Libertarians are great at making the moral case for liberty. Indeed, we’re great at making a lot of different moral cases for liberty. But then what? All the moral conviction in the world won’t necessarily build institutions or practices that respect individual rights. Doing so necessarily takes engineering work, and it’s high time that we give that work more thought.

We libertarians believe these institutions will be voluntary in character, so there should be little reason not to build them today. Or so argues this month’s lead essay by Jason Kuznicki. Replying to him will be Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University, Tom W. Bell of Chapman University School of Law, Edward Peter Stringham of Trinity College, Hartford; and Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the Etherium cryptocurrency. What they share in common might not be so obvious at first, but each has studied and in some cases perhaps created the kind of voluntary institutions that sidestep the state.

We welcome you to join the dicussion in the comments, which will be open through the end of the month.