Rothbardian Property Rights in a Dangerous Digital World

This essay applies Rothbard’s theory of property rights, as articulated in For a New Liberty, to the technological conditions of the digital age. Drawing primarily on Rothbard’s framework and its systematic extensions by Kinsella, the essay advances two central claims. First, so-called “digital assets” cannot qualify as property in a strict Rothbardian sense, since information, code, and patterns are non-rivalrous and therefore incapable of generating ownership-relevant conflict. Second, rejecting digital property does not entail permissiveness toward all digital technologies, as certain