From long-time PFS member Jayant Bhandari, who spoke at PFS 2024 on “Understanding India”: Jayant Bhandari, “The Third World’s Cargo-Cult Modernity,” LewRockwell.com (Nov. 2, 2026).

The Third World’s Cargo-Cult Modernity

November 2, 2026

For most of my life, I have watched the Third World supposedly emerge. Roads seemed to improve, universities multiplied, incomes rose, smartphones appeared, elections became more elaborate, and Western technology penetrated ever more deeply. The euphemism “emerging markets” came into use, carrying within it the assumption that eventual emergence was somehow baked into the cake.

Yet modernization and civilization are not the same process.

The mistake is easy to make because civilization is most visible through its products. We see the airport, the university, the constitution, and the skyscraper. We assume that acquiring these things means acquiring the civilization that produced them. This assumption becomes particularly seductive if we regard human beings as blank slates and imagine that installing civilizational software in the Third World is merely a matter of education and the transplantation of Western institutions. [continue reading…]

[Cross-posted at StephanKinsella.com]

From Per Bylund, guest editor of an upcoming symposium issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, is announcing: “Call for Papers: Special Issue of the JLS: “Whither Libertarianism?”,” JLS Blog (Nov. 02, 2026).

Please consider submitting to this special issue of JLS: “Whither Libertarianism?” https://t.co/5pH5Ms6BPd

— Per Bylund (@PerBylund) November 2, 2026

Bylund¹ sees the core issues as the meaning and application of the non-aggression principle amid thick-vs-thin debates, open-borders vs. property-rights views on immigration, principle vs. efficacy/utilitarianism (including in the Libertarian Party), assessments of Milei’s record, and some libertarians’ support for political Zionism (viewed as endorsing aggression and statism), plus related institutional failures (e.g., during COVID), progressive shifts, and alliances with the New Right or left that risk diluting radical libertarianism. This frames a call for philosophical clarification of where libertarianism is headed, focused on the NAP.

As he concluded his call for papers: [continue reading…]

1.  Bylund’s Typology of Knowledge: Physical vs. Catallactic; General vs. Applied; The Austrian School Was Right Again: Abolish IP in the EU; Austrian Economics Center and Hayek Institute Support IP Socialism and 2026 World IP Day Coalition; “My Years with the Mises Institute,” n.106.  [↩]

In 2024, the Property and Freedom Society published A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds. (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024), on the occasion of Professor Hoppe’s 75th birthday on Sept. 2, 2024.

Most of the the pieces were not published in HTML text form as separate articles; we will be posting them in this Bookstream. The Preface was republished in the inaugural post in this Bookstream: A Life in Liberty Bookstream: Preface — Hülsmann and Kinsella. Links to the remaining chapters may be found at the book’s landing page here. Here’s the next entry—

[continue reading…]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (172.0MB)

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 360.

This roundtable discussion is from the recently-concluded PFS 2026 Twentieth Annual Meeting (Sep. 17–22, 2026, Bodrum, Turkey). With (in sitting order): Stephan Kinsella, Hans-Hermann Hoppe (moderator), Lee Iglody, Tom DiLorenzo, Jeffrey Barr, Alessandro Fusillo.

Other talks will appear on the Property and Freedom Podcast weekly, on Mondays, in upcoming weeks. Other videos may also be found at the PFS 2026 Youtube Playlist. [continue reading…]

It is not publicly known who nowadays is running LewRockwell.com (LRC). But it is apparent that it is no longer Lew Rockwell himself. As ex-Mises Institute president Tom DiLorenzo pointed out, after seeing LRC “Publish[] a Communistic Screed about ‘The Need to End Capitalism‘”: “I have no idea who is editing LewRockwell.com these days.”¹

Further evidence that no one is minding the ship, or at least that Rockwell is not: Jeffrey Tucker, whose name was quietly removed from LRC’s columnist page after his 2011 ouster from the Mises Institute, now gets favorable play on LRC, as I pointed out recently:²

Case in point, despite the obvious bad blood between Rockwell/Mises and Jeffrey Tucker, for some reason on Wednesday this week LRC ran a Tucker article. [Namely: Jeffrey A. Tucker, “Since Lockdowns, a 12% GDP Loss; Half of US Dollar Purchasing Power Stolen,” Brownstone Journal (June 2, 2026), reposted at LRC on June 10, 2026.] It is apparent the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and Rockwell is not running LRC. I suppose the left hand did not realize Tucker’s LRC archives had been disappeared and memory-holed Orwell-style after he was ousted from MI in November 2011.³ [Update: Tucker’s articles apparently are still there, but the link on the Columnists page has been removed to make them harder to find.]

Not only are Tucker’s own Brownstone pieces reprinted there,⁴ but other LRC articles cite Tucker’s work approvingly.⁵

And the archives at LewRockwell.com still show literally thousands of articles and blog posts written by those now ousted from Mises Institute circles (and of course LRC and Mises.org/Mises Institute have always been connected at the hip except LRC was apparently for-profit (even though every LRC page has “Please Donate To Support LRC” buttons), explaining why LRC articles would link to Amazon books, even those published by the Mises Institute, and add the Amazon referral code for LRC to financially benefit LRC instead of the Mises Institute):⁶ Doug French, Jeff Deist, Tom DiLorenzo, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Stephan Kinsella (permalinked in case they, too, like Tucker’s, get disappeared). Three of these are former Presidents of the Mises Institute. Hans was its only ever Distinguished Senior Fellow. I was a Senior Fellow.

Hoppe’s LRC archives for articles alone contain dozens of articles spanning from April 1999 to June 2025. None since Hoppe was outrageously stripped of his Senior Distinguished Fellow designation by the Mises Institute.⁷

By the way, aside from the question as to who is running LewRockwell.com, the naturally following question then is: who is running the Mises Insitute? After two years now, they still have no president and no one can be made to believe that the institute is actually run by Judy Thommesen and Chad Parish, the two low-level functionaries tasked with the unenviable task of notifying Dr. Hoppe of the Mises Insititue’s shameful decision to revoke his Distinguished Senior Fellow designation.⁸ As far as anyone can tell, it’s run by Joe Salerno and Peter Klein, Geta-and-Caracalla-style: it’s the Salerno/Klein Institute, with Salerno as the de facto president, perhaps with Klein destined to eventually take over from him, perhaps with his wife as the figurehead president. Who knows. One wonders if the board actually approves of this—of having a de facto but not officially appointed “president.”

Update: For more evidence that Rockwell is not in charge of LewRockwell.com, see Ira Katz, “Collaboration and a Libertarian Connection,” LewRockwell.com (May 8, 2026), which closes with a paragraph I doubt Rockwell or the powers that be at Mises Institute would have permitted had they noticed this:

While I was reading about the breakup of the Criterion Association I became aware of serious issues within an organization important in my life, the Mises Institute, through an article by the Bionic Mosquito: My Friend Hans [PFS version]]. In it he reposts the article by Dr. Hans Hoppe, Mises Institute: Quo Vadis? [see Hoppe: Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?]. Later I read the article by Stephan Kinsella, My Years with the Mises Institute [see Kinsella, My Years with the Mises Institute]. From these articles I only know one side of a story that surmises there is dysfunction within the institute. In particular, Dr. Hoppe has been dismissed from his honor of being a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the institute. I write as a very minor donor (I attended the Vienna Supporters Summit in 2011), I have been a partaker of institute materials for more than three decades, and I have submitted articles to LRC for more than two decades. I have nothing but the best of intentions for the institute and all parties involved, especially Lew Rockwell and Dr. Hoppe. I emphasize, I know nothing at all except what I have read about what is going on. I feel the pain one has when good friends suffer a divorce. My conclusion, in the spirit of Mihail Sebastian, is that it is important for the health of the institute to explain to all institute participants by whom and why the decision was made to purge Dr. Hoppe. And moreover, to bring him back within the fold.

Related

• Kinsella, Lew Rockwell Festschrift in the Works—Sans Hoppe, French, Deist, DiLorenzo … (June 12, 2026)
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?,” Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026)
• Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?: Postscript,” Property and Freedom Journal (April 17, 2026)
• Kinsella, Hoppe Removed as Mises Institute Senior Distinguished Fellow (April 1, 2026)
• Fernando Chiocca, Hoppe Named Rothbard Brasil Distinguished Eternal Fellow (April 2026)
• Kinsella, No Cardboard for Hoppe (May 2026)
• Kinsella, Mises Institute Oral History Project: The Lost Rothbard History (2013) (April 17, 2026)
• Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026)
• Tom DiLorenzo, LewRockwell.com Publishes a Communistic Screed about “The Need to End Capitalism” (June 11, 2026)
• KOL486 | Mark Edge Show: Kinsella on Hoppe and the Mises Institute (April 2026)

1. Tom DiLorenzo, “LewRockwell.com Publishes a Communistic Screed about “The Need to End Capitalism”,” Property and Freedom Society (June 11, 2026). [↩]
2. See Stephan Kinsella, “Lew Rockwell Festschrift in the Works—Sans Hoppe, French, Deist, DiLorenzo …,” Property and Freedom Society (June 12, 2026). [↩]
3. See Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026). See also Kinsella, No Cardboard for Hoppe; Kinsella, Hoppe Removed as Mises Institute Senior Distinguished Fellow (April 1, 2026); Kinsella, Mises Institute Oral History Project: The Lost Rothbard History (2013) (April 17, 2026); Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026); Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?: Postscript,” Property and Freedom Journal (April 17, 2026). [↩]
4. See also Jeffrey A. Tucker, “The Coup, the Calamity, and the Conspiracy,” LewRockwell.com (Oct. 7, 2025), reprinted from Brownstone Institute. [↩]
5. John Leake, “Lockdowns: Point Was to Delay Natural Immunity, Not To Protect the Vulnerable,” LewRockwell.com (Sept. 7, 2026), citing Tucker’s Brownstone report favorably. [↩]
6. See, e.g., Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian,” LewRockwell.com (March 29, 2025), reprinted from Mises.org, with Amazon links bearing LRC’s affiliate code to the Mises Institute editions of Hoppe’s Economy, Society, and History, Getting Libertarianism Right, and Economic Science and the Austrian Method; Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “The Greatness of Man, Economy, and State,” LewRockwell.com (June 4, 2025), linking with LRC’s affiliate code to the Mises Institute’s Scholar’s Editions of Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State and Mises’s Human Action. [↩]
7. Kinsella, Hoppe Removed as Mises Institute Senior Distinguished Fellow. [↩]
8. Kinsella, Hoppe Removed as Mises Institute Senior Distinguished Fellow. [↩]

[StephanKinsella.com cross-post]

Kinsella’s chapter “The Problem with Intellectual Property” (2026) has been translated into Greek as «Το Πρόβλημα της Διανοητικής Ιδιοκτησίας» by Praxeologos.¹ He also provides the English original, “with notes and glossary links,” which “feeds the map of ideas with Kinsella.” As he wrote Kinsella:

1. He also translated others by Hoppe: Greek Translation of Democracy: The God That Failed; Greek Translation of Economic Science and the Austrian Method. [↩]

[Cross-post at StephanKinsella.com]

I’ve been listening to Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar’s podcast, Amarica’s Constitution, on and off for a while, even though he’s mainstream and somewhat liberal. But unlike most of the legal academy, not reflexively centralist. (See his America’s Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By (Basic Books, 2012).)¹

Related:

• Structural Safeguards to Limit Legislation and State Power
• Constitutional Structures in Defense of Freedom (ASC 1998)
• Randy Barnett’s “Federalism Amendment”–A Counterproposal; and related posts
• Concurrent Review and Judicial Supremacy
• How to Fix the US
• KOL345 | Kinsella’s Libertarian “Constitution” or: State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PorcFest 2021)
• PFP231 | Stephan Kinsella, State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PFS 2021)
• Godwyn: “The Jury’s Ancient Power: Why Every Englishman Should Know About Jury Nullification”

His recent episode, “The Innocent Ham Sandwich” (Amarica’s Constitution, Oct. 28, 2026, with co-host Andy Lipka) has a couple of ideas of interest to libertarian decentralists: one on jury nullification (one important limit on state power), the other on State nullification of federal law (another important vertical limit on central US fedgov state power; one that libertarian centralists seem not to be that interested in).² [continue reading…]

1. N.b.: I have used AI in the past (mostly Grok) to summarize and other mechanical tasks, but am reluctant to use it for writing. Finding newer emerging capabilities in Claude, I used it to help with finding and citing references and writing a first draft. I rewrote it all so it did not save time really but it did result in a more detailed post that would have taken more time had I done it without AI help. Interesting. [↩]
2. On libertarian centralists, see Stephan Kinsella, “Libertarian Centralists,” StephanKinsella.com (Sept. 17, 2009); idem, “The Libertarian Case Against the Fourteenth Amendment,” StephanKinsella.com (Nov. 30, 2009); idem, “Healy on States’ Rights and Libertarian Centralists; Healy versus Bolick and the Institute for Justice,” StephanKinsella.com (Dec. 1, 2009); idem, “Michael Boldin on Randy Barnett and Federalism,” StephanKinsella.com (Dec. 17, 2009); and other posts tagged libertarian centralists.  [↩]

[C4sif cross-post]

The Getty Family and Koch Equity Development Commit to Equity Investment of up to $533 Million in Getty Images, Reflecting Confidence in Long-Term Growth Potential (h/t Jason Ditz)

’nuff said [continue reading…]

[Cross-posted at HansHoppe.com]

Here.

On conza.au · Author

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Many of Hoppe’s works to date, summarised here slide by slide, and every gem tagged to him — quotes, clips and excerpts — on one page that grows as the library does.

[Cross-posted at StephanKinsella.com]

As of October 19, 2026, I have been named a Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute Scandinavia (MisesInstitutet skandivaniven) (perma.cc).

Related

• Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026), sections Honors, Invitations, and Senior Fellowship and Kinsella Out
• Kinsella, Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (2009–2013); http://mises.org/faculty.aspx (archived page from 2011)
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?”, Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026)
• Hoppe Removed as Mises Institute Senior Distinguished Fellow
• Hans-Herman Hoppe, former Distinguished Senior Fellow (~2000–2026) with the Ludwig von Mises Institute
• Hoppe, Distinguished Eternal Fellow (Rothbard Brasil, 2026)
• Hoppe, Resignation from the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Germany

In 2024, the Property and Freedom Society published A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds. (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024), on the occasion of Professor Hoppe’s 75th birthday on Sept. 2, 2024.

Most of the the pieces were not published in HTML text form as separate articles; we will be posting them in this Bookstream. The Preface was republished in the inaugural post in this Bookstream: A Life in Liberty Bookstream: Preface — Hülsmann and Kinsella. Links to the remaining chapters may be found at the book’s landing page here. Here’s the next entry—

[continue reading…]

Ralph Raico, “The Case for an America First Foreign Policy,” in The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars, Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger, eds. (Future of Freedom Foundation, 1996): excerpt; full transcript (pdf); Youtube Playlist.

Related: Hoppe, Book Review, The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars (1996); and Day of the Long Knives (FEE).

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed (Transaction, 2001) [], has been translated into Greek as Δημοκρατία: Ο Θεός που Απέτυχε. According to the translator, the aptly soi-disant Praxeologos (who also translated Economic Science and the Austrian Method):

On top of my proof reading, I have run a full scan for consistency (against my other translations) based on my glossary of Austrian terms published here: https://praxeologos.net/p/glossari-afstriakis-scholis.

Note: online version of the book not yet available due to copyright concerns.

In 1996, Professor Hoppe published a short book review in FEE’s The Freeman of The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars, edited by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger (Future of Freedom Foundation, 1996). This caused some controversy at FEE at the time (see below) and recently again on Twitter, with some establishment “libertarian” critics tut-tutting about it in high dudgeon and also about his recent remarks on Israel and the Holocaust in his recent PFS speech at PFP359 | Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Learning and Revising History: Rothbardian Lessons (PFS 2026). For example, that Hans dared to use the phraseology “so-called Holocaust” (51:14); this had them clutching their pearls and looking for the fainting couch. Even though the Holocaust is “CALLED” the Holocaust (sometimes Shoah), and even though Hoppe, not a native English speaker, also uses the term “so-called” other places in his speech with obviously no deeper import or sinister intent, e.g.—

• “from my parents, in particular, I learned the so-called secondary virtues of Germans: punctuality, reliability, diligence, ambitions and all these sorts of things”
• “we also learned what still exists to this point, the so-called German guilt“
• “The so-called Nuremberg trial“

In any case, we reprint below the review, since it is no longer on the FEE site; it used to be online but now only the internet archive has it. (Of course, the FFF book reviewed is also not available online, but only on Amazon; I guess the editors do not care to make their ideas easy to spread.) In fact, Hoppe’s name as author and his review have been apparently scrubbed from FEE’s search by authors feature. [continue reading…]

Patrick Smith, “Shields Still Own Themselves,” Property and Freedom Journal (Oct. 27, 2026).

This essay is a pointed critique of Walter Block’s recent defense of using force against innocent human shields. Smith argues that Block’s claim—that a person used as a shield is “no longer an innocent” and may therefore be killed in the course of self-defense—contradicts the core libertarian commitment to self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. Drawing on Rothbard and the logic of normative individualism, Smith contends that innocence cannot be stripped away by another’s aggression, that “causal contribution” is not a valid substitute for initiation of force, and that the resulting contradiction is only papered over by redefining the very rights libertarianism is meant to protect.

Read more>>

Guest post by Cristiano Chiocca

“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul.” – George Bernard Shaw

Following the 2026 election, the Left has won once again, and the Right is raising accusations of a coup, fraud, and manipulation. This pattern has repeated itself for decades in Brazil—one of the few countries to adopt an electronic voting system.

As someone who, as a matter of principle, remains inherently skeptical of the State and its institutions, I find myself disagreeing with my friends on the Right on this occasion. Without delving into the technical minutiae of the system, I rely on a few logical arguments: for instance, why would the Left choose to rig only the majoritarian elections—while leaving the legislative contests untouched—rather than securing a more favorable Congress? Furthermore, who is to say that the age-old practice of ballot-stuffing or paper-ballot fraud wouldn’t occur—as we have seen in recent examples in the United States? In short, I generally support the use of electronic voting machines; no one has managed to convince me that a paper-based system would be any less prone to fraud. [continue reading…]

[From C4SIF]

In the recent Advisory Opinions episode “Who’s the Loneliest Supreme Court Justice?” (The Dispatch, Oct. 22, 2026), hosts Sarah Isgur and David French discuss several Supreme Court orders, including one they flag as the case that will have “our libertarian friends jumping from the second-story window.” That order is the grant of certiorari in Department of Justice v. McNutt, the challenge to the nearly 160-year-old federal ban on distilling liquor at home (or in a connected dwelling, shed, or yard).

The ban, codified at 26 U.S.C. § 5178(a)(1)(B) and related provisions, dates to 1868. Congress enacted it as part of a broader scheme to enforce the federal excise tax on distilled spirits. The government’s longstanding justification is that home stills make tax evasion easier: they are harder to inspect, easier to conceal, and more difficult for revenue agents to monitor than commercial facilities. Under the Necessary and Proper Clause, the argument runs, Congress may prohibit the activity outright rather than merely tax it, because the practical difficulty of enforcement otherwise undermines the tax power. [continue reading…]

https://t.co/8q94ttkNHp @propfreedom https://t.co/nMQa5Q2TTI

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) October 27, 2026

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Instituto Rothbard (@instituto_rothbard)

(h/t Fernando Chiocca)

Jorge Muñoz, host of the Libertad Individual Youtube channel,¹ has started a new channel, the Rothbard Archive, 6 classes with improved audio and subtitles, chapters and biography. Here is the most recent one:

1. See KOL500 | Libertad Individual Interview: Rothbard’s Framework, Legal Theory, Property Rights, Contract, Intellectual Property, Corporations, and More. [↩]

Blast from the past-style: Kinsella, “UK Proposal for Banking Reform: Fractional-Reserve Banking versus Deposits and Loans,” Mises Daily (Sept. 14, 2010).

Related

• Freebankers Debate Baxendale Banking Reform Proposal
• Musings on Fractional-Reserve Banking in a Bitcoin Age; Physicalist Shock Absorber Metaphors
• On Coinbase, Bitcoin, Fractional-Reserve Banking, and Irregular Deposits
• The Great Fractional Reserve/Freebanking Debate
• The Bank of England and Me
• Taghizadegan: The Regression Theorem Explains Bitcoin
• Hülsmann, The Inflation Trap: The Ethics of Money Creation | Bitcoin 2026

Kinsella, “UK Proposal for Banking Reform: Fractional-Reserve Banking versus Deposits and Loans,” Mises Daily (Sept. 14, 2010).

Austrians and others interested in fractional-reserve banking (FRB) will find of interest a banking reform about to be proposed in the UK. Douglas Carswell, an Austrian economics-informed member of the UK parliament for Clacton, is planning to introduce a so-called “Ten Minute Rule Bill” after Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 15) that could have significant implications for current centralized FRB practices. The Bill will be supported by Steve Baker, the Member of Parliament for Wycombe, who also serves on the Advisory Board of the Austrian/classical liberal Cobden Centre.

Carswell described the proposal in a post on Friday entitled “How should we reform the banks?,” and Baker promoted it earlier today in “Douglas Carswell leads the way on bank reform,” on CentreRight, the unofficial web site of the Tory Party (widely read by all members from the PM down). Baker’s article provides further elaboration and explanation, as well as a wealth of useful resources, speeches, links related to this issue. Baker is also scheduled to have a column about this in the Wall Street Journal Europe tomorrow [update: see Steve Baker, “A Bill to Fight Crony Capitalism” [2], Wall Street Journal (Opinion Europe section) (Sept. 15, 2010); and also: Toby Baxendale, “The radical reform that would end boom and bust in banking” [12ft] Telegraph.co.uk (Sept. 15, 2010)]. Daniel Hannan, the free market Member of the European Parliament, has also come out in support, in his Telegraph.co.uk column “Instead of subjecting our financial services to Brussels, we should embrace the Baker/Carswell banking reforms.” Finally, Austrian classical liberal entrepreneur Toby Baxendale, who is also Chairman of the Cobden Centre, provides a good explanation of the legal background giving rise to the Bill “What is the Legal Relationship Between the Banker and his Customer?” [continue reading…]

In 2024, the Property and Freedom Society published A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds. (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024), on the occasion of Professor Hoppe’s 75th birthday on Sept. 2, 2024.

Most of the the pieces were not published in HTML text form as separate articles; we will be posting them in this Bookstream.  The Preface was republished in the inaugural post in this Bookstream: A Life in Liberty Bookstream: Preface — Hülsmann and Kinsella. Links to the remaining chapters may be found at the book’s landing page here. We have been posting these entries three times a week, MWF, but are now switching to twice a week: Mondays and Thursdays. Here’s the next entry—

[continue reading…]

Bryan Caplan, “Embrace Cultural Creative Destruction: You Have No Right to Your Culture: Essays on the Human Condition is now on sale,” Bet On It (Jan 26, 2026). h/t @Jeff Deist.

Uhhh …. yeah. I mean… there’s libertarian macho flash¹ and then there’s libertarian macho flash. WTF? Tell that to the poor French right now. Even if they sort of asked for it. Doesn’t mean we ought to cheer it on. [continue reading…]

1. See Michael Cloud, “The Late, Great Libertarian Macho Flash” (1978; preserved at https://perma.cc/KY9P-V7K7 and here). See also Jeff Wood, “The Triumphant Return of Libertarian Macho Flash,” (March 8, 2017; https://perma.cc/KE6W-WQK4). [↩]

Superb article by @FeserEdward on the “scientific” delusion– “the mechanization of the world picture”– that still hobbles our understanding of the distinct and separate nature of things in the world. We refuse to accept both that separateness and the idea of an inherent nature in anything.

The “basic conceit is human beings, in theory and practice, can and ought to transcend the limitations of their nature.”

This is how you get transhumanism. This is how you get murderous governments. This is how you get an addled & miserable population in the midst of incredible material comfort.

https://t.co/jYmGrck6c7

— Jeff Deist (@jeffdeist) October 25, 2026

Related

• Kinsella, How much richer would be in a free society? L. Neil Smith’s great speech
• The Golden Age of America is Now

From a Facebook post by the great Tom Woods:

My feed is filled with people reproducing this post. It is nonsense. You won’t find anybody more opposed to monetary debasement than I am. But you are asking me to believe that in 1971, half of America had an income equivalent to that of nearly a millionaire today.

No society anywhere has ever been that prosperous. And the 1970s sure don’t give off the vibe of everybody living in luxury.

Of course Nixon shouldn’t have closed the gold window. No argument there. But the statement below is unsupportable, and it’s contradicted by common sense.

ADDENDUM: I’ll add: literally nobody, no economist of any school, thinks real wages have fallen 88% since 1971. That is absolutely and demonstrably false. I don’t get how people can find this plausible. If real wages had fallen 88% since 1971, TRUST ME, YOU WOULD KNOW. I will devote an issue of my newsletter to this, since I’m aghast that some people on my side seem to think this is the case. I assure you, there has been no such collapse.

Want to have your mind blown?

In 1971, the median household income was $9,030, or 220 ounces of gold.

In 2025, it was $87,460, or just 25 ounces of gold.

Your paycheck went up 10x.

Measured in gold, it fell 88%.

To earn what the median household earned in 1971, you’d need about $890,000 per year today.

That’s what fiat debasement looks like.

— Adam Livingston (@AdamBLiv) October 23, 2026

Related

• Milei-related posts at PFS, HansHoppe.com, StephanKinsella.com

During a recent trip to Madrid, Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist president, was featured as keynote speaker at the 10th Annual Madrid Conference on Austrian Economics, organized by Jesús Huerta de Soto, and took the opportunity to publicly denounce Pedro Sánchez, the present socialist president of Spain, and express his support for Sánchez’s “rightist” opponents in the current Spanish election campaign.

Milei openly called out Sánchez as a “dictator” and as a “thief” deeply involved in corruption.¹

All correct from an anarcho-capitalist viewpoint: Sánchez, as head of state, indeed dictates law without (or even against) the explicit consent of everyone affected by it. (In fact, that’s what politics is all about: one person ruling over and above another one!) As well, taxes and fiat money inflation are indeed theft, and Sánchez and his regime live off of taxes and money “creation.” Hence, to call him a thief is also true. And Sánchez and his wife are indeed implicated in some corruption affairs. Also true. [continue reading…]

1. See, e.g., Le Figaro, “«Un infréquentable dictateur» : Javier Milei critique vivement Pedro Sanchez durant sa visite à Madrid,” 21 October 2026; bne IntelliNews, “Milei tells Spaniards to kick out ‘disgraceful dictator’ Sánchez,” 21 October 2026. [↩]