Boundaries of Order: Private Property as a Social System - Butler Shaffer

Every once in a while, a treatise on libertarian philosophy appears that presages a new way of thinking about politics and economics. Mises's "Liberalism", Rothbard's "Ethics of Liberty", and Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed" come to mind. "Boundaries of Order" by Butler Shaffer is in that tradition, scholarly yet passionate, providing a completely fresh look at a marvelous intellectual apparatus by a mature intellectual who has been writing on law, economics, and history for four decades. It is the treatise on liberty and property for the digital age, one written in the Rothbardian/Hayekian tradition with a consistently anti-state message but with a unique perspective on how the great struggle between state and society is playing itself out in our times. Its added value is a vision of the completely free society that is idealistic, practical, and thoroughly optimistic. In a throughly-composed work that builds up from foundations all the way through to an inspiring conclusion, he presents a vivid portrait of how human cooperation within a framework of liberty and private property yields results that produce human betterment in every conceivable way. Just as powerfully, however, he shows that right now, even amidst an epoch of despotic state control, we owe all that we love in the course of our daily lives to the institution of liberty.