Walter Block is an economist described in the sources as a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans. He is the author of some 300 articles in professional and lay journals and two dozen books, including Defending the Undefendable. He appeared as a guest on The Bob Zadek Show, where host Bob Zadek introduced him as a lecturer on college campuses and a regular presence on television and radio. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Libertarianism and the non-aggression principle
In a 2014 episode, Block told Zadek that libertarianism is not about morality but is a narrow philosophical perspective focused only on what just law should be. He said that his own personal morality is conservative — he does not use marijuana, heroin, prostitution or pornography, and would not want his daughter to be a prostitute or his son to do drugs — but that libertarianism has nothing to do with those preferences. Instead, he said, libertarianism asks what the law should be, and answers that just law consists of the non-aggression principle, which he summarized as keeping your hands off other people and their property unless you have their permission. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Zadek framed the non-aggression principle as half of the entire concept of libertarianism, and Block agreed, adding that the other half is property rights. Block said that anything between consenting adults is legitimate and nothing but things between consenting adults is legitimate, and that no one may force or threaten violence against anyone else or their property. Zadek extended the point to government, saying the “you” in the principle includes individuals acting collectively through government, and Block characterized that view as anarcho-capitalism or radical libertarianism, distinguishing it from minarchists or minimal-government libertarians who would exempt government from the rule. Block said that he and Zadek are radical libertarians who recognize no exceptions, and that no one — individuals, robber gangs, or governments operating under color of government — should invade anyone else or threaten violence against an innocent person. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
On property rights, Block said he follows John Locke and Murray Rothbard, whom he called heroes. He described the theory as threefold: you own yourself; you own any part of nature or natural resources that you homestead or mix your labor with; and you own anything else you achieve through voluntary means such as buying and selling, gifts, and gambling. He offered the example that if he clears land and grows corn while another person domesticates cows, each owns his product, and after trade each owns what he did not produce, with ownership traceable back to voluntary action and homesteading of initial resources. Zadek described homesteading as assuming virgin land owned by nobody, and said that because land is mostly accounted for, homesteading is largely a theoretical construct tracing how property was first acquired, while property now changes hands through uncoerced cooperation among consenting adults. Block replied that Zadek was only 99 percent correct, because virgin land still exists at the top of mountains in Wyoming or Alaska, and certainly on the moon, Mars, and the oceans. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Zadek said that once one signs on to the non-aggression principle and the importance of private property, almost any political question can be comfortably answered, and that the answers are natural rather than bizarre. Block agreed that very few results are weird or unexpected, naming the abortion pro-choice/pro-life case as one weird result, and said that if you asked the next 100 people on the street whether murder, rape, theft and initiating violence against innocent people should be against the law, 99 or 100 would say yes. He added that the devil is in the details when the principle is applied — for example to the minimum wage law, which he said is an assault on consenting adult behavior: if he wants to hire Zadek at five dollars an hour and Zadek agrees, both would go to jail under such a law, which he called a victimless crime. Block acknowledged that libertarians only get 1 percent of the vote and are very unpopular. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Environmentalism and common-law nuisance
Zadek raised the charge that free-market capitalism results in environmental degradation, citing extinction of species, degradation of water, Love Canal, pollution, dirty rain, soot from smokestacks and climate change, and said opponents argue that private property cannot be respected without government intervention. Block agreed that pollution was a good place to start and suggested species extinction as the next topic. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Block described a spate of nuisance cases in the 1830s and 1840s. A woman would hang her wash on a clothesline, and it would come back dry and dirty from a factory smokestack two miles away; or a farmer’s haystacks would be burned by sparks from a railroad passing 300 or 500 feet away. Both would go to court seeking damages for ruined clothing or haystacks and an injunction ordering the defendant to stop. Block said that in the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s the courts were very amenable to this type of lawsuit, though he did not claim every environmental plaintiff won. Zadek said the law of nuisance goes back to common law in England, long before the United States existed, and that it was judge-made law that evolved as people cooperated and resolved disputes rather than being created by a philosopher. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Block said the effect was that polluters had to take external costs into account, installing spark-catching devices on locomotives or equipment in smokestacks to catch most of the effluent, though he noted that not all pollution can be eliminated since everyone exhales carbon dioxide. He also described environmental forensics in the 19th century, in which a spark or soot particle on laundry had to be traced to the factory that produced it so that innocent parties would not be sued, and said entrepreneurs gained an incentive to use more expensive but cleaner-burning anthracite coal. Zadek observed that all of this was done without government interjecting itself, as humans resolving their own disputes. How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014)
Influence and political alignment
In a 2017 episode, psychologist Michael Edelstein told Zadek that he had been converted to libertarianism by Walter Block, whom he befriended and talked with about politics for many months. Edelstein drew a parallel between that experience and his adoption of the ideas of Albert Ellis in the early 1960s, saying that in both fields there are geniuses and that Walter Block learned libertarianism from Murray Rothbard in a similar way. He recommended reading books by Murray Rothbard and Walter Block. How to Stay Sane in a Statist World (2017)
Zadek said in that episode that Walter Block had been a guest on his show about two or three times, and that Defending the Undefendable had caught his attention many years earlier, describing it as a quick read that can be finished in one night. Zadek also said that Walter Block was one of the few libertarians who warmly embraced Donald Trump’s run for presidency, and was one of the first to do so. How to Stay Sane in a Statist World (2017)
Across episodes
The two episodes touch different topics — the 2014 episode presents Block’s own exposition of libertarian principle and environmental policy, while the 2017 episode records his influence on Michael Edelstein and his early embrace of Donald Trump’s presidential run — and the excerpts show no development of a single question between the earlier and later treatment.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state Block’s date or place of birth, his educational background, or the institutions at which he earned his degrees. They do not give the title or publication date of any of his two dozen books beyond Defending the Undefendable, nor do they identify the journals in which his articles appeared. The excerpts also do not describe the content of his appearances on the show beyond the 2014 episode, and they do not state what became of his support for Donald Trump after the 2016 election.
Episodes
1 appearance, 2014–2014.
- How the Free Market Will Save the Planet (2014) — Libertarian principles and the non-aggression principle. Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans