Liberty Fund colloquium in Vienna

Beginning in 2011, European Students For Liberty partnered with the Liberty Fund Inc. to host a new project for students with a passion for developing their intellectual understanding of liberty – The Students For Liberty & Liberty Fund Symposia: Exploring the Foundations of a Free Society. In the last few years, this has enjoyed a great success in Europe.

Founded in 1960 by Indianapolis businessman and lawyer Pierre F. Goodrich, Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

Their logo, the Amagi, is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom”.

Following a series of SFL-Liberty Fund co-sponsored seminars in the United States over the last two years, we are proud to announce the search for 15 bright students to participate in a new Liberty Fund Colloquium co-sponsored with the Austrian Economics Center in Vienna on The Institutions of Liberty.

What is a Liberty Fund seminar like?

These three-day events are built around a Socratic discussion of the topic between fifteen student participants and an academic discussion leader.  Over the past fifty years, scores of aspiring intellectuals have attended Liberty Fund events to discuss and debate the ideas of liberty with their brightest peers.

Application to this seminar is very competitive.  The ideal candidate is eager to contribute to a lively intellectual discussion on the topic at hand.  Each attendee will be required to complete a set of readings leading up to the colloquium (readings will be provided).  Participation in the entire colloquium is mandatory, so do not apply unless you can attend all sessions.

Do I have to pay for it?

Housing, meals, transportation, and materials will be provided by Austrian Economics Center and Liberty Fund for you.

What is This Conference About?

The Institutions of Liberty seminar seeks to address the relationship between freedom, markets, and culture in both a narrow and broad sense. While competitive markets lead to wealthier societies with superior opportunities for individuals to employ their talents and labor, questions remain for many regarding the proper cultural and moral underpinnings of markets. Criticisms are frequently leveled against markets that they undermine familial and cultural stability by promotion of a ubiquitous individualism unmoored from any tradition or larger social order.  Another key aspect of this conference will be to evaluate (through several readings by Friedrich Hayek) the proposition that free markets are not derivative of a larger political, social, legal, and cultural order, but that they act as the pillars of a free society. Markets are not parasitical, but are instead crucial to the continual advancement of individual liberty and to the overall health and stability of any society.

• Dates: November 10 – 13, 2015 (The ESFL Regional Conference in Vienna will be held on November 14)
• Location: Vienna, Austria
• Application Deadline (Apply here): September 10th, 2015

The reading list includes passages from:

• Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume I
• Deidre McCloskey: The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce
• Ludwig von Mises: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Volume I
• Milton Friedman: Capitalism and Freedom
• James Buchanan: Afraid to be Free: Dependency as Desideratum
• Joseph Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
• F.A. Hayek: The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek: Socialism and War
• F.A. Hayek: New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas
• F.A. Hayek: The Use of Knowledge in Society
• Wilhelm Röpke: The Social Crisis of Our Time and a Humane Economy
• Wilhelm Röpke: A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market

Click here to Apply.