Private Property is one of the central institutions of civilized society. We first consider its social, legal, and economic aspects. We then follow the Lockean tradition by focusing on a specific procedural definition: Homesteading is the acquisitive act of first using an object that is initially unowned. The ontology of concrete objects and the nature of their uses determine how objects may be acquired. In this article, we address the open-texture problem in the definition of property, then provide the necessary conditions for an object to be property in the Lockean Scheme.

This paper asks whether economic freedom fosters scientific innovation, and finds that the answer depends on which freedom is measured and over what horizon. Using an unbalanced panel of 65 countries observed annually between 2000 and 2023, the study examines patent applications, scientific publications, and Nobel laureates in the sciences. The empirical strategy is diagnostic-driven: cross-sectional dependence is assessed using Pesaran’s test, non-stationarity with the CIPS panel unit root test, and long-run relationships through Pedroni cointegration tests, motivating the Dynamic Common Correlated Effects estimator for the continuous outcomes and count-data models for Nobel counts. Because economic freedom may act on innovation partly by raising the level of development, the analysis distinguishes the direct association, conditional on GDP per capita, from the total reduced-form association. It also disaggregates the composite index into its five constituent areas and estimates specifications in five- and ten-year differences.The composite Economic Freedom of the World index has no statistically significant association with any innovation outcome at annual frequency, whether or not development is held constant. That null, however, is a product of aggregation and of the horizon examined. Disaggregating the index shows that one component drives whatever relationship exists: Area 2, legal system and property rights, is significantly associated with scientific publications and with patent applications in five- and ten-year differences, with reduced-form coefficients of 0.222 and 0.241 at five years and 0.478 and 0.417 at ten. The remaining four areas are individually insignificant everywhere, and a joint test cannot reject that they are all zero. The Area 2 result survives a Romano-Wolf correction for testing five components, a specification entering all five areas simultaneously, and the removal of any single country from the panel. Roughly one-seventh of the association operates through economic development; the remainder is direct, which is what theories of appropriability predict for the security of property rights.These findings qualify both the earlier literature reporting a positive composite-index effect and the null results obtained here at annual frequency. Composite institutional indices average across components whose links to innovation differ sharply, and annual data test a mechanism that operates over a decade or more; either choice alone is sufficient to obscure the relationship. The policy implication is not that economic freedom is irrelevant to scientific accomplishment but that the legal and property-rights dimension is where its innovation returns are concentrated, and that those returns should not be expected to appear within a few years of reform.

Murray Rothbard offers a libertarian analysis of ownership and property rights. He predicates this theory on three foundational principles: the homesteading of virgin land; legitimate title transfer thereafter, such as through barter, purchase, sale, lending, borrowing, gambling, or gift-giving; and free association: no one should be compelled to associate with anyone else against his will. Matt Zwolinski erroneously demurs. He confuses ownership with control and is confused about one of the most important distinctions in all of political economic philosophy: that between the normative and the positive. The present paper is an attempt to defend the views of the former against the critique of the latter.

Dominiak and Wysocki (2023, hence, DW) offer a series of criticisms of my analysis of abortion: evictionism, which is a compromise position between the pro-life and the pro-choice viewpoints. The present article is a response to DW.

In Block (2020), I took to task several otherwise excellent libertarian theoreticians who, I thought, jumped the gun in their analysis of COVID. They took an adamant position on how contagious it was, its seriousness, and other biological issues far removed from their expertise in political philosophy. In Slenzok (2021), this knowledgeable commentator criticized my views in the publication that started this debate, Block (2020). My turn came in Block (2022), which was responded to by Slenzok (2023), the article to which I am now replying. He rejects my analysis on two grounds: First, I employ and rely upon “a manifestly irrelevant thought experiment.” Second, my notion of libertarianism is extremely parsimonious and unduly obviates “empirical circumstances.” The present article offers my defense against these two very thoughtful criticisms. Along the way, I comment on several other issues that are hopefully of interest to libertarians.

Wąsiak (2025) sharply criticizes one of my theories – that having to do with negative homesteading. He offers two sets of arguments. One, that negative homesteading is erroneous and incompatible with the libertarian philosophy we both share. Two, even if negative homesteading were valid on its own, it would still be incompatible with yet another hypothesis I have concocted, namely, evictionism, a compromise position between the pro-life and the pro-choice perspectives on abortion. In my rejoinder I maintain that although he has launched brilliant and incisive points in support of his claims, my two theories, negative homesteading and evictionism, remain valid and unscathed, albeitly subject to important criticisms.

My learned colleague and I tangle with each other on the libertarian analysis of crime, punishment, property rights, and unjust enrichment. I maintain an objective four-part theory of punishment: two teeth for a tooth (first one tooth and then a second tooth), third, costs of capture, and then, finally, fourth, payment for scaring the victim. But no more. Once the miscreant has undergone his full, very draconian punishment, no more should be taken from him. If he wins a lottery for $1 million after paying for the ticket with a stolen $5, he may keep this money, pro vided he has fully paid his punishment debt. Dominiak maintains, in contrast, that the law-breaker may not benefit from his crime, and this would appear to be a para digm case of just that.

The term paper examines the historic conflict between protectionism and free trade, arguing that unilateral free trade is the superior economic policy. While tariffs are traditionally justified as tools to guard home industries and protect jobs, economic theory and existing evidence confirm that such protectionist behavior ultimately reduces economic efficiency, raises consumer prices, and hurts long-run growth. Drawing from the initial theories of David Ricardo and Adam Smith and Austrian economists today, the paper describes how open markets, specialization, and comparative advantage provide a win-win scenario for trading nations. Historical evidence from case studies like Britain's post-Corn Laws period and the East Asian export-led growth is testimony that countries thrive if free trade is permitted. Lastly, the evidence is in favor of the argument that free trade is not just economically optimal but also ethical, and should be embraced as a means to greater prosperity and global development.

Debates over bodily autonomy and abortion often polarize between pro-choice and pro-life positions. “Evictionism” offers a third perspective, framing pregnancy through the lens of property rights and bodily sovereignty: a woman has full ownership of her body, and a fetus is considered an innocent but unauthorized occupant. This study explores evictionism within a critical realist paradigm, recognizing the layered reality of biological processes, social structures, and technological possibilities. It situates the argument in socio-economic contexts where access to reproductive healthcare, legal frameworks, and medical technology shape women’s autonomy and fetal viability. Using a critical realist approach, this research employs theoretical analysis and socio-economic contextualization. The study identifies ontological layers of pregnancy (biological, legal, and cultural), explores causal mechanisms (property rights discourse, medical technologies enabling fetal survival, and social norms), and evaluates agency-structure interactions. Data are drawn from legal texts, bioethical literature, and socio-economic reports on reproductive healthcare access. The methodology emphasizes retroduction to uncover underlying mechanisms and assesses how technology and policy mediate ethical positions on evictionism. Findings indicate that evictionism functions as a contingent ethical framework, deeply dependent on material conditions. In socio-economic settings with advanced neonatal care, evictionism converges with pro-life outcomes in late-term pregnancies while maintaining bodily autonomy. In contexts with limited healthcare infrastructure, evictionism’s overlap with pro-choice outcomes becomes pronounced due to technological constraints. The analysis reveals that bodily autonomy cannot be abstracted from socio-economic realities and power structures. Critical realism highlights evictionism’s emancipatory potential while cautioning against reducing bodily integrity to property metaphors without addressing systemic inequalities.

Wiśniewski (2025) takes on a Herculean task. It is not quite as difficult drawing a square circle, but it almost belongs in that realm. This scholar’s target is to erase the gigantic and totally justified chasm that exists between the normative and the positive realms of discourse. His thesis is that Austrian praxeology can at least shed light on the abortion controversy, if not actually solve it. I cannot believe that his claim is true; but we can all learn from his valiant attempt. I am in awe of anyone who would even endeavor to establish such a momentous intellectual breakthrough.

Wysocki and Dominiak (2023) defend the thesis that blackmail is only beneficial, relatively, since the target of this offer values his secrecy more than the money he must pay. However, he loses absolutely, since the blackmailee would have been even better off if the blackmailer had disappeared from the scene, and/or never made his demand in the first place. In their view, the blackmailer is thus akin to the highwayman who offers you the choice of your money or your life. You value the latter more highly, so you “gain” by complying, but only in this relative sense. However you lose absolutely, since you would have been even better off had there been no highwayman threatening you, in the first place. This is in sharp contrast to the person who sells you a car. There, you gain in both cases: you value the auto more highly than its price, otherwise you would not make the purchase, and, you would not be better off if he disappeared. The present paper is critical of this thesis.

One would think that business schools, of all colleges at the university, would be the least likely to go woke. After all, the study of markets takes place therein, and that ought to be sufficient immunization against the incursion of this intellectual deficiency. But the facts of the matter are otherwise. In this paper, we try to establish the facts of the matter and make the case that this shift is unwarranted.

It all started in 2021 when we sparked a rather specific debate within Austrian economics in Philosophical Problems in Science (Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce) – traditionally abbreviated as ZFN. The story unfolded as follows. First, Wysocki submitted a paper on the concept of indifference, as it is normally understood in the Austrian school of economics. To his astonishment and great relief, this then rising journal (now the one with well-established reputation, its Scopus ranking being as high as Q2 under the rubric of philosophy) accepted the submission in question and published it promptly in ZFN 71 as (Wysocki, 2021). It was an honour and a privilege, especially given the fact that Austrian economics – with all due respect to its scientific achievements – is nowadays not a mainstream economic current, to say the least. Hence, being published in ZFN only added to the strength of Wysocki’s belief that the journal is clearly unbiased towards any sort of philosophy of science. The very fact that Wysocki published a paper on indifference in Austrian economics and the fact that he spread the news about ZFN being also open to publishing maverick (after all, as already observed, Austrian economics is not a branch of mainstream economics) papers related to philosophy of science prompted Walter Block (a prominent Austrian economist) to submit to ZFN his rejoinder to Wysocki’s original paper on indifference, with the said response being ultimately published in ZFN 72 as (Block, 2022).

Professional female athletes have long and bitterly complained that their compensation seriously lags behind that awarded to their male counterparts, and that this situation is unjust. The problem with this argument is that it is based on the labor theory of value, a long-discredited theory that bases worth on inputs rather than outputs. The authors propose a market-based approach whereby male and female athletes are compensated based on what they add to the bottom line. The $24 million dollar lawsuit settlement awarded to the U.S. women's national soccer (football) team on the basis of discrimination is analyzed from the perspective of economic theory and justice and found to be defective. The arguments used to obtain that settlement are being used in other sports and in other countries to obtain equal pay for women. If this defective line of reasoning is successful, the result will be to actually harm both men's and women's sports.

For most commentators, the Supreme Court decision concerning so-called affirmative action places both Harvard and the University of North Carolina in the same category. They either support or oppose this finding for both schools equally. The present article diverges from that pattern. It ends up supporting this decision but for very different reasons in each case. The University of North Carolina finding is a slam dunk, in this view. But the Harvard finding is far more complicated, resting upon the resolution of the question, Is this really a private or a public university?

Economics is beautiful, and all undergraduates who love and revere beauty should major in this dismal science. Beauty is defined, for present purposes as cooperation, coordination, teamwork, togetherness, inclusiveness, and assists in sports. The greater the number of people participating in the “team,” the more gorgeous is the cooperation. The less central direction, whether implicit or explicit, other things equal, the greater is the loveliness of the coordination. The economy, that which economists study, beats all the competition, as, at least ideally, it encompasses the most people on the “team” (all of us!) with the least outside direction. Well, none at all, given full free enterprise with no central planning whatsoever. That, at least, would be the extreme degree of economic freedom.

This paper critically examines the claim that Utah is “the most sexist state” in the United States, as suggested by a WalletHub report ranking it lowest in “Women’s Equality.” Utilizing an economic analysis from the Austrian School perspective, this study scrutinizes the data, metrics, and conclusions of reports by the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP). The analysis focuses on distinguishing statistical disparities from sexism, proposing that observed gender inequalities in Utah are largely influenced by cultural and economic factors, particularly the state’s high marriage rate and traditional gender roles. Contrary to the notion that sexism predominantly drives gender disparities, the paper argues that personal choices and subjective value theory play significant roles in shaping these outcomes. The study highlights the importance of considering cultural context, individual preferences, and the marital asymmetry hypothesis when interpreting gender-related data, challenging the assertion that Utah’s gender disparities are primarily due to sexist attitudes. The findings suggest that Utah’s gender gaps in areas such as income and workforce participation are more accurately attributed to the state’s unique cultural and economic landscape rather than pervasive sexism.