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Kinsella’s “Libertarian Controversies” Course: Audio and Slides

Anti-Statism, Education, Libertarian Theory, Statism

By Stephan Kinsella / December 31, 2011 / 1 Comment / 7 minutes of reading

At the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society (May 27-29, 2011), I delivered a speech entitled “Correcting some Common Libertarian Misconceptions.” The video is here, and streamed below. It engendered a good deal of discussion and interest, and I could only touch on a small number of the topics I had assembled over the years, so later in the year, I conducted a 6 week Mises Academy course, “Libertarian Controversies” (Mondays, Sept. 19-Oct. 23, 2011), to cover these and related topics in greater depth. The course was planned for 5 weeks initially, but I added a sixth “bonus” lecture at student request. The course is discussed in my Mises Daily article “Libertarian Controversies.”) The audio and slides for the 6 lectures of the course are provided below, following the PFS lecture, below. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post.

Earlier courses included “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (discussed on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online; Lecture 1), in late 2010, which I reprised in Spring 2011: “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics” (discussed in Rethinking IP; and on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online and in Rethinking Intellectual Property: Kinsella’s Mises Academy Online Course); “Libertarian Legal Theory“; and “The Social Theory of Hoppe.” The audio and slides for the Rethinking IP course are available here, and here for Libertarian Legal Theory (Hoppe course material coming soon).

In Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course, I offer my reflections on teaching the Rethinking IP class the first time. Here is some feedback provided by past students of the Rethinking IP course:

“The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.”

“Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.”

“Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.”

“Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.”

“It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.”

“Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.”

And:

Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). …

My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem.

The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. …

[M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team.

Students would often give real-time feedback, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts):

“Thank you, great lecture!”
“Thanks, excellent lecture.”
“Great job.”
“Great lecture!”
“Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!”
“Thanks for an excellent talk.”

Student reaction to the first lecture of my Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!

“The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.”

“Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.”

“Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.”

“Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.”

“It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.”

“Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.”

***

Update: the audio files may also be subscribed to in this podcast feed. (In iTunes (for Windows) you can subscribe to podcast by copying the feed address to iTunes>Advanced>Subscribe to podcast; on Macs, you can click on the link to have iTunes add it to podcasts.)

“Correcting some Common Libertarian Misconceptions,” 2011 Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society (May 27-29, 2011) (video)

pfs-2011 Stephan Kinsella, Correcting Some Common Libertarian Misconceptions from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

“Libertarian Controversies”: Mises Academy (Mondays, Sept. 19-Oct. 23, 2011)

LECTURE 1:

(mp3 download)

LECTURE 2: …

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Kinsella’s “Rethinking Intellectual Property” course: Audio and Slides

IP Law, Libertarian Theory, Science, Technology

By Stephan Kinsella / December 25, 2011 / 1 Comment / 8 minutes of reading

Update: now podcast at KOL172.

In late 2010 I taught my first Mises Academy course, “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics.”¹ I reprised the course in Spring 2011: “Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics.”² This was a 6-week course, which provided an overview of current intellectual property law and the history and origins of IP. (In Teaching an Online Mises Academy Course, I offer my reflections on teaching the Rethinking IP class the first time.) Here is some feedback provided by past students of this course:

“The class (everything) was perfect. Content wasn’t too deep (nor too shallow) – the reviewed material was just brilliant and the “tuning” was great for someone like myself (engineering background – no profound legal/lawyer experience). It provided all the material to really “understand” (instead of “just knowing”) all that was covered which I find always very important in a class.”

“Instruction was very comprehensive and thought provoking. The instructor was fantastic and very knowledgeable and answered every question asked.”

“Learned more then i expected, the professor seemed to really enjoy teaching the class, and the readings provided were excellent. Overall for the cost I was extremely satisfied.”

“Very interesting ideas I was not exposed to. Inexpensive, convenient, good quality.”

“It is a very fascinating topic and I was quite eager to learn about what I.P. is all about. I thought that Professor Kinsella was able to convey complicated issues to us clearly.”

“Professor Kinsella’s enthusiasm and extra links posted showed his true knowledge and interest in the subject. Great to see.”

And:

Thank you so very much for all the excellent work — very few classes have really changed my life dramatically, actually only 3 have, and all 3 were classes I took at the Mises Academy, starting with Rethinking Intellectual Property (PP350) (the other two were EH476 (Bubbles), and PP900 (Private Defense)). …

My purposes for taking the classes are: 1. just for the fun of it, 2. learning & self-education, and 3. to understand what is happening with some degree of clarity so I can eventually start being part of the solution where I live — or at least stop being part of the problem.

The IP class was a total blast — finally (finally) sound reasoning. All the (three) classes I took dramatically changed the way I see the world. I’m still digesting it all, to tell the truth. Very few events in my life have managed to make me feel like I wished I was 15 all over again. Thank you. …

[M]uch respect and admiration for all the great work done by all the members of the whole team.

Students would often give real-time feedback, in comments such as the following at the end of the lectures (these are from the actual IP-lecture chat transcripts):

“Thank you, great lecture!”
“Thanks, excellent lecture.”
“Great job.”
“Great lecture!”
“Thank you, Sir. Great lecture!”
“Thanks for an excellent talk.”

(Student reaction to the first lecture of my Libertarian Legal Theory course can be found in Student Comments for First Lecture of Libertarian Legal Theory Course: Not Too Late to Sign Up!) In the meantime IP has continued to metastasize and increasingly harm property rights, capitalism, prosperity, technology, and freedom of expression–all, perversely, in the name of “property rights.” The patent smartphone wars have continued to escalate. And copyright, as I argue in here, is even worse. It threatens to enable the state to ratchet up the police state and threatens freedom on the Internet.³ The latest threat in this regard is the evil Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.

Below is an introductory video for the course followed by the audio and slides for each of the 6 lectures. The “suggested readings” for each lecture are appended to the end of this post.

Introductory video from the Mises Blog post Kinsella Can Be Your Professor:

Lecture 1: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN HISTORY

(mp3 download)

Lecture 2: OVERVIEW OF JUSTIFICATIONS FOR IP; PROPERTY, SCARCITY, AND IDEAS …

Kinsella’s “Rethinking Intellectual Property” course: Audio and SlidesRead More »

Discussed on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online; Lecture 1. ↩
Discussed in Rethinking IP; and on the Mises Blog in Study with Kinsella Online and in Rethinking Intellectual Property: Kinsella’s Mises Academy Online Course. ↩
See my posts The Ominous PROTECT IP Act and the End of Internet Freedom; Copyright and the End of Internet Freedom. ↩

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Rothbard vs. CATO’s Richard Epstein on the Benefits of Violent Looting

Anti-Statism, Taxation

By Stephan Kinsella / December 23, 2011 / 2 minutes of reading

Interesting post from Libertarian News:

Rothbard vs. CATO’s Richard Epstein on the Benefits of Violent Looting

December 17, 2011

By michaelsuede

Adam Liptak and Richard Epstein discuss the most efficient way to rob people.

After listening to Epstein run his ivory tower mouth, my fury over his nonsensical bullshit hath runneth over. A video reading of the following article can be found here for those of you that don’t have the patience to read long text articles.

Epstein admits that, “There is no coercive action by government which will have the same beneficent effects of voluntary transactions in competitive markets,” yet flushes his own statement down the toilet when he adds, ”but you can’t get competitive markets with respect to the provision of public goods and you can’t get competitive markets with respect to the operation of network industries.”

Epstein never bothers to explain why “public goods” are of such necessary importance that VIOLENCE against PEACEFUL PEOPLE should be advocated in order to pay for them.

Epstein lists off a few so-called libertarian economists that support the initiation of violence against the innocent to pay for public goods, including Locke and Hayek, but he never bothers to mention the rest of the libertarian economics field, the majority of which disagree with the legitimization of the initiation of violence.

Let’s start off with the parable of the robber by Rothbard to demonstrate why any violent theft can not lead to a more productive society. The following citations all come from the essay The Myth of Neutral Taxation, by Murray Rothbard:

SOPA, Piracy, Censorship and the End of the Internet? Kinsella and Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio

IP Law, Police Statism, Protectionism, Technology, Totalitarianism

By Stephan Kinsella / December 22, 2011 / 1 minute of reading

Stefan Molyneux interviewed me yesterday for his Freedomain Radio program about the evil Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. We discussed the First Amendment violations of and other problems with SOPA.

Podcast at KOL127.

(And check out Youtube’s cool “snowflake” feature.)

[c4sif]

SOPA, Piracy, Censorship and the End of the Internet? Kinsella and Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio Read Post »

Should Copyright Be Allowed to Override Speech Rights?

IP Law

By Stephan Kinsella / December 20, 2011 / 4 minutes of reading

Excellent article by Internet and First Amendment lawyer Marvin Ammori in The Atlantic, Should Copyright Be Allowed to Override Speech Rights? Ammori, with the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, points out that the have courts recognized the potential threats to free speech posed by defamation law:

Defamation law, while necessary to protect wrongly tarnished reputations, raises well-known threats to freedom of speech. If you criticize a large company, powerful businessman, or public official, you can expect a well-paid lawyer to at least consider bringing a defamation lawsuit. These suits chill protected speech and discourage robust debate. Because of this threat, the Supreme Court has imposed free-speech limitations on defamation suits, most famously in the celebrated 1964 decision New York Times v. Sullivan.

I disagree that asserting that defamation law is “necessary” is a justification for it; in fact it is just another type of intellectual property and just as invalid as the others. Further, the Sullivan decision has problematic aspects, in that it applied the First Amendment, which was a limitation on federal power, not state power, to state defamation law (I disagree that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to incorporate the Bill of Rights). A federal defamation law, by contrast, would be unconstitutional, for two reasons. First, it would be incompatible with the First Amendment. Second, there is no enumerated power granted to Congress to enact defamation law, so that such a law violates the 10th Amendment and the constitutional structure.

In any case, the thrust of the decision and Ammori’s remarks is correct: defamation law is incompatible with free speech, or at least a threat to it.

Ammori observes that until fairly recently, the courts and Congress also recognized the threat copyright poses to free speech, and thus provided exceptions like fair use and safe harbors to shelter ISPs and others from liability for defamatory or copyright-infringing conduct by users or third parties. But, Ammori argues, “Congress has become inconsistent in its sensitivity to free speech threats,” with new proposals such as SOPA, which threaten to chill or stifle speech on the Internet. Ammori urges Congress to take First Amendment concerns into account in crafting new copyright legislation:

Imagine if our nation, or another, had proposed legislation to punish any website for defamation committed by its users. Imagine also that enforcement against such sites — defined as “dedicated to defamation” — would include automatically cutting off advertising and credit-card processing, removing sites from search engines, and messing with the global Internet addressing system to shut them down.

We would all recognize such a law would lie on the wrong side of free speech. But Leahy, who was a champion of the SPEECH Act, sponsored the Senate copyright bill that would adopt these procedures. Many members of the House supported speech protections for defamation through that Act but fail to support similar protections when a law addresses copyright — even though the proposed laws would miss their mark and silence a lot of non-infringing speech.

Congress should have learned its lesson: the 1998 copyright safe harbor recognizes the lessons of the First Amendment. So does the SPEECH Act. Why can’t copyright legislation today?

As I mentioned in Copyright is Unconstitutional, one could make an argument that copyright in its current form is unconstitutional because it does, in fact, as Ammori observes (also Steven J. Horowitz in A Free Speech Theory of Copyright), conflict with free speech rights in the First Amendment. Unlike defamation law, however, the Constitution expressly authorizes Congress to enact copyright law. And if the First Amendment and the copyright clause were of equal stature, then the courts would have no choice but to try to balance these incompatible provisions. However, the First Amendment came two years after the Copyright Clause: 1791 versus 1789. Thus, if and to the extent there is a conflict, the later provision prevails. It’s as if the 1791 Bill of Rights partially overturned the Copyright Clause. Or as I argued previously:

Clearly copyright is form of censorship. Clearly the First Amendment prohibits federal censorship laws. So: the First Amendment later, and thus implicitly repealed the copyright clause. Or at least the copyright act–the way it’s implemented to permit books to be banned and movies burned.⁵

The more I think about this, the more I think it’s correct. There is a tension between copyright’s censorship, and the free speech and free press protections in the First Amendment (as there is a “tension” between antitrust and IP law). But since the free speech provisions came later, in case of conflict, they prevail. Copyright has to go. It is unconstitutional.

[C4SIF]

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