May, 2007

Extra-Legal Institutions and Classical Liberal “Liberty”

by Daniel B. Klein
The Conversation
May 18th, 2007

Liam writes: The obvious substantive issue in dispute between libertarians and the rest of us … is the little matter of whether there are pre-institutional property rights … Is Liam trying to boil it all down to one dichotomy, namely, either: (1) the governmental legal rules that actually exist, or (2) nonsense-upon-stilts (Jeremy Bentham’s epithet [...]

Read: Extra-Legal Institutions and Classical Liberal “Liberty”

* * *

What We Mean by “Liberty” — and “Wealth”

by Richard A. Epstein
The Conversation
May 18th, 2007

Let me just make a few comments to the various objections that Liam Murphy has raised to the definitions of “liberty” in use in classical liberal theory. I do not think that the term “liberty” has the deep philosophical ambiguity that he attributes to it. A person does not become more free because he has [...]

Read: What We Mean by “Liberty” — and “Wealth”

* * *