Editor’s Pick. Written by J.D. Tuccille. In 1858, hundreds of residents of Oberlin and Wellington, Ohio—many of them students and faculty at Oberlin College—surrounded Wadsworth’s Hotel, in Wellington, in which law enforcement officers and slavehunters held a fugitive slave named John Price, under the authority of the Fugitive Slave Act. After a brief standoff, the…
Tag: rights
Rights in Context
Send him mail. “The Self Owner” is an original weekly column appearing every Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Spencer W. Morgan. Spencer is a husband and father, and has studied History and Philosophy at the University of Utah. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. In last week’s column, I wrote about…
What is Unschooling? I Don’t Know (and You Don’t Either)
Send her mail. “Living with Wild Abandon” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Breezy V. Stevens. Breezy is a long-time radical unschooler, an advocate for children’s rights, a crazy dog lady, a crafter in various mediums, a lover of all things tropical and beachy, and the designer of “EVC…
Liberty as the Application of Self-Ownership
Send him mail. “The Self Owner” is an original weekly column appearing every Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Spencer W. Morgan. Spencer is a husband and father, and has studied History and Philosophy at the University of Utah. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. Last week we discovered that defining liberty…
The Last Gasp of Copyright Dies Within Me
Editor’s Pick. Written by Wendy McElroy. A few weeks ago, my position on intellectual property (IP) shifted. I abandoned the possibility that copyright by contract could function within a libertarian framework. I have argued for decades that IP cannot be derived from natural rights. Most IP advocates claim IP is a product of your labor…
There Are Two Socialisms
Editor’s Pick. Written by Ernest Lesigne in the 19th Century. There are two Socialisms. One is communistic, the other solidaritarian. One is dictatorial, the other libertarian.One is metaphysical, the other positive. One is dogmatic, the other scientific. One is emotional, the other reflective. One is destructive, the other constructive. Both are in pursuit of the…
Copyright and Patents – What a Racket
Editor’s Pick. Written by Malcolm Greenhill for his personal blog. Growth comes from competition. Anything that stifles competition has a negative effect on the incentive to innovate. Protect a company completely from competition by giving it a monopoly, like the United States Postal Service, and stagnation is virtually guaranteed. The granting of monopolies and special…
No Matter What You Hear About it, Unschooling is Not All Unicorns and Rainbows
Send her mail. “Living with Wild Abandon” is an original bi-weekly column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Breezy V. Stevens. Breezy is a long-time radical unschooler, an advocate for children’s rights, a crazy dog lady, a crafter in various mediums, a lover of all things tropical and beachy, and the designer of “EVC…
Marriage Equality and The State
Writes Pete Earle: Of course, every individual should be free to marry anyone – or as many other people – they want, on whatever basis they freely and mutually decide upon; they only need answer to themselves. Part and parcel to that, of course, is that no individual, group, or firm should be obligated to…
Libertarianism, Coercion, and Lifeboat Situations
Is libertarianism a deontological or a consequentialist theory? It can be either, but it can also be both, which, as far as I’m concerned, is the best way to think about it. Does libertarianism say that it is immoral and criminal to use coercion against peaceful individuals in the so-called “lifeboat situations” (e.g., unless I…