DOCSLIB.ORG

Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard THE ETHICS OF LIBERTY THE ETHICS OF LIBERTY Murray N. Rothbard with a new introduction by Hans-Hermann Hoppe NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London The Center for Libertarian Studies and the Ludwig von Mises Institute thank all of their donors for making possible the republication of this classic of liberty, and in particular the following Patrons: Athena Tech, John H. Bolstad, William T. Brown, Willard Fischer, Douglas E. French, Frank W. Heernstra, Franklin Lee Johnson, Richard J. Kossmann, M.D., William W. Massey, Jr., Sam Medrano, Joseph Edward Paul Melville, Mason P. Pearsall, Conrad Schneiker, Eward Schoppe, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Singleton, Mary Lou Stiebling, Loronzo H. Thomson, the L.H. Thomson Co., and Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Warmbier. For editorial assistance, thanks to Mark Brandly, Williamson Evers, Tony Flood, Jomie Gilrnan, Scott Kjar, Judy Thommesen, and Jeffrey Tucker. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London 01998 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rothbard, Murray Newton, 1926-1995 The ethics of liberty / Murray N. Rothbard. p. cm. Originally published: Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Humanities Press, 1982. With new introd. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8147-7506-3 (alk. paper) 1. Liberty. 2. Natural law. 3. Ethics. I. Title. JC585.R69 1998 323.44'01--ddl 98-10058 CIP New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America TO THE MEMORY OF FRANK CHODOROV EA. "BALDY" HARPER and my father DAVID ROTHBARD CONTENTS PARTI: INTRODUCTION:NATURAL LAW 1. Natural Law and Reason ............................................................... 3 2 . Natural Law as "Science" ................................................................ 9 3 . Natural Law versus Positive Law ................................................ 17 4 . Natural Law and Natural Rights .................................................. 21 5 . The Task of Political Philosophy ................................................... 25 PART11: A THEORYOF LIBERTY 6 . A Crusoe Social Philosophy ........................................................... 29 7 . Interpersonal Relations: Voluntary Exchange ............................ 35 8. Interpersonal Relations: Ownership and Aggression ............... 45 9 . Property and Criminality ............................................................. 51 10 . The Problem of Land Theft .......................................................... 63 11 . Land Monopoly, Past and Present .............................................. 69 12. Self-Defense ................................................................................. 77 13. Punishment and Proportionality ................................................ 85 14. Children and Rights .................................................................... 97 15 . "Human Rights" As Property Rights ....................................... 113 16 . Knowledge, True and False ....................................................... 121 17. Bribery ........................................................................................... 129 18. The Boycott ................................................................................... 131 19 . Property Rights and the Theory of Contracts ......................... 133 20 . Lifeboat Situations ...................................................................... 149 21 . The "Rights" of Animals ............................................................ 155 PART111: THE STATEVERSUS LIBERTY 22 . The Nature of the State ............................................................... 161 23 . The Inner Contradictions of the State ...................................... 175 24. The Moral Status of Relations to the State .............................. 183 25 . On Relations Between States ..................................................... 189 PARTIV: MODERNALTERNATIVE THEORIES OF LIBERTY 26 . Utilitarian Free-Market Economics ..........................................201 A . Introduction: Utilitarian Social Philosophy ........................ 201 B. The Unanimity and Compensation Principles .................... 203 C. Ludwig von Mises and "Value-Free" Laissez Faire ........... 206 27 . Isaiah Berlin on Negative Freedom .......................................... 215 . 28 . F.A. Hayek and The Concept of Coercion ............................... 219 29 . Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State . 231 PARTV . TOWARDA THEORYOF STRATEGYFOR LIBERTY 30 . Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty ................................. 257 viii "As reason tells us, all are born thus naturally equal, i.e., with an equal right to their persons, so also with an equal right to their preservation . and every man having a property in his own person, the labour of his body and the work of his hands are properly his own, to which no one has right but himself; it will therefore follow that when he removes anything out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. Thus every man having a natural right to (or being proprietor of) his own person and his own actions and labour, which we call property, it certainly follows, that no man can have a right to the person or property of another: And if every man has a right to his person and property; he has also a right to defend them . and so has a right of punishing all insults upon his person and property." Rev. Elisha Williams (1744) INTRODUCTION by Hans-Herrnann Hoppe n an age of intellectual hyperspecialization, Murray N. Rothbard was a grand system builder. An economist by profession, Rothbard was I the creator of a system of social and political philosophy based on economics and ethics as its cornerstones. For centuries, economics and ethics (political philosophy) had diverged from their common origin into seemingly unrelated intellectual enterprises. Economics was a value-free "positive" science, and ethics (if it was a science at all) was a "normative" science. As a result of this separation, the concept of property had increasingly disappeared from both disciplines. For economists, property sounded too normative, and for political philosophers property smacked of mun- dane economics. Rothbard's unique contribution is the rediscovery of property and property rights as the common foundation of both economics and political philosophy, and the systematic reconstruction and concep- tual integration of modern, marginalist economics and natural-law polit- ical philosophy into a unified moral science: libertarianism. Following his revered teacher and mentor, Ludwig von Mises, Misesfs teachers Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk and Carl Menger, and an intellectual tradition reaching back to the Spanish late-Scholastics and beyond, Roth- bardian economics sets out from a simple and undeniable fact and exper- ience (a single indisputable axiom): that man acts, i.e., that humans always and invariably pursue their most highly valued ends (goals) with scarce means (goods). Combined with a few empirical assumptions (such as that labor implies disutility), all of economic theory can be deduced from this incontestable starting point, thereby elevating its propositions to the status of apodictic, exact, or a priori true empirical laws and establishing economics as a logic of action (praxeology).Rothbard modeled his first magnum opus, Man, Economy, and State1 on Mises's monumental Human Actiom2In it, Rothbard developed the entire body of economic theory-from utility theory and the law of marginal utility to monetary theory and the theory of the business cycle-along praxeological lines, subjecting all variants of quantitative-empirical and mathematical economics to critique and logical 1. Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy and State (Princeton,N.J.: D. Van Nospand, 1962). 2. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1949). xii THE ETHICS OF LIBERTY refutation, and repairing the few remaining inconsistencies in the Mises- ian system (such as his theory of monopoly prices and of government and governmental security production). Rothbard was the first to present the complete case for a pure-market economy or private-property anarchism as always and necessarily optimizing social utility. In the sequel, Power and Market: Rothbard further developed a typology and analyzed the econom- ic effects of every conceivable form of government interference in markets. In the meantime, Man, Economy, and State (including Power and Market as its third volume) has become a modern classic and ranks with Mises's Human Action as one of the towering achievements of the Austrian School of eco- nomics. Ethics, or more specifically political philosophy, is the second pillar of the Rothbardian system, strictly separated from economics, but equally grounded in the acting nature of man and complementing it to form a unified systern of rationalist social philosophy. The Ethics of Liberty, originally published in 1982, is Rothbard's second magnum opus. In it, he explains the integration of economics and ethics via the joint concept of property; and based on the concept of property, and in conjunction with a few general empirical (biologicaland physical) observations or assump- tions, Rothbard deduces the corpus of libertarian law, from the law of ap- propriation to that
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 109-120 Tucker Book Review
    BOOK REVIEWS Libertarianism—A Primer. By David Boaz. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Libertarianism: A Reader. David Boaz, ed. New York: The Free Press, 1997. What It Means to Be A Libertarian. By Charles Murray. New York: Broadway Books, 1997. Reviewed by Jeffrey Tucker* he American anti-statist intellectual tradition includes a wide variety of thinkers, from left utopians to secessionist T agrarians to right anarchists. Seemingly small theoret- ical differences between them can produce hugely different an- swers to the all-important question: what is to be done? Murray Rothbard’s primary contribution to this tradition was to firmly tie anti-statism to a strict adherence to property rights, rights which the state tramples on by its very existence, and rights which are best protected and enforced by private parties. The answer to the question of what is to be done follows clearly: gov- ernment power must be curbed and eliminated, to be replaced by private association. But modern libertarians haven’t always fol- lowed up on this radical Rothbardian project. Some libertarian writers—let’s call them left-libertarians—prefer to concentrate on the personal liberties associated with this political doctrine, while submerging property-centered social theory and a radical critique of the State, especially of the imperial state, within a larger laundry list of other aspects of libertarian policy. David Boaz’s primer may not be the prime example of ap- plied left-libertarianism (the post-Goldwater works of Karl Hess better deserve this moniker) but it nonetheless fits comfort- ably in that category. The reader is left with no doubt about where Boaz stands on lifestyle issues (drugs, sex, speech, etc.) and the policy concerns of the punditry class (how this or that program can be improved), but is left to speculate on precisely how strict Boaz’s utopia would be with regard to the protection of property rights, or how or on what level of society those rights would be enforced.
    [Show full text]
  • Reproductions Supplied by EDRS Are the Best That Can Be Made from the Ori Inal Document. SCHOOL- CHOICE
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 460 188 UD 034 633 AUTHOR Moffit, Robert E., Ed.; Garrett, Jennifer J., Ed.; Smith, Janice A., Ed. TITLE School Choice 2001: What's Happening in the States. INSTITUTION Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC. ISBN ISBN-0-89195-100-8 PUB DATE 2001-00-00 NOTE 275p.; For the 2000 report, see ED 440 193. Foreword by Howard Fuller. AVAILABLE FROM Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-4999 ($12.95). Tel: 800-544-4843 (Toll Free). For full text: http://www.heritage.org/schools/. PUB TYPE Books (010) Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC11 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Academic Achievement; Charter Schools; Educational Vouchers; Elementary Secondary Education; Private Schools; Public Schools; Scholarship Funds; *School Choice ABSTRACT This publication tracks U.S. school choice efforts, examining research on their results. It includes: current publicschool data on expenditures, schools, and teachers for 2000-01 from a report by the National Education Association; a link to the states'own report cards on how their schools are performing; current private school informationfrom a 2001 report by the National Center for Education Statistics; state rankingson the new Education Freedom Index by the Manhattan Institute in 2000; current National Assessment of Educational Progress test results releasedin 2001; and updates on legislative activity through mid-July 2001. Afterdiscussing ways to increase opportunities for children to succeed, researchon school choice, and public opinion, a set of maps and tables offera snapshot of choice in the states. The bulk of the book containsa state-by-state analysis that examines school choice status; K-12 public schools andstudents; K-12 public school teachers; K-12 public and private school studentacademic performance; background and developments; position of the governor/composition of the state legislature; and statecontacts.
    [Show full text]
  • Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Zora Neale Hurston on War, Race, the State, and Liberty
    SUBSCRIBE NOW AND RECEIVE CRISIS AND LEVIATHAN* FREE! “The Independent Review does not accept “The Independent Review is pronouncements of government officials nor the excellent.” conventional wisdom at face value.” —GARY BECKER, Noble Laureate —JOHN R. MACARTHUR, Publisher, Harper’s in Economic Sciences Subscribe to The Independent Review and receive a free book of your choice* such as the 25th Anniversary Edition of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, by Founding Editor Robert Higgs. This quarterly journal, guided by co-editors Christopher J. Coyne, and Michael C. Munger, and Robert M. Whaples offers leading-edge insights on today’s most critical issues in economics, healthcare, education, law, history, political science, philosophy, and sociology. Thought-provoking and educational, The Independent Review is blazing the way toward informed debate! Student? Educator? Journalist? Business or civic leader? Engaged citizen? This journal is for YOU! *Order today for more FREE book options Perfect for students or anyone on the go! The Independent Review is available on mobile devices or tablets: iOS devices, Amazon Kindle Fire, or Android through Magzter. INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE, 100 SWAN WAY, OAKLAND, CA 94621 • 800-927-8733 • [email protected] PROMO CODE IRA1703 Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Zora Neale Hurston on War, Race, the State, and Liberty ✦ DAVID T. BEITO AND LINDA ROYSTER BEITO he ideals of liberty, individualism, and self-reliance have rarely had more enthusiastic champions than Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Zora TNeale Hurston. All three were out of step with the dominant worldview of their times. They had their peak professional years during the New Deal and World War II, when faith in big government was at high tide.
    [Show full text]
  • Causes and Consequences of the Inflation Taxi
    Causes and Consequences of the Inflation Taxi Abstract: While ethical implications of direct taxation systems have recently received renewed attention, a more veiled scheme remains unnoticed: the inflation tax. We overview the causes of inflation, and assess its consequences. Salient wealth redistributions are a defining feature of inflation, as savers and fixed income individuals see a relative wealth reduction. While evasion of this tax is difficult in many instances due to the primacy of money in a monetary economy, the tax codes of most developed countries allow avoidance techniques to be employed. We analyze the ways that inflation taxes may be avoided in an attempt to preserve personal wealth, as well as the consequences of such practices. 1 Causes and Consequences of the Inflation Tax Introduction Much recent literature focuses on the ethics of direct taxation (Joel Slemrod 2007; Bagus et al. 2011; Robert W. McGee 2012c). Whether income and consumption taxes are coercively imposed on both consumers and producers has long been contested. Being this as it may, taxes can be, and often are, remitted to the government voluntarily as if they were not reliant on their coercive imposition. In this case we are led to believe that there is no difference between taxation and voluntarily donations of money to the government –both will result in spending that is consistent with taxpayers’ desires. The curiosity that arises is that if people did not donate money voluntarily to the government, neither coercion nor taxation would be necessary.ii However, the degree of “voluntariness” of the governing process implementing taxation cannot affect the core nature of the problem (Robert McGee 1994).
    [Show full text]
  • 9780748678662.Pdf
    PREHISTORIC MYTHS IN MODERN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 55200_Widerquist.indd200_Widerquist.indd i 225/11/165/11/16 110:320:32 AAMM 55200_Widerquist.indd200_Widerquist.indd iiii 225/11/165/11/16 110:320:32 AAMM PREHISTORIC MYTHS IN MODERN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall 55200_Widerquist.indd200_Widerquist.indd iiiiii 225/11/165/11/16 110:320:32 AAMM Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall, 2017 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 7866 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 7867 9 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 7869 3 (epub) The right of Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall to be identifi ed as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 55200_Widerquist.indd200_Widerquist.indd iivv 225/11/165/11/16 110:320:32 AAMM CONTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgments
    [Show full text]
  • Read-I-Pencil.Pdf
    There is no better, more easily understood, and more fun explanation of the complexity of markets than Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil.” It ought to give considerable pause when we listen to the arrogance of politicians who tell us they can manage an economy better than millions, perhaps billions, of independent decision makers in pursuit of their own goals. Its message to would-be planners is to bug out! WALTER E. WILLIAMS PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS • GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY “I, Pencil” is a superb case study of free markets in action. Half of the world’s economic problems would vanish if everyone would read “I, Pencil.” BURTON W. FOLSOM PROFESSOR OF HISTORY • HILLSDALE COLLEGE What have economists contributed to human knowledge? Plenty, but the magical, beautiful idea of the division of labor might rank as the most important insight. “I, Pencil” explains we create so much more wealth as a community than we ever could alone - in fact, even the simplest item cannot be made without a complex division of labor. JEFFREY A. TUCKER DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT • FEE “I, Pencil” provides remarkable insights into the complexity generated by market mechanisms. Textbook economics almost never incorporates these insights. MICHAEL STRONG CO-FOUNDER • CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM CEO • RADICAL SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS FEE’s mission is to inspire, educate, and connect future leaders with the economic, ethical, and legal principles of a free society. Join us online at: FEE.org Facebook.com/FEEonline Twitter.com/FEEonline (@feeonline) Foundation for Economic Education 1819 Peachtree Road NE, Suite 300 Atlanta, Georgia 30309 Telephone: (404) 554-9980 Print ISBN: 978-1-57246-043-0 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-57246-042-3 Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
    [Show full text]
  • Markets Not Capitalism Explores the Gap Between Radically Freed Markets and the Capitalist-Controlled Markets That Prevail Today
    individualist anarchism against bosses, inequality, corporate power, and structural poverty Edited by Gary Chartier & Charles W. Johnson Individualist anarchists believe in mutual exchange, not economic privilege. They believe in freed markets, not capitalism. They defend a distinctive response to the challenges of ending global capitalism and achieving social justice: eliminate the political privileges that prop up capitalists. Massive concentrations of wealth, rigid economic hierarchies, and unsustainable modes of production are not the results of the market form, but of markets deformed and rigged by a network of state-secured controls and privileges to the business class. Markets Not Capitalism explores the gap between radically freed markets and the capitalist-controlled markets that prevail today. It explains how liberating market exchange from state capitalist privilege can abolish structural poverty, help working people take control over the conditions of their labor, and redistribute wealth and social power. Featuring discussions of socialism, capitalism, markets, ownership, labor struggle, grassroots privatization, intellectual property, health care, racism, sexism, and environmental issues, this unique collection brings together classic essays by Cleyre, and such contemporary innovators as Kevin Carson and Roderick Long. It introduces an eye-opening approach to radical social thought, rooted equally in libertarian socialism and market anarchism. “We on the left need a good shake to get us thinking, and these arguments for market anarchism do the job in lively and thoughtful fashion.” – Alexander Cockburn, editor and publisher, Counterpunch “Anarchy is not chaos; nor is it violence. This rich and provocative gathering of essays by anarchists past and present imagines society unburdened by state, markets un-warped by capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • De-Socialization in a United Germany
    De-Socialization in a United Germany Hans-Hermann Hoppe* I s a result of the defeat of Hitler's Germany in Word War 11, there were 10 million refugees living on a significantly A reduced German territory; 40 percent of the population was bombed-out (the population of Cologne, for instance, had declined from 750,000 to 32,000) and 60 percent was undernourished.' In those territories occupied by the Western Allies, initially the economic system inherited from the Nazi regime-a command-war- economy-was retained. Almost all consumer goods were rationed, all-around price and wage controls remained in effect, and imports and exports were strictly regulared by the military administration. Black markets and barter trade were ubiquitous. Due to general price maxima and an expansionary supply of paper Reichs marks, no goods were to be found and money was largely u~eless.~alack-market prices experienced a highly inflationary development and substitute curren- cies like coffee, cigarettes, and butter emerged. German output in 1946 was less than one-third of what it had been in 1938. Chaos and desperation were the mark of the day. In respone to the beginning Cold War between the Allies, in particular the United States and the Soviet Union, the Western *Hans-Hermann Hoppe is associate professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.. or details see Gustav Stolper, German Realities (New York:Reynal & Hitchcock, 1948); Frank Grube and Gerhard Richter, Die Schwarzmarktzeit: Deutschland zwischen 1945 und 1948 (Hamburg, 1979); Theodor Eschenburg, Jahre der Besatzung 1945-1949 (Stuttgart,1983); Charles Kindleberger, The German Economy, 1945-1947: Charles Kindleberger's Letters /?om the Field (Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1989) with a historical introduction by Giinther Bischof.
    [Show full text]
  • Libertarian Women Anti-Inflation Institute Fighting Newspeak
    political battle would be won. Katz’s Committee to Eetabllsh the Gold Standard, 85 Fourth Ave., New York, NY 10003, and Jim Blanchard’s National Committee for Monetary Re- form, in New Orleans, are planning to West, New York, NY 10003 for more sponsor a nationwide advertising cam- Libertarian Women information. paign to highlight this difference in per- ceptions. Anyone interested in this cam- The Association of Libertarian Femiu- paign, which includes professionally ish was well represented at the Inter- Anti-Inflation prepared ad copy, cartoons, etc. should national Women’s Year Convention in contact Jim Blanchard at 1524 Hillary Houston, TX, Nov. 16-20. Tonie Nathan Institute Street, New Orleans, LA 70118. The was appointed as a national delegate-at- Committees are presently raising money large at the last minute, largely through The Institute on Money and Iaflation, to insert the ads in major national media. the lobbying efforts of Libertarian Party Suite B-1, 314 East Capitol Street, Inflation continues to top the chart of National Director, Chris Hocker in Washington, DC 20002, has recently issues which worry the general public the Washington. Nicole Bergland and Linda been formed “to make sound money a most, exceeding the unemployment issue Rader of California and Sue Bjornseth of respectable topic of discussion on Capitol by a substantial margin. Houston organized the libertarian effort Hill.” As a tax-exempt policy study Howard Katz has long advocated a at the convention. group, the I.M.I. plans to bridge the in- grass-roots, blue-collar approach to the The libertarians shared a display tellectual chasm between the significant gold standard struggle.
    [Show full text]
  • Libertarian Party at Sea on Land
    Libertarian Party at Sea on Land To Mom who taught me the Golden Rule and Henry George 121 years ahead of his time and still counting Libertarian Party at Sea on Land Author: Harold Kyriazi Book ISBN: 978-1-952489-02-0 First Published 2000 Robert Schalkenbach Foundation Official Publishers of the works of Henry George The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation (RSF) is a private operating foundation, founded in 1925, to promote public awareness of the social philosophy and economic reforms advocated by famed 19th century thinker and activist, Henry George. Today, RSF remains true to its founding doctrine, and through efforts focused on education, communities, outreach, and publishing, works to create a world in which all people are afforded the basic necessities of life and the natural world is protected for generations to come. ROBERT SCHALKENBACH FOUND ATION Robert Schalkenbach Foundation [email protected] www.schalkenbach.org Libertarian Party at Sea on Land By Harold Kyriazi ROBERT SCHALKENBACH FOUNDATION New York City 2020 Acknowledgments Dan Sullivan, my longtime fellow Pittsburgher and geo-libertarian, not only introduced me to this subject about seven years ago, but has been a wonderful teacher and tireless consultant over the years since then. I’m deeply indebted to him, and appreciative of his steadfast efforts to enlighten his fellow libertarians here in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Robin Robertson, a fellow geo-libertarian whom I met at the 1999 Council of Georgist Organizations Conference, gave me detailed constructive criticism on an early draft, brought Ayn Rand’s essay on the broadcast spectrum to my attention, helped conceive the cover illustration, and helped in other ways too numerous to mention.
    [Show full text]
  • A Regulatory and Economic Perplexity: Bitcoin Needs Just a Bit of Regulation
    Washington University Journal of Law & Policy Volume 47 Intellectual Property: From Biodiversity to Technical Standards 2015 A Regulatory and Economic Perplexity: Bitcoin Needs Just a Bit of Regulation Daniela Sonderegger Washington University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy Part of the Banking and Finance Law Commons, and the Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons Recommended Citation Daniela Sonderegger, A Regulatory and Economic Perplexity: Bitcoin Needs Just a Bit of Regulation, 47 WASH. U. J. L. & POL’Y 175 (2015), https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol47/iss1/14 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Journal of Law & Policy by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Regulatory and Economic Perplexity: Bitcoin Needs Just a Bit of Regulation Daniela Sonderegger [T]here is something special about Bitcoin that makes it inherently resistant to government control. It is built on code. It lives in the cloud. It is globalized and detached from the nation state, has no own institutional owner, operates peer to peer, and its transactions are inherently pseudonymous. It cannot be regulated in the same way as the stock market, government currency markets, insurance, or other financial sectors. —Jeffrey Tucker1 INTRODUCTION Set aside all of the legal and regulatory parameters and simply take a moment to imagine a world that functions on a single digitalized currency, regulated not by a central authority, but rather by the individual users who take part in the system.
    [Show full text]
  • Extensions of Remarks
    13622 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS May 24, 1983 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS RETAIN THIRD-YEAR TAX CUT, element of our success in the November cut and income tax indexing must be re­ INDEXING 1980 elections, and following those elections tained as a matter of fairness to middle- and we went about the business of implementing lower·income Americans. The third-year tax what we had promised. By and large, we put cut, in fact, provides middle- and lower­ HON. JACK FIELDS in place an economic program that would income Americans with their first real tax OF TEXAS achieve those goals. relief. Wealthy Americans received the bulk IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Today, we find ourselves, and the program of their tax break back in 1981, when the we put into place, under attack- not only by top marginal tax rate was reduced from 70 Tuesday, May 24, 1983 the Democratic "loyal opposition," but from to 50 percent. But middle· and lower·income •Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Speaker, I want to within our own ranks! Americans' tax cuts that year and last were bring to your attention, and the atten­ The U.S. House, having passed the wiped out by higher Social Security taxes tion of my colleagues, an article writ­ "Democratic Budget," has endorsed tax in­ and "bracket creep." ten by my good friend, VIN WEBER, creases that can be achieved only by repeal­ It was the third-year tax cut that was de­ ing tax indexing and/or the third-year tax signed to most help middle- and lower­ which appears in the current edition cut.
    [Show full text]