Several PFS members participated in 100 Years with Rothbard, held last weekend in Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. I will provide a more detailed report with photos presently. For now, see the links below and a few photos.
I want to here to mention a very special gift given to me and and Hans Hoppe by the event’s organizer, PFS member Manuel Ogando: an original engraving of Rothbard prepared by Manuel’s sister, the artist Madalena Ogando (Instagram @mmadalena.art; she signs Manalena, because “mana” in portuguese means “sis/sister,” her family’s petit nom for her), based on images from a Rothbard video (see below). Two unique prints were prepared: no. 1 of 2 presented to Professor Hoppe, and no. 2 of 2 given to me. I have already hung it in my office. See video of its creation below. N.b.: “Parabéns,” “Congratulations,” is used for Happy Birthday in Portugal.
Also below: A tribute video for Rothbard displayed at the event, with Hoppe’s voiceover commentary, and the 100th Birthday cake for Rothbard presented at the event, with everyone singing happy birthday (now public domain and liberated from the clutches of copyright after a pointless and expensive court battle).1[continue reading…]
That’s how libertarian author Jim Powell described the American President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt in his book Bully Boy. Trump flew to North Dakota today to participate in the celebration of Teddy’s new presidential library. Teddy was a New Yorker, so of course it makes complete sense that his presidential library is in North Dakota. (You probably thought I was referring to Trump in the title of this blog entry, didn’t you?). One thing we know for certain about this is that the library will tell you nothing about the real Teddy Roosevelt.
Below is the text of the speech by Professor Adriano Paranaiba at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026). We will add a link to the video when it is eventually posted. PDF of presentation.
One vexing current problem centers on who becomes the citizen of a given country, since citizenship confers voting rights.
The Anglo-American model, in which every baby born in the country’s land area automatically becomes a citizen, clearly invites welfare immigration by expectant parents. In the U.S., for example, a current problem is illegal immigrants whose babies, if born on American soil, automatically become citizens and therefore entitle themselves and their parents to permanent welfare payments and free medical care. Clearly the French system, in which one has to be born to a citizen to become an automatic citizen, is far closer to the idea of a nation-by-consent. [continue reading…]
Americans are supposedly celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (aka Declaration of Secession from the British Empire) this week. However, most of the merchandise being sold by American retailers regarding “The Fourth of July” celebrates the state’s flag, the military, and the empire (that replaced the British empire) and makes no mention of independence and certainly not of secession. The 1776 Declaration of Independence is one of three famous American declarations regarding independence; two are in favor, and one against.
As an aside, you may recall that one of the slogans of the American Revolution was opposition to “taxation without representation.” My friend the late Walter Williams once told me that a British friend, Eamon Butler, once asked him, “So how do you like taxation with representation?” Walter said he had no response!
In this year of the United States Semiquincentennial—the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, based on the Resolution for Independence approved by Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776—and also the 100th year of Rothbard’s birth,1 Rothbard’s comments on the American Revolution are worth considering. The following excerpt, “Was the American Revolution Radical?”, is excerpted from ch. 80 of Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, vol. 4, The Revolutionary War, 1775–1784 (2011 [1979]).
Some caveats to Rothbard’s views on the American founding. [continue reading…]
Europe’s heatwave has its collective masses suffering under the sweltering conditions. The Wall Street Journal editorialized, “But this makes it all the stranger that governments prefer that their citizens sweat it out rather than use the modern invention known as air conditioning.”
The French government believes AC is only appropriate for the sick and elderly. Everybody should, “Wet your body (at least your face and forearms) several times a day.” Wear a hat outside. Drink more water and try cold soups and other “water-rich foods to help you stay hydrated.” [continue reading…]
Justice Clarence Thomas has cited Murray Rothbard in a concurring opinion in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell (on June 25, 2026); Court rules for Roundup maker in dispute over cancer warnings on pesticide labels (SCOTUSblog). The decision addressed whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) expressly preempts state-law failure-to-warn claims about pesticide labeling (specifically, Roundup/glyphosate and cancer warnings). The Court (Kavanaugh opinion, joined by Thomas among others) held that it does in relevant respects and reversed the lower court. Jackson dissented (joined by Gorsuch).
Thomas joined the majority but wrote a concurrence flagging broader constitutional concerns with FIFRA itself (Commerce Clause limits on regulating intrastate manufacturing/use, nondelegation to the EPA, and administrative preemption issues under the Supremacy Clause). In a footnote discussing how broad regulatory delegations often benefit large incumbents (creating barriers to entry via onerous requirements that smaller competitors can’t meet), he cited:
Such delegations of broad regulatory authority often benefit large incumbent companies at the expense of smaller competitors and consumers. Incumbent companies “exercise considerable sway over agency rules,” which they use to lobby for more “favorable regulations” that “protect the existing regulated firms from threats arising from new firms.” Those regulations often enable a “profitable alliance” between corporations and government, as the corporations look “for government to cartelize their industry after private efforts for cartels and monopoly ha[ve] failed.” M. Rothbard, The Progressive Era 318 (2017). This scheme is a perfect example.
That would be John C. Calhoun, who Murray quoted frequently, especially regarding Calhoun’s version of libertarian class analysis. He called Calhoun’s Disquisition on Government “one of the most brilliant essays on political philosophy ever written.”
This is my talk “Rothbard’s Greatest Hits: A Personal Mix Tape,” delivered at “100 Years with Rothbard,” Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. (From my iPhone audio; professional video and audio will be uploaded at a later date.) [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:
100 Years with Rothbard was held yesterday in beautiful Porto, Portugal (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, Gregory and Joy Morin, and Alessandro and Domitia Fusillo. Hoppe, Kinsella, and Ammous spoke at the conference. It was a wonderful event, attended by hundreds from Portugal and many other countries. A full report will be published presently. In the meantime here is an outside commentary. [continue reading…]
In recent years, a highly conspicuous phenomenon has emerged at the summit of the power structures in Silicon Valley and Wall Street: the executive suites of American tech giants like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Adobe have been captured one after another by Indian elites. Conversely, the presence of Chinese individuals in the upper echelons of Corporate America remains disproportionately scarce. This begs a compelling question: why is it that while China vastly outpaces India in terms of comprehensive national strength and economic growth, Chinese individuals lag behind their Indian counterparts on a personal level within Corporate America circles?
The reason Indian elites have been able to sprint ahead within the American corporate system lies in their successful fusion of both Western and Asian advantages, effectively playing the role of near-perfect “cultural amphibians”. The essence of upper management is rarely a battle of hard technical skills; rather, it hinges on the mastery of “politics, storytelling, and trust.” [continue reading…]
In this interview with Mario Nawfal, I discuss my Misesian case against Israel, arguing the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can only be understood as the result of the denial of property rights for Palestinians based purely on their not belonging to the ruling ethnoreligious group.
Tweet:
In this interview with Mario Nawfal, I discuss my Misesian case against Israel, arguing the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can only be understood as the result of the denial of property rights for Palestinians based purely on their not belonging to the ruling ethnoreligious group. pic.twitter.com/r30ddnKn69
Former federal reserve chair Alan Greenspan (March 6, 1926–June 22, 2026) has died at the age of 100.1 He was born just 4 days after Murray Rothbard (March 2, 1926–Jan. 7, 1995), who died at age 68. Ah, would that Rothbard had lived to 100 instead.
Greenspan was, at least at one point, a libertarian, or at least Objectivist, and he and Rothbard knew each other as Greenspan was associated with Ayn Rand from the 1950s to her death in 1982—Rand nicknamed him “The Undertaker”2 —overlapping with Rothbard’s interaction with Rand and her crowd in the late 1950s. Greenspan wrote two good essays, favoring the gold standard and opposing antitrust law, in Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.3
Alan Greenspan, “Antitrust” and “Gold and Economic Freedom,” in Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: New American Library, 1966). His essay “The Assault on Integrity,” about regulation of business, was also included in this collection. [↩]
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:
Gene Epstein recently penned an article entitled “Tomorrow’s Jobs” that appeared in the January 5th edition of the financial weekly Barrons. The main thrust of Epstein’s piece is that the demand for “knowledge workers” will increase in the years to come while the demand for manufacturing, agricultural and clerical jobs as well as for butchers and barbers will decline.
It’s easy to follow Epstein’s argument that healthcare workers, computer programmers, and financial planners will be in great demand due to the aging of the population. As Epstein points out, “within 10 years, the number of folks 55 and older will begin a growth trajectory that outstrips that of the younger segment nearly fourfold. The number of U.S. residents 55 and older will rise from 63 million today to 83.7 million by 2014, and 101.4 million by 2024”. [continue reading…]
Some libertarians smugly “correct” people who think Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the US. Not so, they point out; this was a wartime order that did not free slaves in Union territory and only a applied to the CSA states where the order had no power. It took the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, to really free the slaves, they say.
But Thirteenth Amendment did not end slavery. It states:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
In other words you can still enslave people as long as you make up a crime with legislation. For example, the “crime” of tax evasion, selling drugs, or refusing to be conscripted can get you imprisoned and enslaved. Prison is slavery. Ever heard of prison labor?
This is because the state can use legislation—what Hoppe calls “democratic law making”—to create punishable offenses, statutes that are malum prohibitum (conduct that happens to be prohibited) instead of malum in se (things wrong in and of themselves—violations of natural rights, i.e. aggression).
(This is of course yet another problem with patent and copyright law: they are not based on natural rights, not evolved common law principles, but purely creatures of statute and legislation. Like fiat money, they are fiat law. The Problem with Intellectual Property, Part III.D.)
In private business “[t]here is no need to limit the discretion of subordinates by any rules or regulations other than that underlying all business activities, namely, to render their operations profitable.”—Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy, p. 46
In this quote from his classic 1944 book Bureaucracy, Mises explains why private, for-profit businesses need not, and should not, be bureaucratic and entangled in rules and regulations mandated from the top of an administrative hierarchy. Instead, they should, make the best use of decentralized “knowledge of time and place” to do their jobs. Mises’ admonition that the focus of capitalist enterprises is and should be to “make a profit” later became, in the hands of Chicago School economists, “maximize shareholder value.” This view is most widely associated with Milton Friedman and was accepted by American corporate management, for the most part, for many years. [continue reading…]
Bourgeois Anarchism: Minimal States and Pickpockets—Even Petty Criminals Are Criminals
by David Dürr
Are you a minimal statist? Are you a convinced libertarian who grants the state not a single bit more than looking after the protection of people from mutual violations of life, body, and property, and absolutely nothing else? Not even traffic rules on the road, and certainly no social programs for the poor and weak? This is, of course, not because you do not care about chaos on the streets or the plight of poor and weak fellow human beings, but because you know that order and prosperity establish themselves much better without state intervention. So, are you someone who knows exactly that the state is not the solution but the problem, and therefore must be reduced to an absolute minimum—a minimal statist, in fact? [continue reading…]
International Man: While the term “swap line” sounds technical and harmless, it seems like it’s just a euphemism for a bailout.What does it say when Washington starts extending swap lines to countries like Argentina and the UAE?Doug Casey: First, we should define what a swap line is. It basically amounts to the US giving a foreign country X amount of currency in dollars, and the other country paying for it by giving the US the same amount in their currency. For decades, US dollar swap lines were mostly reserved for major allies and core financial centers around the world. [continue reading…]
From PFS member Andreas Tögel, a translation of Original Commentary
Property, Right to Self-Defense, and Perpetrator Protection:
A Debate on Private Property and Self-Protection
By Andreas Tögel
Self-Defense: Conflict over Property Defense
A pending court case in Salzburg is currently sparking fierce debates about how far a person is allowed to go to protect their life and property. After a burglar was caught in the act by the burglary victim and shot dead, the shooter stood before the jury court on charges of murder. On the afternoon of May 11, after hours of deliberation by the eight jurors, the verdict was delivered: Acquittal. It was therefore self-defense—not murder. [continue reading…]
I’ve lived in Las Vegas for 16 years now, and I’ve been coming here regularly to play poker (and, just… play) for over 35 years. These days, I have a love/hate relationship with this town. Or, more accurately, Las Vegas is still awesome, but it was even better a decade or two ago.
One of the reasons it’s worse now has to do with professional sports.
As noted here, the 2026 Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society will be held from Thursday, September 17, 2026 to Tuesday, September 22, 2026.
Rothbard at 100 is in production! As you can see, the books are printed in premium hardcover with gold foil stamping, and then they will be covered with a dust jacket. Also available as an audiobook and eBook. Preorder your copy now: https://t.co/iaEh0bk5G0pic.twitter.com/bapPGmhFHb
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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
The Property and Freedom Society (PFS; Facebook) stands for an uncompromising intellectual radicalism: for justly acquired private property, freedom of contract, freedom of association—which logically implies the right to not associate with, or to discriminate against—anyone in one's personal and business relations—and unconditional free trade. It condemns imperialism and militarism and their fomenters, and champions peace. It rejects positivism, relativism, and egalitarianism in any form, whether of "outcome" or "opportunity," and it has an outspoken distaste for politics and politicians. As such it seeks to avoid any association with the policies and proponents of interventionism, which Ludwig von Mises identified in 1946 as the fatal flaw in the plan of the many earlier and contemporary attempts by intellectuals alarmed by the rising tide of socialism and totalitarianism to found an anti-socialist ideological movement. Mises wrote: "What these frightened intellectuals did not comprehend was that all those measures of government interference with business which they advocated are abortive. ... There is no middle way. Either the consumers are supreme or the government."
(A more complete statement of our Principles can be found here.)
Former federal reserve chair 
In private business “[t]here is no need to limit the discretion of subordinates by any rules or regulations other than that underlying all business activities, namely, to render their operations profitable.”—Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy, p. 
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