Stephan Kinsella Quotes

The basis of self-ownership is the fact that each person has direct control over the scarce resource of his body and therefore has a better claim to it than any third party (and any third party seeking to dispute my self-ownership must presuppose the principle of self-ownership in the first place since he is acting as a self-owner).

Because the state necessarily commits aggression, the consistent libertarian, in opposing aggression, is also an anarchist.

We must recognize that only scarce resources are ownable; second, that the body is a type of scarce resource; third, that the mode of acquiring title to external objects is different from the basis of ownership of one's own body.

I was always interested in science, truth, goodness and fairness. I have always been strongly individualistic and merit-oriented. This is probably because I was adopted and thus have always tended to cavalierly dismiss the importance of "blood ties" and any inherited or "unearned" group characteristics.

The libertarian approach is a very symmetrical one: the non-aggression principle does not rule out force, but only the initiation of force. In other words, you are permitted to use force only in response to some else's use of force. If they do not use force you may not use force yourself. There is a symmetry here: force for force, but no force if no force was used.

My basic approach is to recognize that mainstream legal theories of contract have been muddied by unlibertarian and positivistic conceptions of law and rights. Questions about what rights are "alienable" or not, loose talk about how promises should be "binding," etc., highlight the need for clarity in this area. In my view, to sort these issues out one needs a very clear and consistent understanding of the nature of property rights and ownership.

To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.

The Austrian theory of subjective value teaches us that there are many ways to incentivize or motivate or induce someone to commit an action for you: you can promise sexual favors, promise to pay money, hire someon, and so on. Also, there is no reason to think that both the boss and his underling cannot both be 100% responsible: in the law this is called joint and several liability.

We're against the state, not government. The state just happens to monopolize the government.

In a market economy with the division and specialization of labor, people use others as means to achieve their ends. This is the essence of market cooperation.