Annie Rent Your Gun

I have, in the past, referred to Theodore Burczak’s article “A Critique of Kirzner’s Finders-Keepers Defense of Profit” because of its mention of David Ellerman’s labor theory of property (not to be confused with the much-maligned labor theory of value). I recently read Kirzner’s response from the same journal issue (The Review of Austrian Economics, 15:1, 2002) and I would like to address his comments. The original article had two lines of criticism but here I’m only concerned with the first line that directly refers to Ellerman’s ideas, since this has been a popular topic on my blog. My goal is not to defend Ellerman here but to demonstrate that Kirzner doesn’t appear to understand the ultimate point of the theory he is rejecting.

They Only Come Out at Night

Late the other night, not long after publishing my first real post, I received a comment from the subject of my post, Stephan Kinsella, who continues his recent trend of support for the principles underlying labor self-management. Oddly, perhaps in an attempt at humor, he decided to disguise this support in a polemic tone. So in the spirit of things, I’ll play along. It’s always nice to engage with a fellow native son of Baton Rouge. And I don’t mind a little droll humor. You might even see me use some around here occasionally.

I’m not sure if it was the early hour or what, but he appeared to have not read my post very carefully since many of his responses were swinging at ghosts and a large majority of his “objections” actually serve to buttress my point.