 775–816, which was part of a symposium on Law and Philosophy which also included Tom Palmer’s seminal article on IP.1 Unfortunately, Bouckaert’s article is not available online other than behind the HeinOnline paywall. […]
I came across this interesting piece: C.L. Swartz, “Libel,” in Charles T. Sprading, ed., Liberty and the Great Libertarians: An Anthology on Liberty: A Hand-book of Freedom (Los Angeles: The Golden Press, 1913), p. 526. It is short, so I reprint in full below. But he hits on the essential point: speaking words does not […]
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 411. As noted in KOL409 (Part 1: Patent Law), although I’ve done dozens of speeches and interviews over the past 20 or so years on libertarian aspects of intellectual property, or IP, that is, on IP policy, I’ve never done any in depth lectures for libertarians on IP law itself. […]
The National Citizens Inquiry is a citizen-led and citizen-funded initiative that is hearing testimony from Canadians and experts examining the nature, the legality and the effects of the Canadian governments' COVID mandates and restrictions. Today James talks to the volunteer-run inquiry's volunteer communications director, Michelle Leduc Catlin, about the inquiry itself, what it is seeking to accomplish and how Canadians (and people around the world) can support it in its endeavours.
Q: Hi Mr. Kinsella, I have a question about property rights concerning dead people. How would a Rothbardian theory of property justify the will of a dead person? Is the will a genuine contract or is it void? More specifically, I’m engaging in a conversation and someone said that a will is not per se […]
As I argue in my forthcoming book Legal Foundations of a Free Society (LFFS), and as Hans-Hermann Hoppe has argued in his work and in the Foreword to my book, it is the fundamental fact of scarcity, and the possibility of conflict that this fact gives rise to among human actors—conflict over their bodies or […]
Libertarians are used to thinking in terms of natural law and natural rights. In terms of principles, reason, and justice. That is, that we can use our reason to arrive at ethical or normative conclusions that will allow us to evaluate existing positive law. Laws “exist,” or are in force, in a given legal system; […]
