Natural Rights Libertarian

Danny Frederick and my short paper, “A Weak Case Against Open Borders–A Critique of Joshi,” was just published in Cosmos + Taxis.  While I am pleased that the editors chose to publish it, this is nevertheless a melancholy event inasmuch as it highlights for me just how much I miss my friend and co-author, who passed away two months ago. This was certainly among the last things he worked on prior to his very premature death. Continue Reading »

I learned earlier this week that Danny Frederick, my good friend and co-author, passed away after a long struggle with cancer. Although I feel we were close, this was a long-distance, internet friendship, as I never spoke to him in person. We met online about a decade ago when we found ourselves arguing a few times on the same side at the now-defunct, “Bleeding Heart Libertarian” site. One thing I noticed early on was how polite and gracious he was even to the less than stellar intellects you inevitably encounter on such blogs. I subsequently learned this was his critical rationalism at work, seizing every opportunity to deepen one’s knowledge by engaging with a variety of different perspectives, including ones that seem clearly false.   Continue Reading »

In April of last year, Danny Frederick and I published our paper, “The Liberal Case for Immigration Control,” in the peer-reviewed journal Cosmos + Taxis. In it, we articulated what we continue to regard as the best libertarian/classical liberal argument against open borders. The forthcoming Routledge Companion to Libertarianism, Zwolinski and Powell eds., will include a chapter on immigration written by Hrishikesh Joshi. Although Joshi considers a variety of arguments favoring limits on free migration, he ignores ours. We believe this is a mistake, and have drafted a short Note explaining why, which is linked to here.

In one of its opening acts the Biden Administration promulgated an executive order that sets forth its position regarding federal anti-discrimination policy under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This order may have far reaching effects on the federal government’s policies regarding discrimination in employment, eligibility for military service, and athletics at publicly financed institutions. It is the latter that we will examine here.

The order reads in relevant part: “Every person should be treated with respect and dignity… and… should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports. The unstated implication of this is that, as Abigail Shrier observes in her recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department.”

She then notes that many authorities foresee that such a policy will have a devastating impact of women’s sports because male athletes that go through puberty without hormone suppression therapy will inevitably enjoy an insurmountable advantage over women in any athletic contest involving speed, strength, size, agility, and so forth.[i] Ms. Shrier cites as an example the case of “the American runner Allyson Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high-school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it.” This huge disparity is present in every track and field event, as shown in this useful database.[ii] Continue Reading »

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden campaigned for a national minimum wage of $15 per hour to replace the currently moribund floor of $7.25. President-elect Biden has recently doubled down. With the Democrats also now controlling both houses of Congress, this may become law, subject to the whims of just a few key senators, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  

   If there were a Hall of Fame for truly awful economic ideas, the minimum wage would be a charter member. As I have previously argued, it is clearly rights-violating in that it, in Nozick’s memorable words, “prohibits capitalist acts between consenting adults.” Moreover, to the extent that utilitarianism can yield determinate results, it flunks even under this standard, as it harms the most vulnerable members of society to benefit the better off.

It’s nice to be reminded that not all of our young people have gone over to the Woke Side. I was recently interviewed at some length about my book Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World by Isadore Johnson, a junior at the University of Connecticut. Izzy is the co-founder of UConn’s chapter of Young Americans For Liberty, and is a local coordinator for Students for Liberty. My interview is the first of a series of podcasts he is planning with libertarian writers and public figures, which will be available through his college radio station, Spotify, and other venues. Izzy did his research, and conducted our discussion in a thoroughly competent and professional manner. I wish him success with his venture, and am proud to have inaugurated it.

John Mackey (the libertarian-leaning founder of Whole Foods) in his recent speech to the Federalist Society gave a full-throated defense of capitalism: “It’s capitalism that creates innovations that create the progress in the world…And it’s lifting humanity literally out of the dirt.”[i] While I am fully in accord with these sentiments, I believe it is worth pausing a few moments to consider the nature of “capitalism,” so as to better understand its origins and consequently the fragile nature of its virtues.

One conventional definition of this term is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.”  However, we should understand that “capitalism” is not fundamental; it is not the intellectual analogue to one of the 118 elements displayed on the Periodic Table, but rather a “derivative,” meaning a compound that can be synthesized from one or more of these elements. In political economic terms what we call “capitalism” is the byproduct of and depends upon ordered liberty, or what we typically call today the rule of law.

My friend Danny Frederick has just published an exciting book, Freedom, Indeterminism, and Fallibilism, that approaches many familiar but vexing problems in moral and political philosophy from an innovative, promising direction. Drawing on ideas presented in his large oeuvre of published work, and utilizing many of Karl Poppers’ important insights, Danny sets forth provocative theories regarding rationality; free will; the moral basis for individual freedom, and its limits; the functions of the liberal state; and the problem of political authority. Although overturning much of the conventional thinking on these topics, Danny’s arguments should be congenial to classical liberals and libertarians.

Danny graciously accepted my invitation to present his own synopsis of his book on my blog , which appears below. I am sure he will be happy to address any questions readers of this may have. I hope his book gets the wide readership it deserves. Here is a link to the publisher’s (Palgrave Macmillan) website, providing additional information, excerpts, and purchasing information. Continue Reading »

If the response of our leaders to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates anything, it is the enduring truth and continuing relevance of the following observation made by the great mid-19th Century French liberal, Frederic Bastiat:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all…It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. (The Law, 1850)

Here too, discourse on how to respond to this deadly virus has too often been cast in terms of those who want to “do something” and those who simply wish to let this contagion run its course. Or worse, a clash between those who truly care about their fellow citizens, and those whose only concern is filthy lucre.

Continue Reading »

As previously promised, here is a link to Danny and my paper offering a limited defense of immigration restrictions, just published in Cosmos + Taxis, a peer-reviewed, open access journal. Set forth immediately below is a summary, after which I offer a few thoughts on what I learned from the obstacles we had to surmount in getting it published.

Abstract: Contemporary liberal theorists generally support open borders and some argue that liberalism is incompatible with substantive immigration control. We argue that it has not been shown that there is an inconsistency in the idea of a liberal state enforcing such controls and that it may be obligatory for a liberal state to impose substantive restrictions on immigration. The immigration control on which we focus is that concerning people from societies that resemble closed societies, particularly those in which Islamic fundamentalism is endemic. We suggest that, if the threat we envision is real, then a liberal state has a right to limit immigration from such societies.