person Individual Rights

Rights held by individuals

format_quote Quotes

"Ideas are not naturally scarce. However, by recognizing a right in an ideal object, one creates scarcity where none existed before."

Kinsella, Stephan event 2008

menu_book Against Intellectual Property

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"By inventing a new technique for digging a well, the inventor can prevent all others in the world from digging wells in this manner."

Kinsella, Stephan event 2008

menu_book Against Intellectual Property

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"The prince is not the owner of the private property of his subjects. To impose new taxes or to increase old ones without the consent of the people is an act of tyranny, contrary to natural law and destructive of the commonwealth."

Mariana, Juan de event 1599

menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)

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"When a prince seizes sovereign power by force and arms without any legal title, without popular consent, and without the approval of the better part of the commonwealth, he may be killed by any man whatsoever, for he is a public enemy who has broken the bond that holds human society together."

Mariana, Juan de event 1599

menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)

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"The barbarians undoubtedly possessed true dominion, both public and private, before the arrival of the Spaniards among them, just as Christians possess it. Neither their princes nor private persons could be despoiled of their property on the ground that they were not true owners."

Vitoria, Francisco de event 1532

menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)

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auto_stories Books

Against Intellectual Property

person Kinsella, Stephan event 2008

Drawing on Austrian property rights theory and the insight that ideas are non-scarce goods, argues that patents and copyrights are not natural righ...

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Atlas Shrugged

person Rand, Ayn event 1957

Epic novel depicting a dystopian United States where industrialists and entrepreneurs mysteriously disappear, exploring themes of individualism, ca...

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Legal Foundations of a Free Society

person Kinsella, Stephan event 2023

A comprehensive collection of revised essays spanning three decades of libertarian legal theory, covering the foundations of rights, punishment, co...

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The Virtue of Selfishness

person Rand, Ayn event 1963

Collection of essays arguing for rational egoism as a moral foundation, challenging conventional views on altruism and self-interest

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person Authors

Constant, Benjamin

Swiss-French political thinker, writer, and politician, key figure in classical liberalism and defender of individual liberty

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Kinsella, Stephan

American patent attorney turned anarcho-capitalist legal theorist and the most rigorous critic of intellectual property within the libertarian trad...

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Rand, Ayn

Russian-American writer and philosopher, founder of Objectivism, defender of rational egoism and laissez-faire capitalism

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