Admin Update: Ch-ch-ch-change-e-es! New Host, Community Forums, & More

Admin Updates
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First of all, our apologies to anyone who was inconvenienced or annoyed by any issues with our site recently, especially those who received a rapid-fire blast of several dozen tweets yesterday. We’ve been in the process of moving the site to a new webhost (DreamHost) over the past couple of days. That process is now complete. We have been able to fix some longstanding problems with the site as well as provide you with new features.

The problems with our old WordPress install were caused by how our previous host had set things up after a server move. The blast of tweets was caused by activating our WordTwit plugin on the WordPress install with our new host. A long queue of Twitter announcements for blogposts had built up in the plugin on the old host. For some reason the tweets were being blocked from release to Twitter. When we transferred everything over and activated the plugin, suddenly the block was gone and all those tweets were released at once.

Whatever the problem was with our old host, our WordTwit plugin is working again and we’ll once more be able to push out Twitter announcements of new blogposts automatically when they’re published.

There were a few other issues on the backend of the site that have been fixed, which will make the site easier to maintain.

We’ve dropped the Libertarian FAQ, since it didn’t garner enough interest from our readers and, it turns out, ourselves.

One new feature is that we’ve dropped the “www.” prefix on the url. Minor perhaps, but it’s a nice convenience. Hopefully, the site will be a little faster now as well.

Here’s the biggie:

With our old host we were unable to get our newest feature installed and up and running. We’re now able to offer you community forums where you can discuss myriad subjects from libertarianism and Austrian economics to politics and history and more. The forums are powered by the Simple:Press plugin. It’s similar to a phpBB system, but it’s built right into WordPress, so you only need one user account for the forums and the rest of the site. Come help us get the conversation started!

And please, let us know if you spot anything that might be broken.

 

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George Reisman on Environmentalism

Environment
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I recently published an article in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics which was critical of the work of one George Reisman on the subject of resource economics. Professor Reisman has been kind enough to respond to my article, and although I thank him for taking the time to reply, I find his response rather unconvincing. This article is a rejoinder to his criticism, and will show that his response has both reinforced my original arguments and misunderstood certain claims I made.

I apologize in advance for the length of this response, which is greater than I first anticipated. I pondered whether I should take the time to write it, but given that Professor Reisman does not believe in opportunity costs, I could not justify a lack of reply on the grounds that I had more important matters to deal with. I encourage interested readers to read both my original paper and Reisman’s response, which will reveal that the tone of my article was fair and respectful. I leave it to the reader to determine if Reisman’s response was equally congenial.

Reisman’s response consists mostly of a series of quotations from his book Capitalism, which he claims undermine my criticism. I will show that they do anything but. I would also like to address some of the larger concerns Reisman raises in his introduction and conclusion, which will serve to highlight important confusions.

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Problems with the SOPA opponents’ “Digital Bill of Rights”: A Libertarian counter-proposal

Anti-Statism, IP Law, Technology
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From ars technica, a report about a proposal from a couple of Congresscritters who opposed SOPA for a “Digital Bill of Rights,” to help maintain a free and open Internet. The proposal calls for these “rights”:

  1. The right to a free and uncensored Internet.
  2. The right to an open, unobstructed Internet.
  3. The right to equality on the Internet.
  4. The right to gather and participate in online activities.
  5. The right to create and collaborate on the Internet.
  6. The right to freely share their ideas.
  7. The right to access the Internet equally, regardless of who they are or where they are.
  8. The right to freely associate on the Internet.
  9. The right to privacy on the Internet.
  10. The right to benefit from what they create.

This has some promise, but it’s both under- and over-inclusive. Under-inclusive in that it doesn’t call for the abolition of copyright, or for a radical reduction in term and penalties. In fact it suggests copyright is some kind of “right” in its call for “The right to benefit from what they create.” But so long as copyright exists, it is impossible to avoid its free-speech and free-press suppressing effects. There will continue to be a “balance” struck between copyright and First Amendment type rights; i.e., free speech will continue to be chilled and suppressed (see my post “Copyright is Unconstitutional”). It is impossible to have “a free and uncensored Internet,” which the new Digital Bill of Rights calls for, so long as there is copyright. You cannot have both free speech, and copyright.

And it is over-inclusive in that it calls for things like “the right to equality on the Internet” and “the right to access the Internet equally, regardless of who they are or where they are.” These and some other proposals are troubling in that they are not clearly limits on government behavior, but potential authorizations to the government to limit private actors. For example these provisions could be used by the state to regulate private companies in the name of “net neutrality” or to provide some kind internet access as a positive welfare right or privilege. (See my posts Net Neutrality Developments and  Internet Access as a Human Right.)

Congress should not be declaring “rights,” since it can then serve as a source of power to the feds to regulate private activity, much as the federalizing of the Bill of Rights by way of the Fourteenth Amendment has served not to limit federal power but to extend it to regulating state laws. Congress should do nothing but limit its own power, since it is the federal government that is itself the biggest threat to Internet and digital freedoms.

A better, simpler, more effective, and less dangerous proposal would read something as follows:

  1. Copyright law is hereby abolished [or its term reduce to 5 years and statutory damages eliminated].
  2. Congress shall have no power to regulate or tax activity on the Internet, including gambling or commerce.

Here’s the ars technica piece:

 

SOPA opponents unveil “Digital Bill of Rights”

Sen. Wyden and Rep. Issa want to protect digital citizens.

by  – June 12 2012, 3:07pm CDT

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What’s Your Favorite Nonfiction Book?

(Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, Education
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There are several useful bibliographies and recommended reading lists out there. See, e.g.:

I also published my own list, The Greatest Libertarian Books, a few years ago, and expanded on it in the post Top Ten Books of Liberty and Other Top Ten Lists of Libertarian Books..

Of the books I’ve read, I’d have to say the most important, significant, and influential one I’ve ever read is Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. As I wrote in my LRC piece:

Topping my list is A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, as well as a host of other works, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, our greatest living intellectual. Hoppe’s other influential works include Democracy: The God That Failed, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, and Economic Science and the Austrian Method. Sure, Hoppe stands on the shoulders of giants — primarily Mises and Rothbard — but to my mind his edifice of thought is the pinnacle of Austro-libertarian thinking. Somewhat sobering is the realization that Hoppe was only forty when he wrote Capitalism. Gulp.

This is one reason I did an extensive review essay of the The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, in 1994. And used it for my own theories, e.g. on rights, contract, IP, and the like. And conducted a whole Mises Academy course around Hoppe’s thought. TSC is systematic, lucid, dense, stimulating, and solidly anchored in Misesian praxeology and economics and Rothbardian political radicalism, while extending both. My copy is peppered with marginalia and notes. Such an amazing book. If you can only read part: Chapters 1, 2, and 7. But you must read the whole thing.

What are your favorites, more important, most influential?

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Leftist Taxonomy Under Obama

Anti-Statism, Statism, The Left
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There seems to be some debate about whether the left has “sold out” under Obama, or whether leftists have remained principled and critical in light of the president’s continuation of his predecessor’s policies. To explain it the way I see it, I’d like first to outline my views of leftist taxonomy.

What passes for the American left today is a wide spectrum. It reaches from principled radicals to those barely on the left side of the fascist establishment center. I see at least several categories, each of which has a diverse membership but sharp distinctions from other groups, and they all respond to partisan concerns differently. Some individuals and organizations have a foot in more than one camp. Nevertheless, here is my simplified sketch of the breakdown of modern leftism.

Communists and Pinkos: This is a rather diverse but small bunch. For better or worse, they are principled in their opposition to American capitalism as they define it. They are usually reliable on questions of U.S. empire, but not always so, and even though they will never have power in this country, it is probably good that they won’t. Their critiques of American power, corporatism, the war machine, and the prison-industrial complex are sometimes invaluable, but as we know, state socialists are horrible in power, not infrequently the worst. Their isolation from the U.S. power elite is a saving grace, and the Marxist intellectuals among them write good history. Because they follow the money and see politics as a class struggle, much of what people in this group say is more on target than anything heard among the moderates.

Anti-Authoritarian Radicals: I’m thinking of folks like those at Counterpunch. These AAR have an anarchist streak and are more numerous (and in ways more reliable) than the smaller clique of self-proclaimed “anarchists” we typically see on the left. These are some of my favorite leftists. They are very reliable on war if not perfect pacifists. They are great on police state issues and corporatism and recognize that the regulatory state is not our best friend. They have a soft spot for some welfare programs. They are often lefty culture warriors but are much more nuanced than those fellow leftists to their right, knowing cultural bias against cultural rightists can be a weapon of state power. I’m thinking of Alex Cockburn’s excellent take on the Waco massacre. These people are not perfect, but I will take them over 99% of conservatives and probably a third of libertarians.

Civil Libertarian Liberals: Glenn Greenwald is the paradigm case, although he is unusually magnificent. These folks consider themselves liberals on the left, although their radical allies would never use the word “liberal” for themselves. The CLL are principled on civil liberties and often on many questions of foreign policy, transparency, and fairness. They are rarely partisan and have decent priorities. For better or worse, they are less anti-capitalist than the AAR and certainly less so than the pinkos. They are therefore less enraged about questions like intellectual property and less inclined to see public schools as a product of mercantilism—which is bad—but they are more likely to see the modern market, however skewed, as not an enemy in and of itself. Unlike some to their left, they understand you cannot abolish money or private property and expect to feed the population. None of them suffer the illusion that the USSR was preferable to America or that Mao’s Workers’ State was anything short of a totalitarian hellhole. Whereas the commies and even some of the AAR sometimes have a soft spot for foreign regimes but are reliably critical of the US, the CCL are sometimes too tame on the US but are more grounded on the problems of “far-left” statism.

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