Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 372.

Matthew Sands of the Nation of Sanity project (http://www.nationsofsanity.com/), which aims to promote the Non-Aggression Principle as a universal peace agreement, and I discussed various matters of libertarian legal theory, including the Rothbard-Evers title-transfer theory of contract versus contract as "binding promises" and the problem with the idea of "breach of contract"; and related matters such as burdens and standards of proof; civil vs. criminal law and the unity of the law; punishment, restitution and ostracism, and the like.

(See previous episode with Matthew, KOL362 | California Gold #6, with Matt Sands: Defining Libertarianism, Anarchism and Voluntaryism.)

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/YzMSm9TdDRQ

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 371.

This is my presentation (audio only) at the Austrian Economics Discord Conference: “The Enduring Importance of the Austrian School,” Austrian Economics Discord Server (Jan. 8–9, 2022). My presentation was “Law: Decentralized and Centralized" (Jan. 8, 2022).

Other speakers included:

- Jeff Deist

- Walter Block

- Peter Klein

- Per Bylund

- Patrick Newman

- Jonathan Newman

- Matthew McCaffrey

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/2_w1_9uQc74

Original Youtube

Related links:

Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Summer 1995)

Summary version: “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010)

Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes (Oct. 14, 2009)

KOL221 | Mises Brasil: State Legislation Versus Law and Liberty

KOL368 | Legislation vs. Law, with Robert Breedlove, of the “What is Money” Show

KOL199 | Tom Woods Show: The State’s Corruption of Private Law, or We Don’t Need No Legislature

KOL001 | “The (State’s) Corruption of (Private) Law” (PFS 2012)

KOL129 | Speech to Montessori Students: “The Story of Law: What Is Law, and Where Does it Come From?”

Further resources:

Is English Common Law Libertarian? (Powerpoint; PDF)

Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law

Watson, Alan, The Importance of “Nutshells”

Herman, Shael, The Louisiana Civil Code: A European Legacy for the United States

Giovanni Sartori, Liberty and Law

Alan Watson, Roman Law and Comparative Law

The Story of Law, by John M. Zane (I haven’t finished it yet but liked what read so far) (also online)

Arthur Hogue, The Origins of the Common Law

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 370.

This is my appearance in an "Ask Me Anything" for the Lib-Right League Discord Server, with host Logan. Recorded Jan. 6, 2022. We discussed a variety of topics.

My youtube:

Their youtube:

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 369.

Whereupon I do the rare original episode. In November I  debated Richard Epstein in New York, at the Soho Forum, on intellectual property (patent and copyright). My friend Greg Morin (website; Twitter; Mises) accompanied me and we had a great time in NYC. In this episode, Greg and I do a post-mortem about the debate and touch on IP topics I didn't have time to address in the main debate. Some pix below.

Related links:

KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished

KOL366 | NFTS, Soho Forum Debate, Intellectual Property, Etc. on Repeal the 20th Century

https://youtu.be/1qpB7cvtpL0

Some photos from the NYC trip below:

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 368.

This is my appearance on Robert Breedlove's What Is Money podcast, Ep. WiM099 (Youtube channel). We discussed legislation vs. (private) law—Centralized Law vs Decentralized Law, or as Hoppe refers to legislation, "democratic law-making".

From Robert's Episode notes: "Stephan Kinsella joins me to discuss the nature of centralized law legislated by fiat in comparison with decentralized law discovered through the observation of human action across time."

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/msj6ReWhzkk

Youtube outline/time stamps:

00:00:00 “What is Money?” Intro

00:00:08 Exploring the Meaning of Legislative “Law”

00:09:40 Possession is 9/10ths of the Law

00:16:43 Corruption in Law Making & Money Printing

00:20:30 Is Coercion Inherent to Fiat? 00:26:44 Bitcoin Replacing Fiat Standards?

00:30:00 The Basics of Human Action and Property

00:36:17 Is Bitcoin Property?

00:44:25 NYDIG

00:45:34 Does the Nature of Legal Disputes Change Under a Bitcoin Standard?

00:51:42 Custodial Aspects of the Fractional Reserve Banking System [see also my post The Great Fractional Reserve/Freebanking Debate]

00:57:49 Bitcoin Lending & the Threat of Rehypothecation

01:03:25 Does Bitcoin Disincentivize High Risk Human Action

01:08:37 Morality Under a Bitcoin Standard vs a Fiat Standard

01:18:11 Centralized Legislation Contributes to Uncertainty

Related:

Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Summer 1995)

Summary version: “Legislation and Law in a Free Society,” Mises Daily (Feb. 25, 2010)

Another Problem with Legislation: James Carter v. the Field Codes (Oct. 14, 2009)

The Great Fractional Reserve/Freebanking Debate (Jan. 29, 2016)

Jesus Huerta de Soto's Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, esp. ch. 1 (uses Roman law concepts to properly analyze fractional-reserve banking)

KOL274 | Nobody Owns Bitcoin (PFS 2019)

Paul Cantor, Hyperinflation and Hyperreality: Thomas Mann in Light of Austrian Economics

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 367.

I appeared on Patrick Smith's Disenthrall channel (Disenthrall Youtube channel) to discuss and rebut—to fisk, really—an article by one "Strangerous Thoughts" from 2010 criticizing my IP abolitionism—or my "intellectual communism," as he called it. The main article is: The economic principles of intellectual property and the fallacies of intellectual communism; see also his related article The ultimate justification for natural and intellectual property.

From Patrick's shownotes:

I was linked an article calling my position on intellectual property communism. Let's dive in and see if I'm wrong and if we can learn something new with none other than the leader in libertarian intellectual property critiques, Mr Libertarian Heavyweight himself, Stephan Kinsella!

Article in question: https://bit.ly/32d3WXZ

For links to Support Us, Our Social Media, Video Platforms, Swag Stores, Discord Server, and way more check out our web site: https://www.disenthrall.me/platforms

Patrick is one of the best podcast hosts/interviewers I've had, and he was excellent here. We crammed a lot of fisking into this 100 minute discussion, which was not easy since Strangerous purports to identify "17 fallacies" in my IP thought.

Odyssee video:

My backup video on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/Rt5weZMkeI0

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 366.

This is my appearance on the Repeal the 20th Century podcast (Youtube channel). We discussed my IP debate at the Soho Forum (see KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished and KOL369 | Soho Forum IP Debate Post-Mortem with Greg Morin), the basic case against IP (both natural rights/Lockean and utilitarian), problems with both, problems with Locke's proto-Marxian labor theory of property, patent, copyright, and trademark, defamation, plagiarism, attribution, fraud, property rights in "value," and "ownership" of NFTs and bitcoin.

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/vrJ-jQUrBjE

Related links:

KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished

KOL274 | Nobody Owns Bitcoin (PFS 2019)

KOL 037 | Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory

KOL207 | Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Are Not About Plagiarism, Theft, Fraud, or Contract

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 365.

My friend Walter Block, economics professor at Loyola University-New Orleans, asked me to give a guest lecture today (Dec. 8, 2021) for his Law and Economics course, on the topics of intellectual property. This is it.

Transcript below.

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/PclRRN6podw

TRANSCRIPT

"Intellectual Property: Law and Economics: Guest Lecture Walter Block’s Law and Economics Class"

Loyola University-New Orleans, Dec. 8, 2021

by Stephan Kinsella

00:00:00

WALTER BLOCK: Okay, it’s 12:37.  We usually start the class with a moment of silence, so we’ll start the class with a moment of silence.

00:00:09

[moment of silence]

00:00:12

Okay, students, let me introduce you to my friend, Stephan Kinsella who is a lawyer in Houston, working in Houston, and he is, I would say, one of the preeminent libertarian theoreticians.  So without any further ado, you’ve all read his paper, and he’ll go over it a bit and have a nice dialogue with you.  So Stephan, start.

00:00:36

STEPHAN KINSELLA: Okay, can everybody hear me okay?  What is this course?  What’s the name of the course?

00:00:43

WALTER BLOCK: Law and Economics.

00:00:44

STEPHAN KINSELLA: Okay, Law and Economics.  Okay, so I can touch on both.  I think what I’ll do is I’ll try to speak around 25-30 minutes, and then open it up for questions.  And if you guys have any questions while I’m speaking, I don’t mind if you interrupt me if there’s something I said that needs clarification or if I’m not clear.  So feel free to interrupt me during it.  Otherwise, you can wait until I’m done.

00:01:08

So I think what I’d like to do is kind of maybe explain how I got to my views and where the paper came from.  Basically, I started practicing law and patent law around 1993-94, and I had been a libertarian for a long time, and I had been thinking about the intellectual property issue because I was not satisfied with the arguments in favor of it by Ayn Rand and others partly because these rights terminate at a certain time, and it just didn’t make sense to me.  Like if it’s a natural right or real property right, why would it terminate?  And then how do you know what the right length of time is?  All those issues.

00:01:45

So I searched for a better argument thinking I’m a libertarian, and I’m a patent lawyer.  I’d know more about it than anyone else.  I’ll figure this thing out.  And finally I came to conclusion right around the time that I started practicing patent law that all of intellectual property law is totally unjustified.  And so I ended up writing that paper in 1999 or so, which is over 26 years now.  In the meantime, I’ve come across other arguments, other data, other ways of presenting it, and although I think the original argument is still sound.  So that’s where we are.

00:02:23

I think what I’d like to do is focus on two types of intellectual property just because of the time constraint, and those are the two most important and the two most damaging in my view, which is patent and copyright.  The other types are trademark and trade secret, and then there are some other more recent types like mask work protection for semi-conductors and database rights in some countries and boat hull designs.  And I would also include defamation law as a type of intellectual property because the arguments for it are the same, although in the law it’s not usually considered that way.

00:02:57

So let me first talk about the term.  I do think the term intellectual property is a loaded term, and it’s as misnomer, but we’re stuck with it for now and what we want to talk about it because that’s the way it’s gone.  Originally, the four main types of intellectual property, which are patent law, copyright law, trademark law, and trade secret law.  They were all separate types of all.  They had different origins.  Trade secret originated in the common law.  Trademark originated in the common law,

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 364.

This is my Soho Forum debate held Nov. 15, 2021, in Manhattan, against professor Richard Epstein, moderated by Gene Epstein. I defended the resolution "all patent and copyright law should be abolished" and Professor Epstein opposed it. Oxford debate rules applied which meant that whoever changed the most minds won. My side went from about 20 to 29 percentage points, gaining about 9; Richard went from about 44 to 55%, gaining about 11, so he won by 1.7 percentage points.

Grok shownotes:

In this Soho Forum debate held on November 15, 2021, in Manhattan, libertarian patent attorney Stephan Kinsella argues for the resolution that “all patent and copyright law should be abolished,” facing off against law professor Richard Epstein, moderated by Gene Epstein (0:00-10:00). Kinsella, drawing on his 28 years of patent law experience, contends that intellectual property (IP) laws violate natural property rights, stifle innovation, and distort culture by creating artificial scarcity on non-scarce ideas, using examples like baking a cake to illustrate how knowledge guides action without needing ownership (10:01-25:00). He critiques the utilitarian justification for IP, arguing it empowers patent trolls and corporate interests while limiting competition, and highlights IP’s historical roots in state monopolies, such as the Statute of Monopolies (1623), to underscore its statist nature (25:01-40:00). Kinsella’s passionate case frames IP as a harmful intervention that impoverishes humanity.

Epstein, defending IP, argues that patents and copyrights are extensions of property rights, incentivizing innovation by protecting creators’ investments, though he acknowledges flaws in the current system (40:01-55:00). He counters Kinsella’s scarcity argument by suggesting that IP prevents overuse of ideas, using analogies like overfishing, and defends the constitutional basis for IP to promote progress (55:01-1:10:00). In rebuttals and Q&A, Kinsella reiterates that IP redistributes property rights unjustly, while Epstein emphasizes practical benefits despite imperfections, with both engaging the audience on issues like pharmaceutical patents and cultural impacts (1:10:01-1:30:15). The debate, governed by Oxford rules, saw Epstein win by changing more minds (11% vs. Kinsella’s 9%), but Kinsella’s arguments resonate with libertarians skeptical of state intervention (1:30:16-1:30:24). This lively exchange offers a rigorous exploration of IP’s philosophical and practical dimensions.

My notes, a Grok detailed summary, and a Transcript, are below. Postmortem episode to follow.

Update: See KOL369 | Soho Forum IP Debate Post-Mortem with Greg Morin.

Note: Reddit forums discussing the debate.

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/Ep2-ohgFOys

See Gene Epstein's note about Oxford debate rules at Soho Forum and the margin of error:

 

GROK DETAILED SUMMARY

Bullet-Point Summary for Show Notes with Time Markers and Block Summaries

Overview

Stephan Kinsella’s Soho Forum debate against Richard Epstein, held on November 15, 2021, tackles the resolution “all patent and copyright law should be abolished.” Moderated by Gene Epstein, the 90-minute debate pits Kinsella’s libertarian anti-IP stance, rooted in Austrian economics and property rights, against Epstein’s defense of IP as a necessary incentive for innovation. Kinsella argues IP violates natural rights and stifles competition, while Epstein sees it as an extension of property rights. Oxford debate rules determined Epstein as the winner by a narrow margin. Below is a summary with bullet points for key themes and detailed descriptions for each 5-15 minute block, based on the transcript at the provided link.

Key Themes with Time Markers

Introduction and Debate Setup (0:00-10:00): Gene Epstein introduces the Soho Forum, Oxford rules, and debaters, setting the stage for Kinsella vs.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 363. I was interviewed by Caleb Brown on the topic of argumentation ethics and related matters. Recorded Oct. 29, 2021.

Note: I mangled my friend Bogdan Dabrowski's name during the podcast, switching it around and Russifying it to Dobran Bogdanovitch or something like that. Mea culpa, Brother Bogdan! (some of his work is linked here: Bogdan Dabrowski, Mises’ Human Action & Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics applied to Psychology, Philosophy Europe Convention, Cryptoanarchy Institute, Prague (Sept. 12, 2015); and Praxeological Psychology, 27 February 2013)