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Goods and services aren’t free because they involve scarce resources. If you want heat, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, internet, and all the other things that make life comfortable and fun, you either have to make them yourself—chop wood and build a fire, dig a well, forage for food, etc.—or you have to trade for them …
I recently had an interesting (and short, because he quickly blocked me) conversation on Facebook with a self-styled “anarcho-primitivist” named Justin Stout. He claimed that “economics is a form of brain damage” and went on to make his case thusly: Nomadic gatherer-hunters produced nothing. A hunter does not produce wild animals. A gatherer does not …
The employer-employee relationship doesn’t involve authority because it is an ongoing, voluntary trade of labor for goods (typically money) or occasionally services. There is often confusion on this issue because it might appear that when a “boss” tells his employee what to do, he is exercising authority over that employee. Consider this example to help …
The non-aggression principle (NAP) isn’t some magical or mystical moral code handed down by a deity or discovered in ancient ruins, it’s derived from logic and reason. Individuals can’t all have the right to do whatever they want without there being constant conflict—I can’t have the right to kill you without coming into conflict with …
The non-aggression principle (NAP) is consistent with the view that rights are inalienable. If we accept that the right to not be aggressed against is inalienable, retribution and punishment are necessarily prohibited. Such a prohibition is consistent with the NAP as these retributive acts are not a direct response to aggression (as is self-defense) but …
The concept of “authority” can be defined as the right to control someone. While the word is sometimes used in other contexts (i.e. “the leading authority on UFO sightings”), the relevant definition is “the right to control” rather than as an inexact synonym for “expert.” It is also improper to use the word to mean …