Gerard Casey | |
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Born | 1951 (age 72–73) |
Nationality | Irish |
Alma mater | University College Dublin University of London University of Notre Dame National University of Ireland |
Notable work |
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Era | Contemporary philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Libertarianism |
Institutions | University College Dublin, Catholic University of America |
Main interests |
Gerard Casey (born 1951) is an Irish academic and former politician who is Professor Emeritus at University College Dublin.
He holds law degrees from the University of London (LLB) and UCD (LLM) as well as a primary degree in philosophy from University College Cork, an MA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame and the higher doctorate, DLitt, from the National University of Ireland. He was formerly Assistant Professor at The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.) 1983–1986. He was a member of the School of Philosophy in University College Dublin (UCD) (Head from 2001 to 2006) from 1986 until he retired in December 2015. He is a Fellow of Mises UK, an Associated Scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and an Associate Editor of the Christian Libertarian Review. He is also a member of the Free Speech Union and Academics for Academic Freedom. He has been a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, the American Philosophical Association and The Aristotelian Society. [1] In December 2006, Casey, along with host Pat Kenny and Richard Dawkins, appeared on The Late Late Show to discuss Dawkins's book The God Delusion . [2]
He was active in Irish politics in the 1990s and led the Christian Solidarity Party between 1993 and 1999. He now holds libertarian and what he terms (philosophically) anarchistic views. [3] [4] [5] [6] His philosophical interests include political philosophy, philosophy of law and philosophy of religion. He has appeared from time to time on radio and TV in Ireland and the UK, contributing to discussions on topical social and political issues. More recently, some recordings of him speaking on different topics can be found online. He posts on X (Twitter) as @Casey5122dark.
He describes himself as Catholic in religion, in social matters, conservative, and in political matters, libertarian. His book Murray Rothbard (Vol. 15 in the series Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers) was published by Continuum in 2010 [7] and became available in paperback in August 2013. Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State, was published by Continuum in July 2012 (UK) [September 2012 USA]. A comprehensive history of Western political thought from the perspective of liberty, Freedom's Progress?, was published by Imprint Academic in September 2017. [8] [9] [10] ZAP: Free Speech and Tolerance in the light of the Zero Aggression Principle, was published by Societas in October 2019. [11] [12] After #MeToo: Feminism, Patriarchy, Toxic Masculinity and Sundry Cultural Delights, also published by Societas, appeared in March 2020. [13] [14] [15] Hidden Agender: Transgenderism's Struggle against Reality, was published (again by Societas) in March 2021. [16]
Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership. An anarcho-capitalist philosophy extends the concept of ownership to include control of private property as part of the self, and, in some cases, control of other people as private property. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of goods and services. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society a system of private property would still exist, and would be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies that were selected by property owners, whose ownership rights or claims would be enforced by private defence agencies and/or insurance companies.
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, particularly its right-wing strands, and was a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism. He wrote over twenty books on political theory, history, economics, and other subjects.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a German-American academic associated with Austrian School economics, anarcho-capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, and opposition to democracy. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), senior fellow of the Mises Institute think tank, and the founder and president of the Property and Freedom Society.
Paleolibertarianism is a libertarian political activism strategy aimed at uniting libertarians and paleoconservatives. It was developed by American anarcho-capitalist theorists Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell in the American political context after the end of the Cold War. From 1989 to 1995, they sought to communicate libertarian notions of opposition to government intervention by using messages accessible to the working class and middle class people of the time. They combined libertarian free market views with the cultural conservatism of paleoconservatism, while also opposing protectionism. The strategy also embraced the paleoconservative reverence for tradition and religion. This approach, usually identified as right-wing populism, was intended to radicalize citizens against the state. The name they chose for this style of activism evoked the roots of modern libertarianism, hence the prefix paleo. That founding movement was American classical liberalism, which shared the anti-war and anti-New Deal sentiments of the Old Right in the first half of the 20th century. Paleolibertarianism is generally seen as a right-wing ideology.
A night-watchman state, or minarchy, whose proponents are known as minarchists, is a model of a state that is limited and minimal, whose functions depend on libertarian theory. Right-libertarians support it only as an enforcer of the non-aggression principle by providing citizens with the military, the police, and courts, thereby protecting them from aggression, theft, breach of contract, fraud, and enforcing property laws.
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
The non-aggression principle (NAP), also called the non-aggression axiom, is the legal or moral rule that states that for every person, all ways of action with their property except aggression are permitted, where aggression is defined as the initiation of forceful action, and where forceful action is defined as 'the application or threat of' 'physical interference or fraud ', any of which without consent. The principle is also called the non-initiation of force. The principle incorporates universal enforceability. In other words the principle represents the substantive law and also incorporates both the procedural law and the sanction law, and can as such be considered anarchic.
Ralph Raico was an American libertarian historian of European liberalism and a professor of history at Buffalo State College.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing equality before the law and civil rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of Libertarianism. Scholars distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas.
In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. According to common meanings of conservatism and liberalism in the United States, libertarianism has been described as conservative on economic issues and liberal on personal freedom, often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism. Broadly, there are four principal traditions within libertarianism, namely the libertarianism that developed in the mid-20th century out of the revival tradition of classical liberalism in the United States after liberalism associated with the New Deal; the libertarianism developed in the 1950s by anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard, who based it on the anti-New Deal Old Right and 19th-century libertarianism and American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner while rejecting the labor theory of value in favor of Austrian School economics and the subjective theory of value; the libertarianism developed in the 1970s by Robert Nozick and founded in American and European classical liberal traditions; and the libertarianism associated with the Libertarian Party, which was founded in 1971, including politicians such as David Nolan and Ron Paul.
Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism, or right-wing libertarianism, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an anti-authoritarian approach to property and income. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto is a book by American economist and historian Murray Rothbard, in which the author promotes anarcho-capitalism. The work has been credited as an influence on modern libertarian thought and on part of the New Right.
The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies is a 1962 book by the economist Murray Rothbard, in which the author discusses what he calls the first great economic crisis of the United States. The book is based on his doctoral dissertation in economics at Columbia University during the mid-1950s.
Libertarianism is variously defined by sources as there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how one should use the term as a historical category. Scholars generally agree that libertarianism refers to the group of political philosophies which emphasize freedom, individual liberty and voluntary association. Libertarians generally advocate a society with little or no government power.
Christian libertarianism is the synthesis of Christian beliefs with libertarian political philosophy, with a focus on beliefs about free will, human nature, and God-given inalienable rights.
Libertarian conservatism, also referred to as conservative libertarianism and conservatarianism, is a political and social philosophy that combines conservatism and libertarianism, representing the libertarian wing of conservatism and vice versa.
The Betrayal of the American Right is a book by Murray Rothbard written in the early 1970s and published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 2007.
Floyd Arthur "Baldy" Harper was an American academic, economist and writer who was best known for founding the Institute for Humane Studies in 1961.
David Gordon is an American libertarian philosopher and intellectual historian influenced by Murray Rothbard's views of economics. He is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank, and is the editor of The Mises Review.
Ronald Hamowy was a Canadian academic, known primarily for his contributions to political and social academic fields. At the time of his death, he was professor emeritus of intellectual history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Hamowy was closely associated with the political ideology of libertarianism and his writings and scholarship place particular emphasis on individual liberty and the limits of state action in a free society. He is associated with a number of prominent American libertarian organizations.