David Gordon, Wanjiru Njoya



Articles by David Gordon, Wanjiru Njoya

Orwellian Libertarianism: The Topsy-Turvy World of Walter Block

Walter Block asks us to consider the following case: Suppose someone is shooting at you. He has two babies strapped in front of his body. He is clearly an aggressor and, of course, you have the legal right to shoot back in self-defense. The moral and ethical considerations as to whether you ought to shoot back are the subject of debate, and Murray Rothbard has addressed those debates extensively, but from the perspective of libertarian law there is clearly no legal dispute here. This is not a matter in which there are legal arguments on both sides, though there may be debates about what counts as proportionate use of force in defending yourself.Walter Block thinks otherwise. He thinks that, according to the non-aggression principle, you cannot use force in these circumstances, as shooting

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Distinguishing Libertarian Philosophy from Political Strategy

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

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Failing to Make the Case for Race-Based Reparations

Reconsidering Reparations by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Oxford University Press, 2022; pp. 261Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University, has a very different view of justice from libertarians. We believe that justice is based on the libertarian rights of self-ownership and Lockean appropriation, expressed in laws that apply to everyone and do not discriminate between different races or classes of people.Táíwò, by contrast, is a proponent of what Thomas Sowell calls cosmic justice. Sowell remarks:However, unlike God at the dawn of Creation, we cannot simply say, "Let there be equality!" or "Let there be justice!" We must begin with the universe that we were born into and weigh the costs of making any specific change in it to achieve a specific end. We cannot simply “do

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Review: The Classical Liberal Case For Israel

In War Guilt in the Middle East (1967) Murray Rothbard observes that libertarians are very clear on the principles of liberty, but less so on the details of specific events:
Now this kind of insight into the root cause of war and aggression, and into the nature of the State itself, is all well and good … But the trouble is that the libertarian tends to stop there, and evading the responsibility of knowing what is going on in any specific war or international conflict, he tends to leap unjustifiably to the conclusion that, in any war, all States are equally guilty, and then to go about his business without giving the matter a second thought. (p. 21).
Informing oneself of what is going on in specific conflicts requires a great deal of time and effort, as well as a sound grasp of the relevant

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