Recommended podcasts:
- TWiT Live Specials 32: The Future Of The Web. In this episode–hosted by TWiT host Leo Laport’s daughter, high school senior Abby Laporte–”Young entrepreneurs give their vision of the future of technology.” It is quite impressive and inspiring to see these dynamic, intelligent, confident, ambitious, well-spoken young people–and quite a contrast to the unfortunate ignorance and aimlessness of too many young people today.
- Sheldon Richman’s FEE talk “Mutual Aid and the Welfare State.” This is a fascinating and informative lecture, to which the libertarian can subscribe without adopting mutualism proper, which is itself problematic (see my A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy).
- Tom Palmer’s FEE talk Theory of Rights and Property — overall, an excellent and interesting (some of it elementary) discussion of the history of ideas, “delivered to students at the History and Liberty seminar.” Note: Palmer describes the Hayekian position on socialism and attributed it to Mises; yet Mises’s calculation argument against socialism is distinct from Hayek’s emphasis on knowledge–see my Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law; Salerno, “Postscript: Why a Socialist Economy is ‘Impossible’” and Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized. Palmer’s criticism of Bork’s famous “inkblot” comment is also a bit lacking–my view is Bork’s theory of original understanding is basically sound but that he applies it incorrectly to the Ninth Amendment. Also, Palmer denigrates Rothbard’s property views for relying “only” on homesteading–Palmer says he has a “more pluralist” view of how property can arise–but doesn’t specify what this might be. Interestingly, he observes correctly that when we libertarians say we favor property rights we of course do not mean that property has rights. Of course, a parallel observation could be made regarding the notion of “states’ rights”–when libertarian decentralists say this, they just mean the federal government has limited and enumerated powers.
Stephan is an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and the founder and editor of Libertarian Papers. His most recent book is Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann; Mises Institute, 2009).
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