A Realistic Libertarianism

Hans-Hermann Hoppe's 2014 essay on what libertarianism needs to work in practice. He opens with Murray Rothbard's point that libertarian politics can be severed from culture and morals in strict logic but not in real life, then restates the argument from scarcity: property rules exist to avoid conflict over scarce things, and every thing must have a specified owner.

From there Hoppe contrasts the Right, which accepts natural human inequality, with the Left, which seeks to equalize it through the State, and argues that libertarianism is compatible only with the first. He criticizes left-libertarians for backing anti-discrimination laws and open borders, which he treats as incompatible with private property, and proposes charging immigrants the full cost of their use of public property. First published on LewRockwell.com and later the first chapter of Getting Libertarianism Right; this PDF is that chapter, about 10,000 words.