Legal Foundations of a Free Society

As noted above, the material here was originally intended to appear in footnote 21, above. Due to its length, I include this material in this appendix.

George H. Smith published “A Killer’s Right to Life” in Liberty magazine in 1996, making various arguments and claims about inalienability. I responded in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, in a piece which complements and supplements my previous articles on the inalienability and punishment issues, now chapters 5 and 9 in the present volume. Despite my disagreements with Smith on this issue, I r...

While in law school in Louisiana (the only civil law state in the US), I was introduced to the Roman and civil law and also to contract law and theory. It was during my first-year contracts class, in 1988, that I conceived of my “estoppel” based theory of rights. I also became interested in the Rothbard-Evers title-transfer theory of contract. I presented a paper on this topic in 1999, integrating...

In 2001, I presented a paper entitled “Reinach and the Property Libertarians on Causality in the Law” at a Mises Institute symposium on Adolf Reinach and Murray Rothbard. I later collaborated with Patrick Tinsley on an article based on this paper, published in 2004 in a related symposium issue in The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. This chapter is a substantially revised version of that a...

This chapter is based on an article originally published in 2002 on the now-defunct site Anti-state.com , as a response to an article by Robert P. Murphy and Gene Callahan (hereinafter, MC), on the same forum, which was critical of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics. Please consider a donation to the Mises Insistute, at https://mises.org/giving

After publishing articles on my estoppel-based theory of rights and Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s “argumentation ethics” defense of libertarian rights between 1992 and 1996, I published an article surveying estoppel, argumentation ethics, and similar theories in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1996, entitled “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory.” An updated version of this article...

In Part III.C above, I discussed the legitimacy of punishing aggressors, that is, the justice of responsive force—force that is in response to aggression, or initiated force. As noted above, the material here was originally intended to appear in footnote 44, above. Due to its length, I include this material in this appendix.

I published my first article on libertarian theory, “Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights,” in Reason Papers in 1992.* An expanded treatment was published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1996 and a similar version in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review.† This chapter is based on the latter article, also incorporating some material from the JLS article. There I thanked “Pro...

The Appendix includes references to concepts put forth by Rothbard, Hoppe, Locke, and even Communism proponent G. A. Cohen. Please consider giving to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

Continuing to Part 2, Rights, of the Audiobook, I have demarked it Season 2. Unlike most podcasts that make you wait a year for Season 2, this is an Audiobook and I'm producing as quickly as possible. -Mike Williams, December 2024 Chapter 4: Originally published in Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006). The illustrating photochosen by an editor at Mises.org for the original article inspired the imageused on...

Originally published at LewRockwell.com ( Jan. 20, 2004; https://perma.cc/QAJ6-KHKN ); reprinted in Keith Knight, ed., The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes (2022; https://perma.cc/N8UX-4PX4 ). See also Kinsella, “ The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism ,” Mises Economics Blog (Aug. 20, 2009). This concludes Part 1: Libertarianism Please co...

I waited until now to explain my treatment of footnotes/endnotes, and Appendices. I am not reading the footnotes, only the main body of text in the book. Usually an audiobook includes a free-download of a pdf, containing footnotes, graphs, and the like. But the book I am reading is itself a freely-downloadable pdf. So if you want to reference the footnotes, they are available for your access. Also...

Originally published in Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella, eds., Mises Institute, 2009). https://www.stephankinsella.com/2009/07/hoppe-festschrift-published/ The original author’s note thanked “fellow Hoppe aficionados Juan Fernando Carpio, Paul Edwards, Gil Guillory, Manuel Lora, and Patrick Tinsley for helpful comments.”...

First published as part of the LewRockwell.com autobiography series initiated by Walter Block, as “How I Became A Libertarian,” LewRockwell.com (December 18, 2002). Later included as “Being a Libertarian” in I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians (compiled by Walter Block; Mises Institute 2010). Additional biographical pieces may be found at www.stephankinsella.com/publicati...

As noted in the Preface, I’ve been intensely involved in libertarianism for over forty years and, for almost thirty years, with the Mises Institute. Please consider contributing to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

The issue of what property rights we have, or should have, what laws are just and proper, has long confronted mankind, and continues to be the subject of debate today. Please consider contributing to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

Kinsella's friend and luminary Hans Hermann Hoppe sets the stage for Kinsella's great work. Please consider contributing to the Mises Institute, https://mises.org/giving

I am launching this podcast because I prefer to listen to books rather than read them. Kinsella is the great legal mind of the 21st Century. He put out this compendium of how best to live and form a society that works best (albeit not claiming perfection), assuming people desire to be Free. There is irony in making audio to avoid text, because of course now I'm reading the text aloud. I do this in...