The Praxeology of Privacy

The Praxeology of Privacy

A treatise joining the Austrian and cypherpunk traditions on the engineering and economics of privacy.

by Max Hillebrand

by Max

May 12 2026
Cover image for The Praxeology of Privacy: Endorsements, Foreword, Preface

The Praxeology of Privacy: Endorsements, Foreword, Preface

Third edition, joining Austrian economics and cypherpunk engineering on what privacy is, why it survives, and how to defend it.

by Max

May 13 2026
Cover image for Chapter 1: The Nature of Privacy

Chapter 1: The Nature of Privacy

Privacy is control over disclosure. Observation cost decides if any targeted intervention runs, and cypherpunk tools raise it.

by Max

May 14 2026
Cover image for Chapter 2: Two Traditions, One Conclusion

Chapter 2: Two Traditions, One Conclusion

Austrian deduction and cypherpunk code reach the same privacy conclusion from opposite directions. Their agreement is evidence.

by Max

May 15 2026
Cover image for Chapter 3: The Action Axiom: Privacy as Structural Feature

Chapter 3: The Action Axiom: Privacy as Structural Feature

Privacy is built into the structure of human action. Deliberation and the asymmetry between actor and observer are structural.

by Max

May 16 2026
Cover image for Chapter 4: The Argumentation Axiom and Self-Ownership

Chapter 4: The Argumentation Axiom and Self-Ownership

To argue is to presuppose control of body and mind. Coerced surveillance breaks that presupposition and counts as aggression.

by Max

May 17 2026
Cover image for Chapter 5: The Axiom of Resistance

Chapter 5: The Axiom of Resistance

Systems can be designed to resist external control. The claim rests on computational hardness and the record of deployed tools.

by Max

May 18 2026
Cover image for Information, Scarcity, and Property

Information, Scarcity, and Property

Property rights apply to scarce things. Information is non-scarce, so privacy stands on self-ownership, owned media, and contract.

by Max

May 19 2026
Cover image for The Economic Value of Privacy

The Economic Value of Privacy

Privacy aids exchange by guarding deliberation and negotiation from observation that chills marginal trades and distorts the rest.

by Max

May 20 2026
Cover image for Privacy as Capital

Privacy as Capital

Privacy tools are capital that compounds across uses; institutional promises last only as long as state goodwill does.

by Max

May 21 2026
Cover image for Money and Privacy

Money and Privacy

Money emerges by market process. Sound money carries privacy alongside its three classical functions; fiat lacks all four.

by Max

May 22 2026
Cover image for Financial Surveillance and the State

Financial Surveillance and the State

Financial surveillance is triangular intervention. The state forces banks to watch customers, and CBDCs strip the buffer entirely.

by Max

May 23 2026
Cover image for Corporate Surveillance and Data Extraction

Corporate Surveillance and Data Extraction

Corporate data extraction inverts the market: the advertiser is the customer, and the user supplies the raw material.

by Max

May 24 2026
Cover image for The Analytics Stack

The Analytics Stack

Commercial firms assemble surveillance no agency could lawfully build, and the state buys the output as a service.

by Max

May 25 2026
Cover image for The Crypto Wars

The Crypto Wars

Crypto controls failed against builders, held against defaults, and locked in the two-tier privacy equilibrium thirty years later.

by Max

May 26 2026
Cover image for Cryptographic Foundations

Cryptographic Foundations

Cryptography shifts trust from institutions to mathematics, and that shift carries every privacy primitive the book later builds.