Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 401.
I appeared on a Twitter Spaces discussion Jan. 12, 2023 for Sazmining, for the topic "Bitcoin & Property Rights," with Kent Halliburton and Logan Chipkin. A variety of questions were fielded. A synopsis and transcript are here, and re-pixeled below.
Synopsis:
Lawyer and libertarian theorist Stephan Kinsella joins Logan Chipkin and Kent Halliburton to discuss Bitcoin from a property rights perspective. If Bitcoin is not physical, how can anyone own it, if at all?
Transcript:
Kent Halliburton (00:06:31):
Sure. Uh, thank you Logan, for the opportunity. You're gonna have to do a little intro for yourself as well. You do an excellent job hosting these spaces, but I operate as the president and COO here at Sats Mining, which means I, uh, manage all the internal affairs. Uh, my first career was in solar, rooftop solar. And, uh, very excited for this conversation to learn from you, Stephan. Um, definitely libertarianism has, uh, has gotten to be in my crosshairs, uh, the further I've gone down my, uh, my Bitcoin journey here. But, um, yeah, been, I think you are the first, uh, first Austro libertarian, uh, that I've spoken to, and, uh, came to learn a lot from you.
Stephan Kinsella (00:07:16):
Well, glad to, uh, meet you and, uh, prepare to have your mind blown.
Logan Chipkin (00:07:21):
. Uh, yes. So I'll, a few words about me. So I've been a, I'm a longtime writer, been writing about all sorts of stuff, journalism, physics, economics for years. And now I'm happy to be working with Sats Mining to really create a lot of our content around Bitcoin, Bitcoin mining and energy. Um, so that's a little bit about me. Uh, Stephan, before we start, do you wanna, uh, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
Stephan Kinsella (00:07:46):
Well, I live in Houston, Texas. I am from Louisiana originally. I'm a, I'm an attorney, a retired attorney. I'm a patent attorney, uh, but also have long time been a libertarian speaker, writer and thinker. Uh, uh, mostly influenced by the Austrian economics and anarchist, uh, you know, camp of Rothbard and Mises and these guys. So that's my take. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a huge Bitcoin, um, uh, hopeful advocate. I don't know what you want to call it, . So, yeah, that's, that's my take. Plus I was an electrical engineer in, in, in college, so, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm interested in technology and, uh, those related matters too.
Logan Chipkin (00:08:31):
Perfect. Yeah, I'm just to let the audience know, FYI, I'm also essentially an Austro libertarian. I tend to not use that word, uh, in other contexts 'cause people probably don't often know what that is. But since Stephan's here, I figured why not break open the champagne bottles. Um, so it's nice to be amongst my people as it were. Not that Bitcoiners aren't, but anyway. So before we get into, so today we're gonna talk about Bitcoin and kind, kind of how Bitcoin relates to property rights, uh, and we'll see why that's relevant soon. But Stephan, before we get into that, what is Austro libertarianism and what is the Austro libertarian view of property rights?
Stephan Kinsella (00:09:07):
Yeah, that's interesting. So, and, and I'm, I'm assuming we have sort of a generic audience who probably doesn't know all this stuff. So, um, yeah, so basically, um, economics is just a study of wealth, how wealth is created in society, right? And so there is a free market economics and socialist economics and things like that. And there's a sub-school called Austrian Economics, which is a special type of approach to economics, pioneered by Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard and these guys. And, um, from, probably, from most of your audience's point of view, the, the fundamental thing to think about, uh, what's unique about Austrian economics is it's, it's focused on the individual look. So every individual is the actor and it's hyper free market. Like we need free market property rights for people to, um, trade with each other and to establish money prices and have an efficient economy.
(00:10:10):
So it's, it's kind of pro-capitalist. And then libertarianism is more the political side, which is basically an extreme or more principled or more OCD version of the idea that, which most, most Americans, the idea that most Americans believe in, which is that, um, we should have civil liberties, like personal liberties, like right to free speech, right to freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, but we should also have economic liberties, which means the right to trade, the right to profit, the right to own your property. Um, and so that is what I would call soft libertarianism and hard libertarianism would be the way we view it, which is like no exceptions, like we just like want, we apply the principles so strongly that we think the, the whole state is illegitimate in democracy and the whole, the whole deal. But basically in the meantime, we want there to be a minimal version of the state. So like, the state should only stop crime and protect your property rights, but that's, that's all they should do. So taxes should be very low, that kind of thing. And so if you combine, so Austro-libertarianism is a label that we give to people that have combined sort of this Austrian view of free-market economics with this sort of radical, uh, skepticism of, of state or government power with libertarianism. So that's sort of our perspective on these issues.
Logan Chipkin (00:11:43):
Got it. Got it. And so when you say right to free speech and civil liberties and right to profits, aren't these not precise from an Austrian perspective? Because strictly speaking, they're not property rights?
Stephan Kinsella (00:11:56):
Correct. Yeah, no, that's actually, that's actually correct. So, so, uh, yeah, if you wanna dive into the details and the weeds, um, uh, these things are the consequences of a more baseline level of rights. So if you basically have a system and a society where people want to get along with each other and they want to respect each other's rights, and they want to live and let live, I mean, there's, there's a whole movement, by the way, called Live and Let Live, which I'm part of, Mark Victor from Arizona, sort of this, um, the idea is that like most people believe, roughly speaking, in the Live and Let Live idea, like you should live and let other people live, which means you, you have your own stuff and they have their own stuff and you trade with each other and you cooperate and you negotiate.
(00:12:44):
And we, we tend to, uh, you know, oppose the, uh, the, uh, the use of force to take each other's stuff, right? So, but the, but the bottom line is the fundamental right is the right to integrity, the physical integrity of your body, which is expressed by what we call the non-aggression principle. Which means that, you know, you shouldn't hit people and kill people, and you shouldn't use their body without their permission. You shouldn't rape them or kill them or murder them or rob them or whatever, right? Because it's their body, not, it's not your body. So whenever you say something like, you oppose crime in, in a, in a, in a fundamental sense, you're, you're, you're in effect recognizing property rights in their body. 'Cause you're saying that, well, only one person can have control of this body. I mean, look, most people nowadays would not, uh, argue for slavery, chattel slavery like we had in the US, uh, um, in, in previous decades.
(00:13:47):
Okay? But if you're opposed to that, that means that's because you're saying that, well, you shouldn't be able to own someone else's body. So in other words, everyone owns their own body. Now, people get uncomfortable sometimes with that way of looking at it because then they're afraid we're, we're going on the other side too much, this capitalism commodification commercialization side where, oh, everything's a, uh, everything is a commodity. It's like, yeah, well, I think that's complete BS because if you say you're against slavery, all you're saying is every person owns their own body and you can't attack them or use their body without their permission. And there's nothing more libertarian than that. And the people that get concerned about this, oh, commodification of your body, it's like, I mean, let's, let's tackle one issue at a time, right? Like, let's first stop slavery and then we can worry about people using their bodies to sell themselves, uh, in labor contracts that you don't like, that you think are exploitative, but let's at least free them from the bonds of actually being attacked and assaulted by other people.
Logan Chipkin (00:15:01):
Okay? Now, is it possible for people to own ideas and abstractions from this perspective, if we're talking about owning physical bodies and basically universalizing that for all scarce resources? Okay, how can someone own an idea or an abstraction, if at all?
Stephan Kinsella (00:15:16):
That's, that's a good question. And so the way, the best way to answer it, uh, given a general audience who is not familiar with all. So let me just, uh, let me just, uh, try to explain a few broad concepts. Okay? So, um, ownership is a property concept. It's a legal concept. It means you have a property right recognized by the legal system to control a given scarce resource in the world. Okay? So that's what, that's what ownership means. Um, now then we, so, so, so the typical things everyone recognizes 'cause they're intuitive, they're common sense, they're traditional, you know, you can own animals, you can own a car, you can own land, you can own some iron ore you found from the ground, you can own some, some, some stone you mine from the, from a mountain. These are physical things and you can also own your body.
(00:16:14):
But all that,
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