From the monthly archives: October 2011

Does Inequality Matter?

By On October 31, 2011 · 94 Comments · In Current Events, Social Justice

A common theme among the Occupy Wall Street crowd and its supporters is that inequality in the United States has skyrocketed over the last thirty years.  Often, statistics about increasing inequality – and income inequality in particular - are put forward as examples of self-evident injustice.  In this post, I want to suggest that things [...]

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States Must Do Bad

By On October 31, 2011 · 13 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Democracy, Libertarianism

Something a little different from my regular posts.

Long ago, Plato asked if we would do better with good rules or good rulers. If we could attain utopia, wherein people are all knowledgable, enlightened, caring, etc., we might be able to make do with having good rulers. We would not need set rules since all [...]

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There’s more to be said than this of course…

By On October 30, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Current Events

but this unexpected comic at Zach Weiner’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal seems to just call out for a B-HL link.

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Gratitude, duty, institutions

By On October 26, 2011 · 67 Comments · In Current Events, Rights Theory

This is going to be a quick impressions post– and I hope that getting the conversation started in a public setting will lead me (or someone) to develop the arguments in greater depth soon.

I think that there are some oddities in public debate right now about attitudes toward gratitude and debts to big impersonal [...]

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Answering the Left-Libertarian Critique of Sweatshops

By On October 24, 2011 · 108 Comments · In Current Events, Exploitation, Left-libertarianism, Libertarianism, Social Justice

Ben Powell and I have a new paper coming out in the Journal of Business Ethics in which we defend what we take to be the mainstream libertarian position on sweatshops against some critiques that have emerged in the recent academic literature.*  That position (which I have [...]

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Answering the Society Fundamentalist

By On October 17, 2011 · 90 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Libertarianism

This is an overly-long post that gets to a simple answer to a question that sometimes comes up in the sorts of discussions we have on this blog. If you like, skip the next 2 paragraphs to get right to the question.

There are historically important theorists that thought of the state as something above [...]

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Friday Links

By On October 14, 2011 · 6 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Current Events

Adam Smith – Bleeding Heart Libertarian? Economic Freedom in the United States Today I did another interview with Kosmos Online, this one discussing my current research.  I talk about the two books I’m currently writing.  One of them is Exploitation, Capitalism, and the State, a book [...]

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Gaus at Cato Unbound

By On October 10, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Academic Philosophy, Current Events

Of likely interest to many BHL readers: Cato Unbound is hosting a symposium this month with a lead essay by Gerald Gaus and comments by Richard Arneson, Eric Mack, and Peter Boettke.

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On the Wall Street Protests

By On October 7, 2011 · 22 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Current Events, Liberty, Social Justice

These protests raise an interesting philosophical puzzle, identified by my friend and co-author Guido Pincione of the University of Arizona. If someone asks me if I support the protesters (assuming they are peaceful), I’d have to say yes. I am against crony capitalism, bailouts, rent-seeking, regulators turned into lobbyists, and the protection of inefficient industries.  [...]

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What is the Point of BHL?

By On October 7, 2011 · 97 Comments · In Libertarianism, Liberty, Social Justice

After Matt’s recent on-line interviews where he discussed BHL (for example, here–well worth listening to, as is another on Kosmos), I saw numerous comments circulating about the view. Some of these–comments from libertarians that fail to see why they should be concerned about social justice–took me by surprise. I realize [...]

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