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The believer in libertarian values does not really have a great choice when voting in Australia. Neither of the major parties could be said to fully align with libertarian values, some of the minor parties are perhaps closer - however they will not win power and have to do preference deals with...

Read an interesting article on Mises about Xeer customary law in Somalia, very basically the law does not impose punitive measures such as imprisonment however requires that compensation be paid by the perpetrator (and/or their family) to the victim (and/or their family). These fines are not...

Interesting article in the Australian today about a businessman in Western Australia who operates a money lending business which services Indigenous Australians. The article paints him as a loan-shark however customers call him their friend and he holds that he is offering a service which no...

Does the individual owe society anything? This question goes to the heart of the relationship between society and the individual, is this relationship strictly transactional or is it something more? Is society merely a collection of individuals buying and selling their labour and possessions...

Read an article in the smh today on a police crackdown on cyclists wearing helmets, and while in a way it is crossing old ground in the victimless crime/positive liberties space I thought that by divorcing those concepts from polarising themes like drugs and guns it might make for an interesting...

smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/paying-the-cost-of-fighting-obesity-20100110-m0n3.html en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_tax Should we have a fat tax of some sort? And why/why not? A couple of off the cuff pros/cons to kick it off: Pro: - Pigovian tax would pass on the healthcare...

Should Australia even be trying to host the World Cup? Why/Why not? Is it the place of Government to fund major sporting events?

http://www. news.com.au/technology/abc-website-tells-kids-when-they-should-die/story-e6frfro0-1111116454821 Is this a political statement made by the ABC to children? Is it appropriate for the ABC to make political statements? If so does this still apply to children?

http://www. smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/students-right-to-be-nasty-on-net-upheld-20091214-ksdj.html An interesting example of the ongoing tension between freedom of speech and freedom from undue harrasment. What are people's thoughts on the issue?

Is there such a thing as a natural monopoly and if there is should the Government own them?

Pretty open-ended topic but what are people's thoughts on the age of consent? Is it too high, too low? Should we be talking about an age at all or would maturity/physiology be a better gauge and if so how would that work? Are there gray areas and if so how should they be dealt with?

Should religions be tax exempt? And the slightly curlier question imo is that if religions are not tax exempt then where does this leave religious/church-based charities?

This issue has been touched on in a couple of recent threads so I thought it rated it's own thread: If you accept Government money must you accept Government regulation? No: We are compelled to pay tax (under threat of kidnap at gunpoint :p) and it is unrealistic for us to resist this...

Mildly interesting article in the smh today about university education, the thrust of which is that too much university education may actually hinder the economy. This ties in with issues around whether our current system creates qualification inflation (devaluing) and creates a dead-weight-loss...

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall fell and in the following year East and West Germany were reunited. It is hard to over state the significance of this event because Germany is an excellent microcosm of capitalism versus communism and we, capitalism, won. In 1945 the two Germanys were...

An article in todays smh discusses 'the enormous and insidious cost of the bureaucratisation of society' and quotes Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead (2004): ''Central planning, whether by leftists or conservatives, draws too little on local knowledge and creativity, stifles innovations, and is...

Article in todays smh raises the idea that we should export uranium and encourage the adoption of nuclear power in developing countries as a way to tackle climate change. Indeed as a key way because the emissions saved by this are far more than we could concievably save ourselves. The article...

How do you/how should society value human life? One the one hand does human life possess some kind of intrinsic value which is more important than anything else? If so how should we make decisions between differing uses of money? Or on the other hand is human life something we can...

Quite simply are morals universal or relative? Are some thing wrong - always have been and always will be? Or are morals a social construct of some sort? If morals are a social construct then are any morals truly better or worse than any others? If for example the morals of another society...

Simple question do you believe that humans are rational? The idea of a rational human underpins economics and indeed the concepts of a free society and a free market generally, so I think it is worth debating. What are your thoughts? Off the cuff my thoughts are that on the...