This piece is similar to Hoppe, “The Future of Liberalism. A Plea for a New Radicalism, Polis, 3,1 (1998). The core argument—classical liberalism’s fatal error was accepting the state as a territorial monopolist of law/protection/taxation, making limited government impossible and leading to its own destruction via democracy and social democracy—was substantially revised and included as ch. 11 of Democracy: The God That Failed (Transaction, 2001).
After some problems, not to speak of the whole Mark Skousen debacle, the venerable Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) seems to be on the right track.
But an interesting PC episode has been on my mind recently. The November 1996 issue of The Freeman contained a Book Review (2; 3) by Hans-Hermann Hoppe of The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars (edited by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger).
From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, various entries in the Reflections section, Liberty (July 1988): 9–13.
The Libertarian family and entrepreneurship—In the letter column of Liberty (May 1988), Dagny Sharon threatens (albeit somewhat ironically) to leave the libertarian movement. Now, certainly everyone has the moral right to leave the movement, and I’m sure that most of us, in moments of despair or disgust, have been tempted to do the same. But I am interested in her stated reasons, which I think are typical of many who have suffered from similar “burnout.” The trigger was a gently ironic review by Mike Holmes of her Free Market Yellow Pages (“Libertariana,” Liberty, Dec 1987), which actually pulled the punches of the criticisms he might have levelled at the publication. But apparently the very fact that criticism of Ms. Sharon was made was almost enough to send her reeling “out of the movement.” [continue reading…]
What we are seeing these last weeks in Indochina is, for libertarians, a particularly exhilirating experience: the death of a State. or rather two States: Cambodia and South Vietnam. The exhiliration stems from the fact that here is not just another coup d’etat, in which the State apparatus remains virtually intact and only a few oligarchs are shuffled at the top. Here is the total and sudden collapse – the smashing – of an entire State apparatus, its accelerating and rapid disintegration. Of course, the process does not now usher in any sort of libertarian Nirvana, since another bloody State is in the process of taking over. But the disintegration remains, and offers us many instructive lessons. [continue reading…]
From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, “Freedom is for Everyone (Including the despised ‘Rightists’),” Liberty (March 1988): 43–44. This was a counterpoint to John Dentinger, “Strange Bedfellows: Libertarian/Conservative Misalliance,” Liberty (March 1988): 37–42.
The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:
100 Years with Rothbard was held two weekends ago in beautiful Porto, Portugal, on Saturday, June 27, 2026, featuring and attended by a number of PFS members, including Professor Hoppe and Gülçin Imre Hoppe, Stephan Kinsella, Saifedean Ammous, Thomas Jacob, Greg and Joy Morin, and Alessandro and Domitia Fusillo. From the PFS side, Hoppe, Kinsella, and Ammous spoke at the conference, along with many other wonderful speakers (program). It was a wonderful event, attended by hundreds from Portugal and many other countries. Below is my report of the event, along with some photos of the event. [continue reading…]
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Tel Aviv) has passed away. R.I.P. Senator Graham. Netanyahoo is mourning the loss of “one of Israel’s greatest friends.”
Whenever I heard Senator Graham speak on American television it reminded me of Murray Rothbard’s sarcastic quip that the U.S. government should just invade all the other countries of the world at once and get “it” out of its system. This always seemed to be Graham’s career goal as the understudy of the odious John McCain, the giddy warmongering monster who used to sing “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of the old Beachboys tune “Barbara Ann.”
With all the focus on tariffs and trade deficits, ostensibly imposed to bring jobs back into the United States, it may be time to examine the imbalances created by the production of international security. American taxpayers suffer an overwhelming disparity from subsidizing security outside the jurisdiction of the United States relative to risks to their domestic tranquility. Alleviating the burden of foreign security assistance, protecting shipping lanes, and other international interventions is an underappreciated field for balancing accounts between relative tax-payers and tax-consumers.
The often-heard complaint of “shipping jobs overseas” while domestic manufacturing and production languish only looks at one manifestation of the political manipulation of international trade. Economist Murray Rothbard decried the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as not only favoring politically connected “Big Businesses” at the expense of average market players, but also acting as a vehicle for cartelizing industries and entrenching a government led interventionist economy. For Rothbard and other free market advocates, international agreements are not merely about domestic jobs and trade balances but about subjecting all economic affairs to political control. [continue reading…]
More evidence that the US has used its global dominance after WWII, where it imposed the dollar on the world, enabling it to export its inflation to the rest of the world, in effect enabling US deficit financing and thus supporting and paying for the US military to be the world’s policeman. The US is basically now a mercenary army, like a mafia extracting protection money to supports its military to “protect” and control the rest of the world. So it’s a bit grating and ironic when Trump complains that the US saves and bails out the rest of the world and NATO, when the truth is the US welfare-warfare empire, American citizens and taxpayers but especially the defense industry, is in effect paid for by inflationary tribute from the rest of the world. (Something similar is the case with US IP law: the draconian world’s IP laws, mainly patent and copyright, are imposed on the rest of the world via American IP Imperialism, mainly for the benefit of US Pharmaceutical companies (patent) and Hollywood and the music industry (copyright).)1[continue reading…]
From the Vault. By PFS member David Dürr. Translated from David Dürr, “Fremde Richter: Wie befangen sind staatliche Gerichtsorgane?”, eigentümlich frei (25 July, 2014) (originally published in Basler Zeitung). Eigentümlich frei (“peculiarly free”) is a German magazine edited by André F. Lichtschlag. Other Dürr articles at eigentümlich frei.
Foreign Judges How Biased Are State Judicial Organs?
David Dürr | July 25, 2014
What exactly is the argument against foreign judges? I, for one, do not know. As far as I am concerned, a judge can be foreign. In fact, it might even have advantages. Being an outsider means they are not overly entangled in the domestic squabbles of the litigating parties, which might offer an even better guarantee of objectivity and impartiality. [continue reading…]
From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard’s review of a libertarian cookbook, Libertarian Cooking: Rabble-Rousing Recipes from Assorted Libertarian Luminaries, Marty Zupan and Lou Villadsen, eds. Santa Monica, CA: Marty Zupan, 1987, 96pp., $8.95, Liberty (December, 1987): 23–25.
I cannot find the book online (if anyone has a copy please contact me), and Wikipedia and Tyler Cowen’s review (below) indicate the actual title is Liberated Cooking: Rabble-Rousing Recipes from Assorted Libertarian Luminaries.
From the Vault. By PFS member David Dürr. Translated from David Dürr, “Ein Hoch auf die Schmuggler!,” eigentümlich frei (23 Oct. 2025). Eigentümlich frei (“peculiarly free”) is a German magazine edited by André F. Lichtschlag. Other Dürr articles at eigentümlich frei.
A Toast to the Smugglers! The 2025 Continental Blockade and Its Heroes
David Dürr | August 19, 2025
Today, there is good news from our statist valley of tears. A new breed of courageous heroes is emerging, taking on considerable risks to shield us from state overreach: the smugglers.
Long ago, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, smugglers played an equally heroic role. This was most prominent during the Continental Blockade, which Napoleon imposed against England to prevent his cross-Channel adversary from doing business in continental Europe. This embargo enticed clever adventurers to discover loopholes and secret routes to smuggle British goods into Europe. Demand was soaring, supply was choked by the blockade, and prices rose accordingly. As the narrative goes, some well-organized smugglers amassed such fortunes that their descendants continue to live off them to this day. Yet, the British also profited by successfully selling their merchandise, as did European consumers whose demands were finally met. A genuine win-win-win outcome, brought about by these smuggling heroes. [continue reading…]
Faith Seeking Freedom: Libertarian Christian Answers to Tough Questions (Libertarian Christian Institute Press, 2010; Amazon) is an important book written several of my Christian libertarian friends.1 All four of the authors are intelligent, well-read, articulate, and principled libertarians. As my endorsement my notes:
Achieving liberty will require enlightening our fellow men about its eternal truths. The contributors to this volume, Christians who are also principled and articulate libertarians, argue for a more libertarian interpretation of Christian teachings, and seek to explain to fellow Christians and other people of faith the glory and morality of liberty in terms they will already relate to. Liberty is ultimately about peace, love, and cooperation, which is a message that can appeal to the 2.4 billion Christians on the planet. This is a big potential audience. This is an important book and undertaking.
The only controversy between Rothbard and [R.W.] Bradford [editor and publisher of Liberty] during this time appears to be over Rothbard’s steadfast adherence to the libertarian non-aggression principle. Bradford had written an article (under one of his pen names) in the second issue of Liberty in defense of Robert Nozick in which he criticized “moralistic” libertarians and a libertarianism based on “the morality of non-initiation of force.”2 Rothbard replied in the next issue.3 Bradford responded to Rothbard’s reply and to the criticism of others in the following issue.4 There he accused Rothbard of not addressing his “central argument that the nonaggression axiom is unsatisfactory as a basis for libertarian theory.” This was followed by Bradford’s “The Two Libertarians” in the May 1988 issue.5 There he advocated a “consequentialist” libertarian position contrary to Rothbard’s “moralist” libertarianism. Although a major rebuttal to this was penned by Sheldon Richman in the September 1988 issue,6 there was nothing forthcoming from Rothbard.
Ethan O. Waters [R.W. Bradford], “Reflections on the Apostasy of Robert Nozick,” in the “Living With The State” feature, Liberty (September-October, 1987): 14–17. [↩]
Rothbard, “Libertarians In a State-Run World,” Liberty (December, 1987): 23–25, also responding to Nathan Wollstein, “The Dilemma of the Gladiators Nathan Wollstein,” in the “Living With The State” feature, Liberty (September-October, 1987): 13–14. [↩]
Ethan O. Waters [R.W. Bradford], “Libertarians, Moralism, and Absurdity,” Liberty (March, 1988): 14–15. [↩]
Ethan O. Waters, “The Two Libertarianisms” (May, 1988, p. 7). See also Sheldon Richman, “The One Libertarianism” (September, 1988, p. 53), Waters, “The Two Libertarianisms Again” (September, 1998, p. 56); Waters, “The Two Libertarianisms, Again: What Is Wrong With Richman” (September, 1988). Bradford, “The Old Liberty and the New” (February, 1999), p.23, at p.26 n. 1, says, “For a more detailed discussion of the two schools of libertarian thought, see [the Waters and Richman pieces noted above,] David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer (pp. 82-87); and “On The Duty of Natural Outlaws to Shut Up,” by Murray N. Rothbard (New Libertarian, April 1985, pp. 10-11) [“On the Duty of Natural Outlaws to Shut Up” [note: the Mises Institute version linked mangled the title, as can be seen in The New Libertarian, Vol. IV #13 — April, 1985 (pdf)] One issue, November, 1998, promised “Virkkala, ‘The Many Libertarianisms,’” but I cannot find it in the Nov. 1998 issue or elsewhere. —SK [↩]
They have no right to whine. If anything, Gordon’s review omitted the real problem with the book: it pretends to be in favor of free speech, freedom of the press, and the First Amendment, even though Objectivists support state censorship of thought, i.e. copyright. Consider: Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead glorifies IP-terrorism—Roark dynamiting Cortlandt Homes, someone else’s property, because they “stole” his “IP.”2 Well suck it up, Buttercup! I know you hate competition, but too bad.3 As Benjamin Tucker said, if you want to your ideas to yourself, keep them to yourself!4
And consider Rand’s ridiculous claims that:
Patents are the heart and core of property rights.
Intellectual property is the most important field of law.5
From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, “The Rise of Statism,” Liberty (September-October, 1987): 31–32, reproduced below. One of many topics Rothbard touched on in his huge oeuvre, including his involvement with Liberty magazine.1
Here’s the Rothbard piece, followed by some other reviews of Higgs’s great and classic book:
The Rise of Statism
[Crisis and Leviathan • By Robert Higgs • Oxford University Press, 1987 • 350 pages.]
Crisis and Leviathan is a blockbuster of a book, one of the most important of the last decade. It is that rare and wondrous combination: scholarly and hard-hitting, lucidly written and libertarian as well. To Professor Higgs, being thorough and erudite does not mean timorously qualifying every statement, or torpidly and “judiciously” picking one’s way through the minefields of ideology. Higgs’s depth and breadth of learning has only intensified his commitment to truth, liberty, and the identification its enemies. [continue reading…]
Interesting video about the hype—both positive and negative—about AI. The real issue everyone overlooks is the growing conflict between IP—patent and copyright, mainly—and AI and technology in general.1
Youtube notes:
CEOs claim AI replacing jobs is 18 months away. But I use engineering to show the AI infrastructure required is physically impossible to build in time. Running the power balance: 100 GW of AI energy consumption, 5–7 year turbine lead times, a 2.6 terawatt grid queue, and a data center cooling overhead that breaks their entire argument.
I’ve ranted before about the problems with conspiracy theories.1
First, such theories are usually not needed; and they are usually maintained by people who have a naive view of the state. For them, if we can just get rid of the bad guys (and often they are bankers, capitalists, etc.) and elect good guys, things return to normal. As Hoppe has noted,
“democratic competition” guarantees that only the “best” thieves-fences advance into the decisive power positions, i.e., those who from the property-owner standpoint are the worst of all rulers. Democracy ensures – and all the more, the larger it is (!) – that only and exclusively bad persons, plagued by no moral scruples whatsoever and obsessed with hunger for power and megalomania, reach the top of the state – the respective “best” smooth-talkers and know-nothings who promise the “people” the most in a demagogic manner without having the slightest prospect of success therewith.2
This YouTube video explains how cities in the twelfth century arrested criminals by detailing one particular case that may be of interest to those advocating for the private production of security and justice. The title card stating “no police, no problem” attracted my attention.
It begins with the intriguing statement that there “…were no police officers, no detectives, no fingerprints, no CCTV, and no Scotland Yard, so instead medieval cities relied on a system of collective responsibility in which ordinary people were expected to help hunt down criminals themselves.”
Then, just how were criminals apprehended without permanent, tax-funded, badged, bureaucrats on patrol? [continue reading…]
From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, “Life or Death in Seattle,” Liberty (August 1987): 39–42 (advertised as “Ron Paul and his Critics” on the cover). The modern libertarian movement is larger now largely because of Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 runs for US President on the Republican Party ticket (and more radical and Austrian, less minarchist and more anarchist, even if less well-read),1 but he first ran as a Libertarian in 1988. In fact when I was in law school at LSU I went to him speak in a classroom on the LSU campus during this campaign (and voted for him then as well as the other two times he ran). 2
Rothbard’s discussion of Ron Paul and his campaign in the inaugural issue of Liberty magazine, August 1987 will be of interest to the PFS audience.3 It appeared in the Politics section, along with a piece by R.W. Bradford, writing under one of his pen names, Chester Alan Arthur, “The Libertarians’ Quandary,” Liberty (August 1987): 36–39.
From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, “Greenhouse defects,” Liberty (January, 1989): 13–14, reproduced below. One of many topics Rothbard touched on in his huge oeuvre, including his involvement with Liberty magazine.1
Here’s the Rothbard piece, followed by some related commentary:
Greenhouse defects – Of all varieties of statists, I find the environmentalists the most annoying, since they take an outrageously anti-human (i.e., pro-animal, pro-insect, pro-tree) position, in the name of a High Moral Stance that everyone else seems ready to grant them. So while the rest of us are selfish, narrow-minded, and pro-human, the environmentalists take the Cosmic (i.e. non-human) View. They speak for the Universe. [continue reading…]
The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:
I notice the Reason piece you linked to, America’s Libertarian Revolution, has in its opening paragraph an editorial comment referring to another piece in the same issue by our late mutual old friend Bill Marina:
With the beginning of the American Revolutionary War at the outbreak of Lexington and Concord, two truths about the Revolution already stand out clearly. One is that the Revolution was genuinely and enthusiastically supported by the great majority of the American population. It was a true people’s war against British rule. The American rebels could certainly not have concluded the first successful war of national liberation in history, a war against the world’s greatest naval and military power, unless they had commanded the support of the American people. As David Ramsay, the first great historian of the American Revolution, put it in 1789: “The War was the people’s war…the exertions of the army would have been insufficient to effect the revolution, unless the great body of the people had been prepared for it, and also kept in a constant disposition to oppose Great Britain. “[For a discussion of the Revolution as a majority movement, see the article in this issue by William Marina —Ed.]
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“Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.” — FrédéricBastiat
“Because the concept of property, for instance, is so basic that everyone seems to have some immediate understanding of it, most people never think about it carefully and can, as a consequence, produce at best a very vague definition. But starting from imprecisely stated or assumed definitions and building a complex network of thought upon them can lead only to intellectual disaster. For the original imprecisions and loopholes will then pervade and distort everything derived from them. To avoid this, the concept of property must first be clarified.” —Hans-Hermann Hoppe, TSC, ch. 2
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