Colin Williams, “Contra Spooner,” argues that Lysander Spooner is wrong about the state’s being the “instrument of robbery, slavery, and murder.” He begins by observing, accurately enough, that Spooner’s arguments are constructed of “pure philosophy” and thus require a reply in kind. It is puzzling, then, that Williams thinks to show Spooner wrong
The Problem Stated According to Nozick (and Locke and innumerable others), what has come to be termed “distributive justice” is a matter of goods going to those who made or found them, or to those who get them from others by agreement, e.g. by buying or selling them. No other fundamental ways of arriving at ownership of anything are morally
Volume 1, Article 22 (2009) Introduction Chandran Kukathas argues that we have a problem in how to understand Libertarianism, and that this problem requires us to choose between two views, each of which has uncomfortable implications. He begins by noting that “Libertarians believe that all individuals are entitled to live as they choose, free from
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.