Mr. Kinsella, what is libertarianism?
All right. Yeah, so there are different
ways of answering that question and I can give the most, I think
accurate precise answer from my point of view.
The conventional answer would be something like we are the
political philosophy that opposes aggression or the
initiation of force, but I really believe that aggression
is a dependent concept, it what aggression is depends upon what
property rights there are and I'll prop all your individual
rights, all human rights or property rights.
So what I would say is libertarianism, is a political
philosophy. It's one among many.
There are other competing types. There's theocracy and
dictatorship, and democracy, and monarchy, and and other forms.
Every one of these systems has a certain way of determining the
assignment of property rights. So it's not like we're the only
system that believes in property rights is Is that every system
believes in property rights, but we have a unique view on how
property rights should be determined.
So, I would say that almost every legal system to a degree
follows, the libertarian view of property rights, which is that
when you want to determine who the owner of a resource is you
ask two questions. The first is who had it first,
which is called lucky and homesteading, or original
appropriation. And you ask did the Who got it
from, who by contract, who got it from a previous owner by
contract. So, basically, those two
principles, first, use and contract, contractual title,
transfer are usually sufficient to answer the question who owns
this resource, when there's a dispute over it and most systems
have to recognize those principles to some degree.
Otherwise Society wouldn't be able to exist because people
need to be able to actually use resources with some degree of
certainty and fear from predation by others, for society
to, to emerge and Survive, but libertarianism is the only one
that consistently adheres to those two principles.
So that's what I would say. Libertarianism is it's the only
political philosophy that consistently abides by the first
use and the contractual title transfer principles in
determining property rights. Got it.
So with that, let's go to your libertarian litmus test.
You have nine things that you use to see generally whether or
not you consider someone to be a solid libertarian.
They are ranked roughly in order of importance.
Number one is intellectual property.
What is the correct position? The correct libertarian position
on intellectual property? Well, let me say that post.
I won't say it was a joke, but I was what I was trying to do was
listen. Number one, list of the big
things, we should be concerned about and most of these most
Libertarians are concerned about war and the government,
schooling and things like that. And I was doing that number one
to show that we need to include in also property on this list.
And then I wanted to rank them in order of sort of my, my
thoughts about the priority or importance of them.
Although, to be honest, almost any one of them you could argue
is most important one. Like, if you could only get rid
of one first, You could argue, we should get rid of taxes.
First, You could argue, we should get Rid of the government
schools, first or the drug war. First, you know, or IP.
So there's Arguments for each. These are not bright things as
for a litmus test. What I was I was kind of joking
that you can't be a good libertarian.
If you deviate on too many of these and a couple of them are
just like non-negotiable like the drug war.
I just--there's. No.
Good argument for the drug war is such an obvious evil.
Look, I'll concede to let men orcas in under our tent, like a
people who believe, in some minor and little bit of I don't
think they're consistent Libertarians, but I'll Grant the
term libertarianism would could be extended to cover them.
Okay, or if you believe in the occasional War for self-defense,
you know, I can see that but not the drug war and I also think IP
should be put in that category because unlike all the others,
like you could come up with an argument for government schools
or taxation or even welfare, you know, but you really can't come
up with an argument for the drug war or for intellectual
property. There are no good Arguments for
it. And the other thing with IP is
that unlike all the others were even a supporter of Taxation
would be grudgingly conceded that, we need it, but he views
it as a necessary evil. Like ideally we would have a
society without it, but he just thinks one.
Fortunately we have to have a little bit of it, but they least
recognize that as an evil or the same thing with war.
Right, but with IP, it's called intellectual property.
So it's classified as a type of property, right?
And we're in favor of property rights.
And so you think of intellectual property is not a deviation from
ideal, but like as a natural part of the free market, and
that's the mistake. That's why it's Insidious.
And that's why it has so much influence in society that we
don't recognize. I mean, it's really pervasive
how many types of this mentality of owning ideas, right?
The idea that copying what someone does is stealing is
permeates all of our society, so, Is very Insidious and also
the patent system itself. Does a lot of damage to the
human race that I think is not appreciated.
That's one reason. I have it near the top of my
list. Yeah, one of the things that
convinced me about IP is one rejection of the labor theory of
value by both Karl Marx and Adam Smith and the idea that your use
doesn't exclude mine. So if I have a car and you steal
my car, well, I no longer have the car and I was the rightful.
But if I have a car and you look at it and then just copy it or
even if you just like I Dream of Jeannie, just copy it, you know,
but by thinking about it, well, my use is not excluded.
So that that for me was just so mind-blowing.
Could you give us a brief? I know you have a long mises
course on the history of Ip. How was this idea started that
this concept started that you could own ideas and the state.
Would pick some people to have a monopoly over the execution of
some ideas that inflicted on the actual tangible property rights
of everyone else. Well, I think that what happened
was the practice behind it arose, for various reasons,
which I can summarize and then later a theoretical edifice
arose to justify it. Right?
So it's not like the practice of granting patents and copyrights
are merged because people thought We have a natural rights
lockean system and we really need to have the law do as good.
A job as possible at protecting near Anarchist libertarian
society. And and we've theoretically
deduced it intellectual property is part of that.
So we really need to add these laws to our legal system.
It wasn't of course wasn't like that.
What happened was you had basically a private law system
emerged naturally in the Roman law and in the cotton the common
law in England over the last couple thousand years.
With some, with some deviances from, which are largely
libertarian, by the way, because they protect property rights.
They protect the the, they prohibit aggression, crime, and
torts and they protect property rights and they respect
contracts. So, it's basically libertarian,
what emerged naturally in a decentralized fashion in the
Roman law system, and then in the common law system in the
courts, of course, you had Emperors and legislators and
parliament's. Who on occasion would come in
and they would legislate in derogation from the common law
rules, you know, they would impose taxation.
They would pass special statutes, that would take
property from its owner, give it to the king or give it to
someone else, but by and large the systems we're good in
private, but because the monarchs had power, of course,
they would, they would abuse their power and they would use
it for their benefit. So one thing they would do is
they would they would Grant exclusive Monopoly.
To their to their Court favorites, in exchange for
favors. So they would give a guy, the
only the Monopoly to be the only guy in a certain region who
could sell a given product or manufacturer or sell a given
product or exported or imported something like that.
Now, of course, that that allows him to make Monopoly profits and
exchange, he would become loyal to the, to the king, he would
report on tax Dodgers and his area, things like that.
So it was one of these things that practice got out of hand
because there were So many monopolies being granted, and
they were called patents, letters patent, because patent
is Latin word. Meaning potential a means open.
So it was like an open letter to the world that the bearer could
show everyone. Hey the king says, I'm the only
guy who can do this, right? I mean, lots of the lots of the
Conquering of the territory in the new world was done under a
patent Grant from the King saying, oh, if you get to
America first, I'm giving you a patent that you get to control
this area, something like that. So, It rained in this practice
because it was getting out of hand in the statute of
monopolies in 1623. But they so they basically
limited the right of the king to Grant these monopolies, but the
statute of monopolies says, but you can keep doing it in the
case of inventions, right? So that's where patents patents
came from the granting of monopolies by the government to
protect people from competition. And that's still what they do.
So, it's got nothing to do with the free market.
Now copyright emerged because originally it was hard to copy
books before the printing press and so you would have these
Church Controlled scribes, who would copy things that they but
only copied with the church and the government gave them
permission to copy. So they could control what
printed material got in the hands of the public with the
printing, press emerged, that, that, that Monopoly was in
through was threatened. And so, the first thing they
did, the government did was start the stationers company.
Which is about a hundred year monopolistic Guild, which we had
the Monopoly on printing books. And when the Monopoly on that
expired, by then a new industry at emerged of publishing
companies, who would publish books, through the stationers
company of approved, works by authors.
And they Lobby parliament in the parliament, enacted, the statute
of Anne and 1709, which basically set the stage for
modern copyright. Right.
So copyright emerged from censorship and patents emerged
from restriction of competition and restriction of property
rights. That's how they came about
actually and then, and then and then later when in the 1800's in
the US and in Europe, when the free market, when the modern
Industrial Revolution, got going and well, started expanding and
Technology sort of being developed at a high Pace.
A lot of free market economy, economic started emerging to,
and a lot of free market Economist started.
Why are the government's granting these monopolies?
These patents and copyrights? And they started coming up with
an economic case against it? Okay, and the 1800s.
So there was growing pressure to get rid of patent and copyright
because everyone started recognizing these were
Antiquated. Practice is rooted in censorship
and mercantilism. So in response to that the
entrenched interests that had grown up in the meantime, that
is the technology and the in the industry companies that were
reliant on their patent. Napoli's and the Publishers who
had relied now become Reliant upon copyright.
They started, they came up with this propaganda campaign to
Lobby, to keep the patent and copyright law in place.
And what they said was, it's not a monopoly privilege, granted by
the government. It's actually a property, right?
And everyone said, well, what do you mean?
It's a property, right? Because it expires in 17 years
and property rights usually are natural.
They don't require the government to Grant by
legislation and they don't usually In 17 years were 14
years. And so the response was well,
it's a special type of property. It's, you know, it comes from
the creation of the mind. This where the labor theory of
value comes in. It comes from the creation of
the mind. So it's intellectual property.
So that's where the, that's how the argument came up with.
And that's where the concept of IP came, IP came was invented as
a concept to justify a mercantilist in a censorship
practice, which was coming under intellectual assault.
Wow, all right, the second item in the libertarian litmus test
is Central Banking and the Federal Reserve, isn't it funny?
The first two things are State monopolies and were always, you
know, accused of supporting monopolies by supporting the
free market. What is the correct?
What is the correct position on Central Banking and why?
Yeah, that would have put taxation first because spending
is what gives the government its ability to do.
List, but, you know, if you think about the u.s.
Right now, it's the most powerful government in world
history and it spends way more than it taxes.
So obviously taxing is not what gives it the ability to spend or
it's not a limit on its spending because of the Federal Reserve,
right? I believe.
So, the Federal Reserve allows it to print money that it
doesn't have in effect by complicated mechanisms, but
that's in effect, what it does. So if the Federal Reserve didn't
exist number one you would have So many problems solved
governments would be way smaller because they couldn't spend as
much the business cycle wouldn't be as severe as it is, or maybe
it wouldn't exist at all, which causes unemployment and reduces
productivity because of the waste caused by the business
cycle because the Ballon vestment we wouldn't have
inflation of the money supply. So people would have lots of
habits and characteristics in you know time preference will be
lower productivity would be higher, people would save more.
They wouldn't Be spendthrifts as much.
They wouldn't have to put their money into into crazy schemes
like they do now, just to keep from losing their money to
inflation erosion. They just keep your money in
money because it would, it would, it would accumulate value
every year because they're be price deflation.
So, you would need to go to the stock market.
If you didn't know what you were doing.
You would need to invest in, you know, your cousin's, crazy
business scheme or whatever. And you wouldn't just go gamble.
Your money away in Las Vegas. Vegas.
Because why not? Because it's going to be eroded
away by inflation in a few years.
Anyway, so it would change the character of the people in every
way. So I that's why I think the
Federal Reserve is so important. So basically and the other thing
is you would have one world money.
Probably it would be 11 money across the entire world.
Probably gold until Bitcoin might sir place it and that
would give that would mean that you would have better
International Trade, more certainty, you know, no more
exchange rates and Fluctuating currencies, no more, practical
currency exchange controls. Everything would just be so much
better. So, obviously the reason we have
it is because the government uses its Force to monopolize the
monetary and finance function. First by Owl, first, by
basically, you know having banks that are under government
regulatory control, allowing me to issue Paper Tickets that
stand for gold and then gradually, they don't stand for
gold. They become fractional Reserve.
Kind of claims on gold or promises and then the, then the
runs happen in the government backs, them up with it with
insurance to prevent the runs that would naturally happen
under a fractional Reserve Ponzi scheme, and then they get rid of
gold all together and it's just fiat currency now right?
That the government can inflate it will.
So all those steps need to be reversed and basically, the FED
needs to be abolished. Topic number three, taxation.
What is the correct? Libertarian view on Taxation?
And why? Well, I mean that's that's the
in a way one of the easiest ones on the list next to the drug war
and IP taxation is simply theft. Right.
Taxation is when or it's more technically in a legal sense.
It's extortion. The carbon doesn't usually come
to your land and physically. Take your gold bars from you.
What it does. Is it threatens you with with,
with physical damage? If you don't comply, Why?
So it points a gun at you and says hand over your goal to me
or I'm going to shoot you or put you in jail, right?
So it's extortion, really or coercion.
But any in any case, it's a type of theft.
So taxation is simply theft. It's taking private property,
naturally owned by the producer or the person who got it by
contract. So I might own goal because I
found it in the ground and I minded myself and I went to a
bank and I are meant and I paid them to minted into coins for
me, or I might own it because I performed a service.
Someone or sold them a good and they paid me their coins that
they owned in exchange. So I come to own those coins
either by first use, or by contract, which is what I
mentioned before, or they only two principles.
By the way. There's a third subsidiary
principle, but I didn't want to get into it but it is his
restitution. So if you commit a tort or a
crime and you harm, someone then you owe them some recompense,
some restitution, but you can think of that as like a
contract. So like in a Tracked, I obligate
myself to pay you something. So the title transfers
contractually, likewise if I harm someone, now, I've incurred
an obligation to give them some money to to compensate them for
the damage, I did. So that's a third way.
That people can come to own property.
You can Own It by finding it. You can own it.
If someone gives it to you by contract or you can own it, if
they have to pay it to you because they hurt you, but those
are the three only ways. Number four, is the drug war.
What is the libertarian position on the drug War?
And why? Well, so game that the basic
libertarian position and property.
And by that, I mean, we mean resources outside of your body.
So those are owned when someone there, unowned it first, there
in the state of nature and someone starts using them and
they make them owned. Unlike those resources, the
other type of resource that can be owned is the human body now.
We are self owners to we own our bodies.
That is we own them, not because we Homestead them but because we
directly control them and we're you're the first one to directly
control that body. So it's a different type of
argument. But basically the libertarian
position has a special rule for prefer bodies.
And in fact is the base rule that the other rules the other
property rights are built upon because to go out the world and
homestead land you have to own your body.
First. You have to be an actor.
You have to be a human being walking around you.
Seeing in pain happening and possessing a body.
So you own that body first and you own it because it's you
basically. But whatever.
The reason the point is you own your body.
And what that means is you have the right to decide who gets to
use your body. So you can grant permission for
someone to use your body or you can deny them permission so you
can include or exclude them. So I can, you know, I can
consent to some girl, giving me a kiss or I can tell her no.
And if she kisses me after I say, yes.
Yes, it's not aggression. But if she kissed me and I say,
no, it's aggression, right? Using my body of the my
permission or if I enter a ring in a boxing match and I someone
punches me, I can send it to it. It's not aggression.
But if some guy walks up to me on the street and punches me
it's aggression. So it all depends upon consent
and consent matters because I'm the owner.
So only the owner has the right to give consent.
That's what it means to be the owners to have the right to
Grant or deny consent. Now, the drug war basically
treats my body is if the legal system or the group owns my body
because they're telling me I can't use my body to ingest
certain drugs. And if I do, they're going to
punish it and put my body in jail, or or put a bullet in my
body's brain, right? So there, they are acting as the
owner of my body as if I'm their slave.
But slavery is totally incompatible with self
ownership. Number five War.
What is the correct libertarian position on war?
Well, Libertarians, opposed, they don't we don't oppose force
and violence per se. We oppose aggression that is the
initiation of violence, which is basically using someone else's
property without their consent, but we don't oppose self-defense
or that is using Force against someone who is trying to or has
already used your property without your consent.
So self-defense is permissible. Although, there are some
libertarian pacifists there. Welcome to that preference, but
they don't have an argument that it's a violation of rights to
use force in self-defense. They might not like it, they
might not think it's efficacious.
They might think pacifism is a better strategy, and I tend to
agree with them in many cases, but it's not a violation of
rights as some radical pacifist think.
I think the radical pastors are actually not Libertarians
because they effectively put aggressors and victims on the
same on the same plane. Mmmmm, and that's wrong.
They're not on the same plane. They're categorically,
fundamentally different. But the problem with war is
that, it's a fight between groups.
And you could characterize, like one nation state versus another
having a war or a fight. You could say, one is the
aggressor in one is defending itself, but the problem is
because the, even the defending Nation operates on a collective
scale, it necessarily commits aggression in the act of
Defending itself, because number one, it has to hurt innocent
third party. On the other side because you
can't just kill the soldiers. And number two.
It has to construct and tax people of among its own
citizenry to fund and support the war.
And that's an aggression against the people that are conscripted
because they're basically enslaved.
And it's a aggression against the people who are taxed to
support the war because you're stealing their property to
support the war. So any War would have to be
totally voluntarily manned and supported.
Financially and aimed only at combatants who are invading
your, your your land. That would be the only just kind
of War. Number six, what is the
libertarian position on welfare? Well, obviously, it's a welfare
done by the government or the state is illegitimate because it
requires theft, right to have welfare.
You have to give property or resources to people who didn't
earn it, or didn't find it and to give it to them, you have to
have it to have it. You have to take it from someone
else in the state, doesn't do anything productive so it can
turn this resource. It has to take it by theft from
people. So the big problem.
If they're the primary problem is that it's it requires theft
or taxation to fund it. The secondary problem is that
the welfare has all kind of negative effects on the
character of the, of the population and society and the
people that are the beneficiaries of it.
It, you know, it induces indolence.
It destroys cohesion and communities.
It disrupts the family unit. It disrupts time, preference.
It sets precedence for further government interventions.
So, It's bad all the way around and it happens in many ways.
It's not just naked wall for that's bad.
It's all types of welfare. So, you know, someone says there
are firemen or there are policemen or their Congressman
so that their say they're employed and they work for a
living but really they're basically getting welfare too
because they're funded by tax dollars to just because they're
running around the world performing certain motions.
In order to get my tax dollars doesn't mean they're not well.
Parasites too. Now.
I'm gonna make the fire. I would take the fireman over
the congressman because the congressman does nothing but
evil in the fireman at least does something good sometimes,
but they're still welfare. Parasites.
Number 7. What is the libertarian
position? The correct libertarian position
on government education? That's another one.
That's that's a problem. So there's two fundamental
problems that government education.
Well at least two maybe number one is it requires tax dollars
to support it. So people are taxed and then
that money is used to build buildings and to hire employees
who teach your kids. So that's theft.
And by the way, if it's done by the means of a voucher system,
which I used to support in my green days, as a Libertarian,
I'm against it now because the voucher system Do anything to
reduce the fact that you have government welfare being used to
educate our kids. It just changes the form.
But to me the form is irrelevant.
They say it makes it more efficient, but I don't know if I
want everything the government does to be done more
efficiently. I don't want tax collection to
be done more efficiently. I don't want war to be done more
efficiently. You know, I don't want the drug
war to be prosecuted more efficiently and it also the
voucher system also expands the welfare because under the
current system at least some people still send their kids to
private school. So like maybe 10% 20% of the
population they in effect pay twice, right?
They're paying property taxes to fund the public schools, the
government schools and then they pay private tuition to send
their kids to private schools. So, let's say the the welfare of
government education funds, 80% of the population now, under a
voucher system. Little fund 100%.
So it would expand welfare. As far as I can see.
And also it would expand the domain of Education that
government has control over. So the private schools are less
influenced by government demands about the curriculum, but
private public schools or totally under the control of
what the government School Board say, has to be taught.
So if you expand about the, the public school system by means of
a voucher system, then in effect, all the private schools
become Turned into public schools subject to the
curriculum demands of the and other demands, right?
Like diversity and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, and government education also makes for a more.
Docile population reads, a bunch of dumb kids who are uneducated
and who or believe in collectivism.
I mean, just think about what it's given them is to, in this
given rise to in this country, the elementary and the high
Public school systems are so bad that a high school degree is no
longer what it used to be. So now you have to go to college
just to get educated to the degree a high school kid, 90
years ago, would have been educated and that cost more
money and then it gives rise to students occurring student
loans. And then the government wants to
come in and forgive those loans by raising our taxes, right?
So the whole thing is just leads to one problem after another, as
mises said, Said controls, breed controls, like, once you
intervene in the market, you cause distortions, people get
around it. And then the government tries to
come up with patches to stop that.
It's like tax loopholes, people find ways to get around them.
Then the government patches, that loophole, and then people
get around that. And it gets more and more
complex. Number 8.
What is the correct libertarian position on the state?
So the libertarian fundamental position.
As I mentioned is we oppose aggression defined as the use of
property without consent of the owner where property is
determined in accordance with first, use and contractual title
transfer. So in other words, we oppose
aggression of all forms that is private or public aggression,
that is individual aggression by a private criminal, you know, a
crime. Or trespass or theft or the same
actions by a group of people, right?
That'd be public or institutionalized aggression.
So if you have an agency or an institution, no matter what it
calls itself, a corporation, or a band of Rogues or or a gang,
or a state, or a king, they're not entitled to do to anyone,
what an individual's not entitled to do.
This, would bastiat pointed out and the law.
If one guy doesn't have the right to take my property or to
kill me then a group of people people don't have that right?
Because groups only have the rights that their individual
members delegate to them. Right?
So you can't have a group can have more rights than the
individual members can have. So if you understand what a
state is, a state is is an organization that does at least
one of two things. And in practice, it always does
both. It it either.
Takes upon itself, the right to tax.
Right to fund Itself, by taking money from people, which is,
I've already pointed out stuffed or it.
It monopolizes the the provision of legal services and Law and
Order. In other words, it Outlaws
competition for defense and Justice and law, and when an
Outlaws competitors, then everyone is forced to use the
government for defense and has to pay whatever fee of the
government demands. Even if it's a fee is the same
as a tack. X because the fee Bears, no
relationship to supply and demand because there's only one
monopolistic supplier. So the fee is arbitrarily high.
In other words. It's a Monopoly Monopoly priced
fee, which is the same as a tax. So, basically having a monopoly
on on Law and Order and force gives you the same as the
ability to tax and having the ability to tax gives you a
monopoly because if you have the ability to tax, you can undercut
your competitors because they have to pay, you have to pay.
Them the full price. Whereas, whereas you're forced
to pay the price to the government.
So you get the services for free.
It's the same reason that 80% of the population uses public
schools because they're already forced to pay for it.
They can't afford the private schools.
So they go to the public schools by the same token and agency
that can tax can out-compete competitors.
So, it doesn't even need to outlaw them.
But in practice states, do both and both are types of aggression
and both are illegitimate. So, the problem of the state is
that it's inherently Criminal because it is inherently commits
aggression by its nature and the libertarian opposes aggression.
So you have to oppose the state simply because it necessarily
has to commit aggression to exist.
Finally number nine, you say. And now, covid, lockdowns, it
certainly is but bit of a jump that we're talking about things
like IP and all this other stuff, and now it's like, all
right, people have the right to leave their house so long as
they're not murdering people. Same with foreign policy.
It's like we shouldn't fight in, Iraq, and Iran, and Afghanistan.
And now it's like, oh, we shouldn't be funding and siding
with al-Qaeda in Syria. It's getting so sad to debate
these people. But what number 9, what is the
correct libertarian Anarchist position on covid lockdowns?
Yeah, and yeah, I mean, up until last year, we wouldn't have, we
wouldn't have added. Let me find my Skype window.
Here we go. We wouldn't have Had covid on
the list. We had the other eight eight or
so things. But covid is a new thing in the
response to it. It seems to be a new thing in
memory of modern society. So yeah, the response to it.
According to, at least some of us Libertarians.
There are some, there are some Nervous Nellie's and respectable
types and ass-kissers and paranoid types and
hypochondriacs. And, you know, bootlickers who
have a, fortunately gone the wrong way.
This the issue I kind of think some libertarian should come up
with a list of lists of the deviance here.
Just a shame them. It's shameful.
Some of these guys who pretend to be hardcore Libertarians,
even some anarchists are running around kind of half
half-heartedly, or maybe even more than half, heartedly in
support of these lockdowns. I find it disgusting, and it's a
sign of one's of one's principal commitment to principles of
Liberty. A lot of these guys just old and
old and fat and sick and so they're kind of worried for
themselves. So they, you know, I don't think
that's the way to come up with your Euro.
Your, your principles for society is that you might catch
a virus or a cold because you're not good shape, you know, so but
most Libertarians I think have been outraged by the lockdowns
and and the devastation that the government response is done to
our economy, right? And to human life.
I do think that it could be a short-term thing.
And that, by the end of this year, things could be back
relatively to normal. Except that the president has
now been set. And now the next thing that
comes along we probably going to do it again, maybe even worse
next time. That's what worries me.
So I guess we can only hope that these pandemics only come along
every 50 years or something, but but we'll see.
But yeah, so I think that. Yeah we can some of my friends
think that the covid think should be number one on the
list. But as I said, you could make an
argument that any one of these should be number one on the
list. But yeah, obviously for obvious
reasons the lockdowns are on the list.
Very often, people will say I advocate socialism and then
you'll give an example of Venezuela, the Soviet Union Pol
pot's Cambodia and they'll say that's not real.
Socialism to be fair. People will say I'm anti
Capital. Let's look at America and all
the terrible, you know mistreatment of the Indians and
invading countries based on lies and will say well that's not
real capitalism. So please define for us.
What is socialism. Yeah.
That's a good question. I think it's important to have
clear definitions on contentious issues, especially with the
terms have been have changed a lot over the years.
I mean, I think mises pointed out that the war either random
eases. Can remember said, you know, the
word socialism could have been a good word for us.
If it had not been hijacked. Maybe it was.
Maybe thinking of, I think I'm rancid that about existentialism
actually like she could have called her philosophy
existentialism. If neat, you hadn't taken it,
but I think mises might have said, you know, because we're Or
so, we're for society, were for being social with each other or
something like that. So I would say, there's two ways
to think of the word is being defined.
And whichever one it is. You can use as long as you're
clear about that, definition upfront.
So the classical definition of socialism, I think is and I'm
not sure if modern left-libertarians would agree
with me on this, but I think it is basically the collective or
centralized ownership of the means of production.
So you view an economy as consisting of Different types of
actors and factors. So humans humans, so humans are
workers who are entrepreneurs summer consumers in their in
their role. As consumers.
We consume some action is labor and some his leisure, right?
Some things we do for consumption for the pleasure of
doing it and some things we do as a means to getting something
done, the line, we call that labor, right?
And so likewise some Goods We use different means or Goods to
achieve these ends. So like you have consumption
Goods which are things that we consume like, you know, a
sandwich or an ice cream bar or even a home to a degree.
You live in the home, you enjoy the home and other other
resources are used as intermediate Goods to produce
other things, you know, like a machine, the manufacturing
machine or, you know, the the printing press are.
Something that that weaves Fabric or a hammer, you know,
those are tools and then, big factories, and big, machinery,
tractors and things like that. Those are classified as capital
goods. That.
And the idea is that the capital, the means of
production, the capital should be controlled collectively
instead of privately owned and I guess there's different
Arguments for this. One is sort of the marxian
exploitation argument that you shouldn't exploit people.
The other is sort of this. Idea that sort of this George
almost Georgia, State idea that that land is special, real
estate is special these factors special because no one creates
them and all we do is we stumble across them.
We start using them as a platform to do productive things
on. And so the land itself plays a
role in The Profit you make from a factory or house on that land
and therefore that percentage of your Activity is not you don't
own that by Merit. So he should be given back to
the community and forms of a single tax by George's.
Or I guess the idea is that that should be owned collectively,
you know, by the community, according to socialist.
So I would say socialism. The classical definition is that
is the centralized control of the means of production and in
practice that means the government or the state in USSR
Soviet Russia. And in China and North, I guess
North Korea now and Cuba to a certain extent.
Do you know, owning the factories and the big
Industries? Now, Hans Hermann Hapa in his
theory of socialism capitalism does am or what?
I call essentialist definition of socialism.
And by the way, capitalism would be just be the opposite of
socialism. He would be private ownership of
the means of production. So basically, everything is
society, not just consumer goods and not just people's cars and
houses but also the factories and the means of production.
Those are all privately owned instead of collectively owned.
Although you could imagine a hybrid where like you have a
Libertarian Anarchist free market Society where the factors
of production, the means of production or owned by groups of
people. In fact, that's the way it is
done. Now, they're called
corporations. Right?
So most big scale means of production and factories are
owned by groups. You can call them collectives.
It's just that they're privately controlled and the group, the
group outside, that group doesn't have a say-so in what
they do and the government doesn't have a say-so in what
they do. So when you have these
left-libertarians of these mutualist, they Envision a world
where there's no employee employment relationship anymore.
Capitalism is extinguished and yet worker coops running around
everywhere. That's all perfectly compatible
with libertarianism. And even with capitalism, as
long as it's done, voluntarily, which is what which is what
their big problem is. Because like, if they say they
oppose the employee-employer relationship.
Well, does that mean they don't like it?
Or they would, they don't want to work for an employer.
Or does it mean that they would use some kind of social Force to
prevent that relationship like to top as Robert knows they
called it capitalist acts between consenting adults.
And if they do that, then they become the aggressors
themselves. And if they don't do that, I
don't see. There's any way they can stop
it. Like you're going to have a
diverse pluralistic society in a in a private Law Society and a
free society and you might have hippie enclaves of a bunch of
worker coops that are making hemp baskets, but you might also
have hyper capitalistic randian, little enclaves, you know,
golf's little golf. Cultures everywhere.
You can't stop that and you wouldn't be able to stop that.
You could have your little, your Jewish ghettos here.
And you're, you know, you're Mormon communities here and your
and your and your the Mennonites here and and you know, the the
rainbow-colored gay groups over here and maybe you know, the
pluralistic groups here that are cosmopolitan's and secular and
don't care. I mean you have everything even
rothbard talked about this. By the way, yeah, so and even
today you have places, like, in Arizona.
We have supermarkets, like, when Co which are owned by the
employees, stock owned by the employees and across the street.
You have Walmart, which has some sort of employee stock option,
but that's not, you know, that's a little more hierarchical, but
they're both in line with the non-aggression principle and
original appropriation, or you could have Even RV companies
like Cruise America on by the employees, La Mesa RV.
In Arizona is like sort of a CEO controlled by the board.
So it's getting into those definitions.
So just so we're on the same page.
Well, let me finish. Let me finish one thing though.
So I'm saying I was just a hot. The second way to conceive of
socialism is the way Hapa does, and theory of socialism and
capitalism. He doesn't more essentialist
definition and he tries to look beyond the, you know, the
collective ownership of the means of production.
And Look at what the essence of it is and extended and maybe
make it a little bit more Broad and Abstract.
So what he says is the essence of socialism is the
institutionalized interference with private property rights.
Okay. So in other words, he doesn't
restricted only to the means of production or capital goods
because really in economics, there's a distinction between
capital goods and consumption Goods but in libertarian Theory,
there's not like they're all just private property rights
that we that private people should owned by the same.
Right by first, use the by contract.
So there's no reason to distinguish between those.
So we're talking political philosophy, the essence of
socialism. So what he distinguishes
socialism from is private criminality, so private
criminals or lone individuals are ad hoc criminal gangs, they
run around trespassing against property and committing acts of
crime or invasion of private property rights, but if it's
done on a more institutionalized basis, that is like, On a mass
scale by a large organization. Then that is the state at.
That is what socialism in essence is.
So basically his definition conflates, the state and
socialism and crime. They're all the same thing or
public crime, I should say, so, to the state, you have a state,
you have criminality, and you have socialism into the state.
You have socialism, you have the state and you have criminality
right there. All different aspects of the
same phenomenon and capitalism. As the opposite of that under
that General formulation would be the D.
Widespread, institutionalized respect for private property
rights. Excellent.
So are you and Senior fellow at The mises Institute?
Is that I was I was her about eight or nine years.
I stepped down from that back in 2013, I believe, but I'm still,
I'm still associated with them. I still speak at their
conferences, on occasion. Excellent.
I want to ask you about some of the most important contributions
of Austrian economists. What do you think is the most
important contribution of Carl Menger?
Well, I probably the marginal Revolution, you know, just the
idea that value is subjective and, you know, like the classic
pair of this will call Paradox of the diamond, you know, to our
to our ears. It's a mystery.
Why people call that a paradox, like why is it so hard to
understand? Why diamonds are valued more
than water, but that just goes to show how pervasive.
Learning can be like people can learn over time.
Well, I think most people Now understand that severe strict
centralized government planning of an economy doesn't work.
They don't understand that because they've read they've
read mises or rothbard. They understand that because the
Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and we saw what happened now,
they didn't learn their lesson completely because they're not
consistent and they didn't. Think about it too much and
we're creeping back towards that direction.
But for a good few decades, they learned their lesson, you know,
and we kind of begrudgingly learned free markets or good.
So, likewise, I think, most people now, it's kind of
obvious, because free market economics is basically taken for
granted. It's pretty easy to understand
why diamonds are worth more than water.
But before that, before the before Menger and walras, and
jevons stumbled across this, this way of looking at Value in
the late 1800s. You know, it was it was a
puzzle. Why would someone value diamonds
more than water? Because you need the water to
survive, but diamonds are useless really.
But you know, the answer is obvious that the diamonds are
much more rare and you value things not by looking at the
mass of all the things that exist.
But you look at the additional marginal extra unit that you are
considering acquiring or employing and to get that extra
Diamond takes is hard because there's not many of them around
but if there's Lot of water, even though a cup of water is
essential to you, living your living in an ocean of it.
So you don't need to Value it that highly.
So I guess that was his biggest contribution.
Most important contribution of Bamba virk.
I don't know how to say his first name or last Co I think
it's not existent. I haven't read a lot of bum, ba
Burke's hardcore economics. So I'm going by Secondhand
reports. But what I do, I do love his
book. I think it's called shorter
shorter Classics and he's got this long essay in there.
It's called something like things chapter for something
about on the classification of legal rights as economic Goods,
something like that. And it's amazingly it holds up
even to this day. It's not a lot of people have
done work on this. So to my mind as a legal
theorist, and a Libertarian legal theorist, trying to build
on and incorporate economic insights.
Primarily Austrian economic insights that that chapter, it's
a long chapter is Seminole because that's what needs to be
developed. And as far as I can tell, no one
has really developed it or even expounded upon it very much.
And he really got a lot of it, right?
That's like one of my goals in life after I get done with.
Or three books. I'm working on the next few
years. I would like to tackle that
project. I don't know if I'm up for it,
but I would like to because he has a lot of Promise in that
chapter. So to me that's his most
important contribution from from my legalistic, political Theory
combined with Austrian economics, point of view, most
important contribution from Ludwig.
Von mises. I think austrians would differ
on this. My opinion is basically his
methodology. His praxeological framework, and
really, as espoused in his last book, which is my favorite of
his books. The ultimate Foundation of
economic science to me that is key because I rely on that over
and over and increasingly over the years, in my legal analysis,
basically, the Just his way of looking at.
What human actors are the distinction between action and
behavior, right? The causal realm, versus the
teleological realm, the fact that we employ a means to
achieve ends, the distinguishing between that all the all the
implied categories, like opportunity cost profit and loss
time, preference, and uncertainty of the future.
All those things are so fundamental to me and so useful
as a as a heuristic way of thinking about Social
relationships. Now other austrians might focus
on his other achievements, which would be his monetary theory has
developed his views on the Austrian business cycle and in
monetary through his regression theorem as well.
But to me, it's his methodology. Most important contribution from
Friedrich Hayek. You know, I'm not, I gotta say,
I'm not a hike. I'm not a big hike fan.
I find his work murky. I find him to be a dilettante.
I find him from what I understand.
He was best. So the classic the classic or
the typical line on Hayek by the hardcore rothbard Ian's and
disease. Is that to the extent?
Hayek was good. He was just repeating what mises
did like the business cycle Theory and to the extent he
wasn't saying what mises Said he was wrong.
And I think the one exception to that, from what I understand is
his Capital Theory which I had in the red.
I've heard that is very good. And that is that is original.
But yeah, to these stand these repeating what mises did I find
mises better like on the knowledge problem?
I think he goes astray with the knowledge problem with the I
don't agree with his knowledge wave like the calculation
problem socialism. I think mises is way of looking
at it as a problem of property, right?
It's like, if you don't have property rights in a free
market, you can't have pre market prices emerge and then
there's no means of comparing had erogenous projects on the
market. It's that simple.
I mean, simple after he said it before, he said it, it was, it
was hard to figure it out. But once once you say something,
brilliant and obvious, she's like the subjective Revolution,
right? Or but Hayek's thing about how
knowledge dispersed and all this stuff.
I just, I think it's murky and, and ambiguous and not rigorous
and I think it's actually Incorrect, and then, of course,
I'll political theory. He dabbled in lots of things
later. And I mean his writing is I just
don't like it. I mean, I slog through law
legislation and Liberty and the constitution of Liberty.
He basically became a welfare statist after he left mises
orbit. I mean, he's in favor of welfare
and you know, as long as the law is so-called General, he's not
opposed to it, even if it's conscription or welfare or
regulating businesses. So he's not a Libertarian at
all. I don't know why people think
he's one of us. He's not a really an Austrian in
the mises sense and he's not a Libertarian.
So take mises. Take Hayek off.
My list of Austrian greats Murray rothbard.
Probably the stuff. I like to do, basically
libertarian legal Theory. I mean, I think he did a good
job of restating a lot of mises economic framework in a kind of
different language and more are versatility in language as far
as improvements on the economics.
I think it might be basically the antitrust stuff like Beezus
was a little wobbly on a loan on monopolies and antitrust and
rothbard improve that and then hop improve that as well.
But he was basically just really seldom is easy on economics, but
on, I think so he combined radical Austrian free market
economics with Ein. Ran's kind of individualist
individual rights approach and then he combined that with a an
anti statist, radical Anarchist approach.
And so it was just his kind of overall.
Consistent worldview kind of a multi-directional attack on the
state and on aggression. So, like the ethics of Liberty
is probably his best work in political theory, for me for a
new Liberty, being s and in economics.
I think my pride my favorite work by rothbard economics is
the I keep forgetting the new title.
It was called the logic of the logic of action, one and two,
But it's hard to find now, but they republish it, I think it's
called making economic sense. They republished it under a
different title, for copyright reasons, or something like that.
And that one's available online. So that's like a really good,
very large and very good overview of his of his economics
for methodology to practical applications.
And another lost classic is the free market reader which was
written by Rockwell and rothbard.
It was basically an edited selection of their short.
Owls in the free market newsletter, which The mises
Institute used to publish years ago.
They're kind of more Elementary's, more on the line
of hazlitt's economics in one lesson, but that's a really good
little book to Walter block. Block is just a really good
consistent libertarian. Who is innovated and pioneered?
And I think both economics and libertarian philosophy.
He's written so much in economics.
I couldn't begin to say, I mean, he's written really pioneering
things. On blackmail Theory, also on
this, this issue of the optimal supply of money, which actually
disagree with them. About, I take mises and
rothbard, like I think the optimal supply of money is
whatever it happens to be and I think Increasing the supply of
money. Never does any good.
Not that I'm against it legally. Like I think if people might
find new gold they have to be permitted to do it, but still I
think that's bad because it causes inflation and wealth
redistribution and it doesn't increase wealth in society
Walter argues. Otherwise in an intriguing
article will Barnett William Barnett but in political
philosophy, so his blackmail stuff and his pushing the
borders of lots of controversial areas like in is defending the
undependable. Volumes 1 and 2 and I don't
remember this number three out, but defamation law.
And on punishment theory, he came up with this thing called,
to teeth for a tooth, which is sort of like a Lex talionis or
retribution assist view of punishment Theory, which
rothbard later incorporated, into his own stuff.
I disagree with Walter on a few issues, like a voluntary
slavery, things like that, but he keeps pushing the boundaries
and trying to apply basic libertarian ideas.
Our principles to Exotic scenarios as much as possible.
More than anyone. I know, Bob Murphy tweeted out,
an article about two guys who got arrested for shooting each
other with bulletproof vests on. And Bob Murphy was like, Walter
block still unavailable for comment or he's gonna be like,
assisting, the attorney and it's so funny because the book was
written in 1974 defending the undefendable and it It's so good
that it's worth referencing commonly in the year 2021.
That's how much I recommend a excellent book like that.
Yeah, I think to maybe two hikes credit.
I think he prays that book or maybe I don't know if it's Hayek
or freedmen or someone like that, but they said this is a
bracing me. The thing is to us if we read it
now us, radical Libertarians. It's like all obvious.
But when he wrote at the time it was scandalous.
That's why the rampions hated him, right?
Because he's, oh, he's trying to be trying to glorify the worst
things in society or whatever. It's like, no, he's trying to
Trying to defend the hardest case because, you know, the
adage hard cases make bad law. Not if you're consistent
libertarian, the hard cases, you still stick with your
principles, you know, you defend the worst among us because they
are the ones they come after first, right?
Yeah, that's that's pretty rich for the Randy ins to say that.
He's an engaging in things that make us look bad as as they
justify the existence of a state, refer to Iran as a
terrorist Nation, refer to Japan as an evil empire.
That should have been nuked three times if that's what it
took. And then yaron Brook is like
well, so what if they were civilians, they weren't trying
to overthrow their Emperor. They were basically complicitous
like, What the hell happened to individualism?
And also they support, you know, what, we did to the American
Indians because they're Savages and they didn't really, they
weren't really civilized. They didn't own property.
The American oil companies have the right to take the oil from
force from Arabia because they're Savages and you know, it
was our technology that did it almost like an IP claim almost
like what work used to blow up someone else's private property
The Courtland homes project and The Fountainhead and an active.
IP terrorism, yeah, it's rich. I remember one time about 15
years ago. I was with Walter at a mises
thing and he left, he gets gleeful and happy.
When you give him a new he would, you know, I was testing
his kind of crazy theories and I said, okay what if you what if
the Hulk picks suit up and throws her like a missile at
Jim? So Jim has no choice but to use
a baseball bat to knock her out of his path.
Otherwise she will. Hit him and kill him but she's
totally innocent, but the Hulk picked her up and threw her.
So he loved that example. So he wrestled that 14 years.
Well, you should check out defending the undefendable.
Three the working chapters. He has for it.
It includes it includes cannibalism.
So I really, yeah, he's looking he he I think he put in Ultra
property and number two, or he might do it number three, but
the The one issue, I think a lot of Libertarians are afraid to
tackle of this is as age of consent for sex thing because
you don't want to get accused of pedophilia and all this, you
know, so people are afraid to test out on my feet.
Never touched that one. But, and I've got to go, by the
way, about three or four minutes by the way.
Okay. Yeah.
Well, isn't that sad? We're walking on eggshells
afraid to be called pedophiles? While talking to people who
justify the mass murder of children through bombing and say
ancients. It's ridiculous.
Final question. Most Important contribution of
Lew Rockwell. I didn't get the hop up.
That's interesting. I thought you and I spent our
first discussion all on Hoppa, so I didn't do it.
Okay, and how about has so many? I plan to write a hope to
possibly write a book someday, maybe 100 page, pray, see an
overview of all the Papas work. If I'm up to the task and if I
finish some other projects Lew Rockwell, I suppose founding The
mises Institute as his greatest accomplishment for.
I mean, Not to not to criticize it at all.
I don't think it's a central now that used to be because there's
so many more outlets and avenues, which is good.
The libertarian party's bigger. There's chapters.
There's mises Institute all over the world.
There's other groups that are free market oriented as well.
Now, but for a for a while there, I don't know, for a good
20 years. 15, 20 25 years. It was like the prime, the
Premier Source of solid Austrian economic thinking and radical
principled libertarian thinking, and they had an a head of the
times website with tons and tons of materials free online, which
was a novelty at the time, which is bold, right?
Which was done sort of a Jeff Tucker's initiative and sort of,
at my IP ideas, kind of I think judge Jeff to do that to a
degree. But so I think Rockwell's
founding of the mises to was he's done.
Lots of amazing things here, it, lots of great things published.
Lots of great works supported, lots of important thinkers, but
I'd say The mises Institute by far.
Excellent. Mr. Kinsella.
Thank you so much for your time. The book is against intellectual
property from gosh. What is it?
Been 11 years? 12 years, almost 20, I think,
and I'm going to do a new book in about a year called copy this
book, so it'll be a new one from scratch.
So it'll replace that one. But yeah, about 20 years ago,
excellent. And the new one out soon as law
in a Libertarian World. Mr. Kinsella.
Thank you for your time. You're welcome, and call me
stuff. And next time we'll do.