Category: Philosophy

Frankfurter was a Supreme Court justice in the early 20th century. He was not fond of the kinds of decisions judges were making in the so-called Lochner era. In that era, the Supreme Court and lesser courts regularly struck down laws that contravened laissez-faire economic institutions, holding that such laws were unconstitutional. The courts in… Continue reading Felix Frankfurter on delusional judges

Jason Kuznicki has a way-too-long fictional dialogue where he tries to show you that, if you operate under historically-bound ideological assumptions, things that deviate from the historically-bound ideological assumptions seem weird. He did a great job. I have been wanting to do initial appropriation in dialogue for a long time now, and so I am… Continue reading Initial Appropriation: A Dialogue

Shortly after I first learned of the non-aggression principle (NAP) and how it was supposed to justify libertarian property rights, it occurred to me that it was hopelessly circular. This was around 6-7 years ago. It baffled me why so many libertarians I knew used this principle in argument and why they could not understand,… Continue reading Libertarian Julian Sanchez Agrees Non-Aggression Is Circular

I wrote about the non-aggression principle at Demos today. I explained that the principle that you should not initiate force against other people generates the conclusion that we must create the grab-what-you-can world. In this world, people are free to do whatever they want so long as they do not literally bring force against another… Continue reading How a reductio ad absurdum works

In my prior post, I wrote about the way that the involuntary coercive violence inherent in property ownership means that those who advocate it cannot consistently oppose taxes on the grounds that taxation is involuntary coercive violence. Here I want to detail one thing libertarians can and have done, in some of my engagements, to… Continue reading The other move on property