Per Bylund | The Libertarian Institute

Kamala Harris is Here to Reduce Your Population

by Per Bylund | Jul 18, 2023 | Featured Articles

It is no surprise to libertarians that what is in the interest of the government might not be in the interest of people in general. More often than not, the government’s interest is directly at odds with the interests of people in general. The countless wars waged by governments throughout history, for which common people paid ultimately with their lies, bear witness to this fact. Wars are also waged on the domestic populations that the government supposedly serves and protects. Under the guise of the greater or public good, which always require some sacrifice yet curiously dovetail with the...

Civilization is Freedom of Association

by Per Bylund | Dec 4, 2022 | Featured Articles

Do people have a right to go wherever they want and for whatever reason they like? Certainly not. I have no right to use or occupy your rightful property without your permission. And the same applies for you and everyone with my property. Do people have a right to migrate to whatever part of the world they please? They certainly do. If they don’t violate the life and property of another person, nobody has a right to limit theirs. It should be easy to combine these two statements into one: my liberty ends where your liberty begins. Or: it is everyone’s right to not be coerced or aggressed...

A Strategy for Forcing the State Back

by Per Bylund | Jul 28, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism

As libertarians, we like to discuss two things: what could be and what is wrong with society today. Some of us are intrigued by the promises of a free society, no matter if we advocate the total abolishment of the State or wish to radically cut back on its powers. It kind of sets your mind free to dream of all the things that could be weren't it for the welfare-warfare State. Some libertarians feel the adrenaline flowing when talking about the injustice caused people by the State: about immigrants being forced back to torture because they are not the "legal" kind; about poor people kept out...

The ‘Thorny Question’ of Public Property

by Per Bylund | Jun 17, 2020 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

In a recent Mises Wire article, Jeff Deist commented on the squatting of Capitol Hill in Seattle. Contrasting Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s and Walter Block’s respective libertarian approaches to public property, Deist asked if the residents of the ‘CHAZ’ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) are illegal squatters or homesteaders, and concluded that it is a “thorny question.” Walter Block then responded in a rejoinder on the Power & Market blog elaborating on his view that public property is open for homesteading because, while stolen, it is, in effect, unowned. The problem here is that both arguments...

Without A Bottom Line, Government Is Not Only Blind – It Is Destructive

by Per Bylund | Mar 30, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles

In the present pandemic panic, a great many are calling for bigger, stronger, and more brutal government to deal with the coronavirus. Thus, they cheer as the political decision-makers, never wanting to let a good crisis go to waste, scurry to get themselves ‘emergency powers’. A common assumption among both common people, the intelligentsia, and members of the political class appears to be that the market either has failed or that it simply cannot deal with problems like pandemics. While both are ignorant and false claims, what is much more disturbing is the fundamental lack of...

Capitalism Makes No Sense

by Per Bylund | Mar 29, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles

Few things are so confusing as the term capitalism. The definition itself appears clear enough, with the Oxford Dictionaries saying it is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” Both proponents and opponents of capitalism would likely agree that the core of capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. But that’s the full extent of agreement. The problem here is that the formal definition provides no guidance regarding the functioning of the system. This means...

When It Comes to Raw Power, Few Have More of It Than Central Bankers

by Per Bylund | Feb 24, 2020 | Featured Articles

A common retort to the claim that in voluntary exchange both parties expect to become better off (or they wouldn’t do it) is that exchanges are seldom, if ever, a matter of horizontal, equal exchange of values. Instead, any such interaction between people is ultimately a matter of their exercising power over one another. The implication, and often explicitly stated conclusion, is that there is no voluntariness, that exploitation is always present, that one party necessarily gains at the other’s expense. This rather dismal view of man makes clear that people apparently are slaves to power,...

The Immigration Issue in Libertarianism

by Per Bylund | Sep 18, 2018 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Over a decade ago, I wrote an article published at Mises.org on the libertarian immigration conundrum. The “conundrum” was the seemingly unbridgeable differences between, if not contradictory views of, the two libertarian answers to the immigration question. The point of the article was to show that these answers are more compatible than most libertarians tend to think; both, in fact, espouse the non-aggression principle, but they emphasize different aspects of it. Since then, however, the debate has become more polarized and it has more or less caused a rift within the libertarian movement....

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