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
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
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
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
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
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....
How Welfare States Make Us Less Civilized
Throughout history, the state has justified itself on the grounds that it is necessary to protect us from others whose habits and beliefs — we are meant to believe — are dangerous. For millennia, this fiction was easy to maintain because most people interacted so little with people outside their nearly autarkic — and therefore impoverished — communities. But, with the rise of industrialization and international trade in recent centuries, the state's claim that it is necessary to keep us “safe” from outsiders has become increasingly undermined. Much of this is thanks to the fact that in order...
Glorious Tax Season
Tax season is here. This is a time to celebrate. No, I mean it. Not because the State makes its claim on our hard-earned monies known, but because of what is on everybody's mind and the type of activity we're all involved with. Seldom is the State as present in our pockets (and pocket books) as in mid-April every year, when we either learn that we have inadvertently paid even more than the State thinks is its "fair share" of our earnings, or learn that even the outrageous amounts we have already paid weren't enough. And to make matters worse, we waste a lot of productive time to fill out...