Libertarianism and Welfare

From: igor

Sent: Monday, December 21, 2020 5:15 PM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Subject: a request

Dearest Walter,

I am writing a paper on Austro-libertarian theory of welfare trying to make it clear that justice weights infinitely more than efficiency. My aim is to ask a meaningful question of whether justice is positively correlated with efficiency. Some theories make this blunder of conceiving of efficiency only in terms or rights-respecting exchanges.

I vaguely remember that you had some polemic with Mr. Hudik about it, putting it very clearly that justice is a non-tradable good, which I loved!

Do you know of any other such statements? I definitely need some textual support in my paper.

Incidentally, how are things? What are you working on these days?

Hope you are safe and healthy!

Best wishes

Igor

Dear Igor:

I am not as familiar with the philosophical literature as I should be. So, I’m taking the liberty of copying on this four friends of mine who are professional philosophers and far more knowledgeable than me on this sort of thing.

Here are my pubs on Hudik; the first may be of help to you, of course not the third:

Block, Walter E. 2017. “Rejoinder to Callahan and Hudik on libertarian principles.” Cosmos and Taxis. Vol 4, No. 1, pp. 35-44; https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/block_ct_vol4_iss1.pdf

Block, Walter E. and William Barnett II. 2015. “Rejoinder to Hudik on Transitivity.” Management Education Science Technology Journal; Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 81-86; https://www.facebook.com/www.meste.org;

http://mest.meste.org/MEST_1_2015/Sadrzaj_eng.html;

http://mest.meste.org/MEST_1_2015/5_09.pdf;

http://mest.meste.org/MEST_1_2015/K1_eng.html;

doi:10.12709/mest.03.03.01.09;

http://mest.meste.org/MEST_Najava/V_Block.pdf

Block, Walter E. and Igor Wysocki. 2018. “A defense of Rothbard on the demand curve against Hudik’s critique;” pp. 47-61, Summer; Acta Economica et Turistica; https://hrcak.srce.hr/201211https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=296319https://doi.org/10.1515/aet-2018-0004; file:///C:/Users/wblock/Downloads/aet_2018_0004.pdf

I’m not sure that justice weighs infinitely more heavily than efficiency or utilitarianism. What about when the mean nasty all-powerful Martians threaten to blow up our entire planet unless we kill one innocent Earthling person?

I’ve published a bit on that:

Block, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2011

Block, Walter E. 2001. “Jonah Goldberg and the Libertarian Axiom on Non-Aggression.” June 28; http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig/block1.html

Block, Walter E. 2002. “Radical Privatization and other Libertarian Conundrums,” The International Journal of Politics and Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 165-175; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/radical_privatization.pdf (murder park)

Block, Walter E. 2003. “The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism,” February 17; http://archive.lewrockwell.com/block/block26.html

(15th floor flagpole)

Block, Walter E. 2004. “Radical Libertarianism: Applying Libertarian Principles to Dealing with the Unjust Government, Part I” Reason Papers, Vol. 27, Fall, pp. 117-133;

http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block_radical-libertarianism-rp.pdf

Block, Walter E. 2006. “Radical Libertarianism: Applying Libertarian Principles to Dealing with the Unjust Government, Part II” Reason Papers, Vol. 28, Spring, pp. 85-109; http://www.walterblock.com/publications/block_radical-libertarianism-rp.pdfhttp://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block_radical-libertarianism-rp.pdfhttp://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/28/rp_28_7.pdf; (death penalty justified, net taxpayer, ruling class analysis p. 87)

Block, Walter E. 2010. “Response to Jakobsson on human body shields.” Libertarian Papers. http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2010/lp-2-25.pdf

Block, Walter E. 2011. “The Human Body Shield,” Journal of Libertarian Studies; Vol. 22, pp. 625-630; http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_30.pdf

Best regards,

Walter

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12:53 pm on April 22, 2021