2. Introduction to Libertarianism I

Block says he was a pinko commie type at 22 who believed that laissez-faire capitalism would result in mass starvation. Then, he met Ayn Rand and read Atlas Shrugged and Economics in One Lesson. Block says libertarianism is the non-aggression principle. Keep your mitts to yourself.

Libertarianism only asks that law incorporate the non-aggression axiom. It is not a religion. It is not a philosophy. It addresses only what the law should be. It concerns what just law is. You can be a libertarian and an Austrian, or one but not the other. The two are not the same.

Block’s book, Defending the Undefendable, tries to apply this theory of libertarianism (non-aggression and property rights) to the hard cases. All continuum problems are hard cases. The homesteading theory is a work in progress.

A few fallacies about libertarianism include that you must “live libertarianism”, that libertarianism is against authoritarianism, that libertarians are individualists, that libertarians must be tolerant, that religious people cannot be libertarian, or that libertarians cannot be altruists, or that libertarians are libertines.

Lecture 2 of 10 from Walter Block’s Radical Austrianism, Radical Libertarianism.