Friday, April 25, 2014

Nope

Quoth Bionic Mosquito (at LewRockwell.com, which is where I read it; it's a reprint there from the mosquito's own blog, giving me the opportunity to have two links):

One thing all of the advocates of thick (or, in this case, unrecognizable) libertarianism have in common is to ignore property rights.

I am a "thin" libertarian -- I define libertarianism as the non-aggression principle and nothing else (and, like Bionic Mosquito, find Zwolinski's idea of rejecting the NAP horrifying when offered under the label "libertarian").

But the statement that "all" thick libertariansm ignore property rights is just plain wrong.

In fact I've never come across a single "thick libertarian" who ignores property rights.

I suppose there might be someone, somewhere who calls hirself a "thick libertarian" and ignores property rights, but I've never run into such a creature.

According to Google, there are 171 references to property rights at Rad Geek People's Daily, blog of "thick libertarian" Charles Johnson. And I know both from reading that blog regularly and from clicking some of the random Google results that Johnson not only does not ignore property rights, but seriously addresses them.

At Austro-Athenian Empire, blog of "thick libertarian" Roderick Long, Google finds 341 references to property rights -- the first one being an explanation of why libertarians accept such strong property rights claims.

Johnson and Long are not just "thick libertarians" -- they are probably the two most prominent advocates of "thick libertarianism." And they don't "ignore property rights."

No comments: