LiberaLaw

Of the thinkers and writers commonly identified today as market-oriented left-libertarians (that is, leftists —opposed to workplace hierarchies, cultural authoritarianism, arbitrary exclusion on the basis of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, and aggressive war—who are also market-oriented libertarians —opposed to aggression against people’s bodies and justly acquired possessions), almost all are anarchists; Chris Matthew Sciabarra is perhaps the only relatively visible one who’s not. The question is: how contingent is this connection ? It is possible, for instance, that many left-libertarians have been influenced by Murray Rothbard, and that they affirm both anarchism for something like Rothbard’s reasons for doing so and left-libertarianism on the view that it’s a logical extension of Rothbard’s views. But this explanation wouldn’t cover those whose links with Rothbard are, like mine, pretty tenuous. And it would really just push the fundamental question back a step, in any ca...

A number of broadly libertarian thinkers, including Gordon Tullock and Spencer Heath McCallum , have suggested that private owners—condominium owners linked by interlocking agreements (Tullock) or developers leasing property to residential or commercial tenants—could regulate land-use and related matters in the absence of the state’s heavy hand. I found myself thinking about these issues again in connection with a conversation that erupted on my Facebook page today. The focus was this article , brought to my attention by Radley Balko. One very thoughtful friend raised the question of crafting a specifically libertarian response to the problem posed by the ongoing conflict described by the article. For me, the story serves as a very pointed reminder of why I don’t think HOAs and similar arrangements as optimal ways of organizing social relations without the state’s intervention. I wouldn’t wish the stresses associated with dealing with an HOA on anyone else. Surely anar...

Consider the characteristic Hobbesian argument for the state: we need Leviathan to ensure, through the use or threat of force, that conflicts are resolved peacefully. (I do not say “justly”—there is no structural way to ensure that the outcomes of any state-based judicial system [or any comparable system in a stateless society] will be procedurally or substantively just, though of course some structures will be more conducive to just procedures and outcomes than others.) I. It is important to note how little this argument even seeks, on its own terms, to demonstrate: if it succeeds, it shows the need, at most, for a “night-watchman” or “night-guard” state. II. It has limited implications for the size of the state. Again, assuming the argument were correct, there would obviously be some such limitations: the population governed by Leviathan would have to be sufficiently large that the people with whom one were most likely to have disputes would also fall within Leviathan’s jurisdicti...

Left libertarianism (hereinafter LL) can be seen as an exercise in packaging and propaganda. Or it can be seen as a powerful expression of concerns that ought to be at the heart of movements for freedom. Cynical libertarians and leftists alike might see talking about LL as an exercise in spin. Perhaps it's an attempt to sell unsuspecting leftists on libertarian ideals that are fundamentally at odds with the left's agenda. Or perhaps it's an effort to graft an alien life-form onto the body of the libertarian movement, saddling it with concerns that have no place on a genuinely libertarian agenda. Neither account of LL is remotely persuasive or appealing. LL is authentically libertarian both because it is anti-statist (the LLs who come readily to mind are all anarchists; I take it as a given here that the LL is an anarchist or something close enough for the difference to be irrelevant) and because it affirms the value of markets and property rights . At the same time, LL is...