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Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to rationally reconstruct Nozick's account of unproductivity, especially vis-à-vis his characteristically libertarian, and hence uncompromising, ban on fraud. We posit that, when Nozick's theory is interpreted charitably, it does not yield to contradictory prescriptions concerning permissibility. That is, there does not have to be any inconsistency in the Nozickian ban on certain exchanges, with the ban tracking two properties of the said exchanges; that is, either (1) their unproductivity or (2) their fraudulence. When analyzing economic exchanges, our interest is focused on both productive and unproductive blackmail exchanges. However, we suggest that Nozick's banning exchanges along the lines of their unproductivity tallies poorly with his avowed libertarianism since his position predicts prohibiting unproductive and yet non-fraudulent exchanges. Hence, and we suggest resolving the said tension in a principled libertarian (deontological) manner; that is, by banning fraudulent exchanges and allowing non-fraudulent ones, ceteris paribus, while submitting that the properties of exchanges such that being productive or being unproductive are morally inert.

Abstract
In this short paper, we investigate the problems with the employment of the notion of freedom and voluntariness in libertarianism. We pretend to demonstrate that these two, as conceived of by libertarians, figure in as the main issue when it comes to justifying its major institutions, say: bequeathing, gifts, transactions (or what they label as "voluntary transfer"). The difficulty here boils down to the fact that a purely rights-based idea of freedom and voluntariness, the pretentions of Nozick notwithstanding, cannot do alone, since it is the consideration whether we do something (e.g. bequeath, donate etc.) voluntarily (or freely) (in a non-moralized sense) that could account for the rights redistribution. Therefore, it seems that – at least sometimes – the notion of voluntariness (or freedom) is prior to the notion of rights.

AbstractIn this paper we analyse the concept of coerced exchange (and partly of voluntary exchange inasmuch as the absence of coercion is its necessary condition), which is of utmost importance to economic theory in general and to the Austrian School of Economics in particular. The subject matter literature normally assumes that a coerced action occurs under threat. Threats in turn can be studied from the perspective of speech act theory, which is concerned with the speaker's intentions. Ultimately, our goal is to provide a descriptive (i.e. non-moralized) definitions of threat and coercion, based on the analysis of the coercer's intentions. If successful, we would be in a position to present such an account of coerced and voluntary exchanges that is compatible with both speech act theory and the Austrian methodology. Although we focus on the Austrian School of Economics, we believe that our investigations might impact on economic theory in general. We also criticize a rights-based account of coercion employed in the research practice of some neo-Austrians and based on the libertarian ethic of property rights.

Kvasnička (2008) presented a thorough critique of Rothbard (1956): "1) His approach is inconsistent with Pareto's rule (while claiming the opposite), 2) it is inconsistent with common sense, 3) it is incoherent (its two welfare theorems cannot be defended at the same time), and 4) it is inconsistent with Rothbard's own claims made elsewhere." The present paper is an attempt to refute the former author and support the latter one. We do so on all four counts.