Category Archives: political philosophy

Limits in Chicago!

Posted on by under ethics, libertarianism, political philosophy

In addition to its usual Eastern symposium, the Molinari Society will be holding its first-ever Central Symposium in conjunction with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago, 18-21 February 2026.

Here’s the schedule info:

Molinari Society symposium: The Limits of Markets

G10E. Thursday, 19 February 2026, 7:00-9:50pm [that’s how long we have the room for; we’re unlikely to run that long], Palmer House Hilton, 17 E. Monroe St., Chicago IL 60603, room TBA.

chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

speakers:
James Stacey Taylor (The College of New Jersey) and Amy E. White (Ohio University), “Why Some Things Should (Typically) Not Be For Sale”

commentators:
Jason Lee Byas (Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics)
Ryan Davis (Brigham Young University)

Anarchy in Baltimore!

Posted on by under anarchism, ethics, General announcements, libertarianism, liberty and the left, Neutrality and Complicity, political philosophy

EDITED to change the order of presenters:

The Molinari Society will be holding its mostly-annual Eastern Symposium in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Baltimore, 7-10 January 2026.

Our symposium comprises two back-to-back sessions on Wednesday afternoon (both in the same room, we hope!). Here’s the schedule info:

Molinari Society symposium: Topics in Radical Liberalism

Session 1:
G2D. Wednesday, 7 December, 2:00-3:50 p.m., Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, 700 Aliceanna St., Baltimore MD 21202.

chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

speakers:
Irfan Khawaja (Independent Scholar), “Academia’s Complicit Executioners: A Critique of the Kalven Committee Report”
Zachary Woodman (Western Michigan University), “Extended Cognition as Property Acquisition”

Session 2:
G3D. Wednesday, 7 December, 4:00-5:50 p.m., Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, 700 Aliceanna St., Baltimore MD 21202.

chair: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

speakers:
Cory Massimino (Center for a Stateless Society), “A Liberal Socialism Must Also Be Left Market Anarchist”
Jason Lee Byas (Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics) “Distributed Justice: Can We Make Sense of Justice Outside the State?”

Thierry Rides Again

Posted on by under book announcement, libertarianism, political philosophy

With Mark Weinburg’s kind permission, I have posted on the Molinari site his hard-to-find 1977-78 translation of Augustin Thierry’s 1818 review of Destutt de Tracy’s 1806 commentary on Montesquieu’s 1748 Spirit of the Laws. 

Tracy was a philosopher and free-market economist, and a friend of Thomas Jefferson (who translated and published several of Tracy’s writings, including the one Thierry is discussing here).  Thierry, primarily a historian, was one of the radical liberal triumvirate who (along with Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer) developed an important version of liberal class theory in their journal Le Censeur Européen; Karl Marx would later refer to Thierry as “the father of the ‘class struggle’ in French historiography.”  Montesquieu was a massively influential social and legal theorist, broadly liberal but not quite radical enough for Tracy and Thierry.  Like many of Thierry’s book reviews, this one is in large part a springboard for Thierry to talk (particularly in the second half – which Weinburg makes the first half) about his own developing views in ways that don’t necessarily have all that much to do with either Tracy or Montesquieu.

This piece is especially famous for Thierry’s inspiring (but, in the event, unduly optimistic) prediction of what the coming century would bring:

“Federations will replace states.  The despotism of men and of the law will be replaced by the loose but indissoluble bonds of interest.  The inclination towards government, the first passion of the human race, will yield to the free community, the real need of civilized men.  The era of empires has ended.  The era of association is beginning.”

I am working on my own translation of Thierry’s article (as part of an exciting larger project about which you will learn more later), but in the meantime, enjoy!

I Think They Call This Fascism

Posted on by under Election 2024, political philosophy

They say, you know when you know
So let’s face it, you had me at hello
Hesitation never helps
How could this be anything, anything else?
–Elvis, in a slightly different context

Are we living under fascism? Are we on our way to it? It’s natural to ask these questions, but hard to answer them, mostly because it’s hard to know what they’re asking. To know whether we’re living under or en route to fascism, we need a workable definition of “fascism,” but strangely enough, decades after the defeat of the worst of the fascist regimes of the twentieth century, that’s what we seem to lack. We know that fascism was defeated, but still don’t know what it was.  In what follows, I simply want to canvass some of the problems involved in answering my opening question, not so much to provide a conclusive answer to it, as to figure out why it’s so hard to come up with one.  Continue reading →

Hayek on Social Knowledge

Posted on by under Big Data, Hayek, political philosophy

We’re reading Hayek’s famous paper, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” in our monthly reading group tomorrow. I’ve never been convinced by Hayek’s argument, and get less convinced every time I re-read the paper. I don’t have time to work out a full response to the paper, so here, for whatever it’s worth, is a quick laundry list of objections to be developed at some later date. Continue reading →

Molinari East and West

Posted on by under political philosophy

Lo, I have information about both the Eastern and Pacific meetings of the Molinari Society for 2025.  (Irfan has already previously posted some info about his presentation at the Eastern.)

Eastern meeting, NYC, January 2025:

The Molinari Society will be holding its mostly-annual Eastern Symposium in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in New York City, 8-11 January 2025.

Here’s the schedule info:

Molinari Society symposium:  False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge

G3A. Wednesday, 8 December, 4:00-5:50 p.m., Sheraton Times Square, 811 7th Ave. & W. 53rd St., New York NY  10019, room TBA.

chair:
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

speakers:
Irfan Khawaja (Independent Scholar), “Pedagogy Under Occupation: Between Indoctrination and False Neutrality”
Cory Massimino (Center for a Stateless Society), “Between Convergence and Conspiracy”

commentator:
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

Frequent Molinari panelist Jason Lee Byas will also be presenting elsewhere on the program on “The Vocabulary of Society: Feasibility and Fit in Expressive Arguments” (10G, Friday 10 December, 9:00-10:50 a.m.).

Pacific meeting, SF, April 2025:

The Molinari Society will be holding its mostly-annual Pacific Symposium in conjunction with the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association in San Francisco, 16-20 April 2025.

Here’s the schedule info:

Molinari Society symposium: Author Meets Critics: Gary Chartier, Christianity and the Nation-State: A Study in Political Theology

G1H.  Wednesday, 16 April 2025, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Westin St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell St. [unless a labour dispute forces a change of venue], San Francisco CA  94102, room TBA.

chair:
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

author:
Gary Chartier (La Sierra University)

critics:
David VanDrunen (Westminster Seminary California)
Mary Doak (University of San Diego)
Irfan Khawaja (Independent Scholar)

Be there or B2!

“False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge”

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, General announcements, libertarianism, liberty and the left, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, political philosophy

Just a reminder to anyone attending the APA Eastern in New York this January: the Molinari Society is hosting a session on “False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge,” Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, 4-5:50 pm, room TBA. Cory Massimino and I will be giving papers, with Roderick Long moderating and commenting. Cory’s paper is “Between Convergency and Conspiracy.” Mine is “Between Indoctrination and False Neutrality,” a defense of an advocacy-based conception of pedagogy, using the teaching I did under the Israeli occupation as a case study. For more details, click here.

Whether, How, and Why I Plan to Vote

Posted on by under Election 2024, libertarianism, Palestine, political philosophy

To the best of my recollection, I haven’t voted since 2004. I’d been a reliable LP voter since 1988, but the LP’s nomination of Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root in 2008 soured me on the LP; and though the LP has had better candidates since (particularly in 2020 with Jo Jorgensen), by the time those campaigns came around I was no longer enamoured of electoral politics and was committed to non-electoral strategies for political and social change. (I even have a video on my YouTube channel from 2020 that blathers on for a mind-numbing 45 minutes about my non-voting policy; I’m not sure why I needed more than ten.) I expect I’ll most likely continue to be a non-voter in future elections. But I’m planning to vote in this one – though perhaps not for the reasons you may imagine.

Continue reading →

“False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge”

Posted on by under General announcements, libertarianism, liberty and the left, Palestine, political philosophy

Just a quick announcement for anyone inclined to attend the APA Eastern Division meeting this year. The Molinari Society is organizing a session, care of Roderick Long (Auburn University), on “False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge.” The session is G3A, on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 4-5:50 pm (room TBA) with presentations by Cory Massimino (Center for a Stateless Society) and myself. The meeting is being held at the Sheraton New York Times Square, 811 7th Ave at 53rd St. Attendance, as usual, requires registration and payment of the registration fee. Cory’s presentation is called “Between Convergence and Conspiracy.” Mine is “Between Indoctrination and False Neutrality: Pedagogy Under Occupation,” a now unrecognizable version of this post from nine years ago. Roderick will be commenting. Continue reading →

Philip Pettit’s Republicanism: A Series (5/6)

Posted on by under book review, Health Care Series, libertarianism, MTSP Discussion: Philip Pettit's Republicanism, political philosophy

4200 words, 25 minutes’ reading time

For part 1, go here. For part 2, go here. For part 3, go here. For part 4, go here.

5. Pettit on employment-at-will
I said above that I agree in a broad way with Pettit’s critique of employment-at will. Let me put it this way: I agree that employment-at-will, at least as currently practiced in the American labor market, is a highly problematic institution, one that frequently exemplifies domination for just the reasons Pettit gives. But while this may sound like substantial-enough agreement, I think it conceals some subtle but significant disagreement. In this post, I want to work through some of the agreement and the disagreement.

Though Pettit doesn’t put things quite this way, I think we can probably agree that two things make employment-at-will problematic. One is its asymmetric character. The other are the stakes involved when it’s invoked and exercised. Continue reading →