Article: Is Inequality and Asymmetry Really Problematic?

Featured Articles, Legal System, Libertarian Theory, The Left
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InequalityIn “How Inequality Shapes Our Lives,” Roderick Long argues that asymmetric relationships between services providers and customers or employers and employees are problematic. Some examples he cites include creditor-debtor relationships (e.g., credit cards), service provider-customer relationships (e.g., your ISP), landlord-tenant relationships, and employer-employee relationships. Professor Long’s fundamental objection to these asymmetric relationships is the alleged asymmetry in consequences for failure to meet obligations.

Read the Full Article by David J. Heinrich

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UK Proposal for Banking Reform: Fractional-Reserve Banking versus Deposits and Loans

Anti-Statism, Business Cycles, Finance, Legal System
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Douglas Carswell, M.P.
Douglas Carswell, M.P.

Austrians and others interested in fractional-reserve banking (FRB) will find of interest a banking reform about to be proposed in the UK. Douglas Carswell, an Austrian economsics-informed member of the UK parliament for Clacton, is planning to introduce a so-called “Ten Minute Rule Bill” after Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 15) that could have significant implications for current centralized FRB practices. The Bill will be supported by Steve Baker, the Member of Parliament for Wycombe, who also serves on the Advisory Board of the Austrian/classical liberal Cobden Centre.

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Is the Federalist Society Evil?

History, Legal System, The Right, Vulgar Politics
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I love this article by Paul Craig Roberts on the “true cost” of the Iraq war and think everyone should read it.

But there’s one sentence in this otherwise-outstanding piece to which I take exception.  Roberts writes: “The fascist Republican Federalist Society has put enough federal judges in the judiciary to rule that the president is above the law.”

This is nonsense.

First, let’s tackle the claim that the Federalist Society is “fascist” and “Republican.”

The Federalist Society was formed by law students who were frustrated by the left’s dominance at law schools.  They created the organization to provide a forum for alternative voices: namely, those of conservatives and libertarians.

Here’s how the Federalist Society functions.  There’s a national headquarters in Washington (a red flag, I’ll grant you), there are student chapters in almost every law school, and there are lawyers’ chapters in various cities.

The student and lawyers’ chapters generally do one thing: host lectures and debates.  These events feature speakers ranging all the way from people Roberts would probably call “fascist” to anarcho-capitalist libertarians such as Randy Barnett and Walter Block.   One frequent Federalist speaker is Roberts’s fellow columnist at Antiwar.com, Doug Bandow, whose lecture topics include the American Empire.

Who decides who will speak at these events?  Each chapter’s members.  If the members tend to be more conservative, they may bring in more conservative speakers.  If the members tend to be more libertarian, they may bring in more libertarian speakers.

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California Gay Marriage Law Overturned: What Should Libertarians Think?

Legal System, Victimless Crimes
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According to breaking news, a federal district court has overturned Proposition 8, a ballot proposition that amended the California Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. Prop. 8 was meant to overturn the California Supreme Court’s ruling in In re Marriage Cases that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. (Although none of the numerous reports I’ve seen note the name of the case, it is Perry v. Schwarzenegger; PDF.)

Gay rights advocates filed lawsuits to have the constitutional amendment declared unconstitutional. I predicted they would lose. First, they could not prevail on state constitutional grounds since Prop. 8 actually amended the California Constitution. You can’t argue a provision of the constitution is unconstitutional. So the question is whether this provision of the California Constitution violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (see my The Libertarian Case Against the Fourteenth Amendment). In my view, it clearly does not; any argument that such a law violates equal protection is ludicrous–there is no way the equal protection clause at the time of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) was understood to be so broad as to prohibit state laws that treated same-sex unions differently than traditional, heterosexual ones. As for due process–this was a validly enacted constitutional amendment, following regular legal procedures. So it was not a violation of due process (as for the doctrine of “substantive due process“–well this is a ridiculous, obviously dishonest, invented concept; process is, um, procedural).

And yet the federal court has found a way to get its result, by twisting the law to fit its ruling–like the Supreme Court did in Bush v. Gore, with its absurd application of equal protection.

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