I’m putting together shipments of books about liberty to be distributed to the universities in Iraq. (I will do the usual books by Hayek, Friedman, Rand, Smith, Bastiat, etc., as well as economics textbooks, books by libertarian eastern Europeans on post-Soviet transition, and the like.) Providing English-language books for universities (and for distribution to bilingual intellectuals) will parallel a translation program to get the best items into Arabic for publication in book form and through web site PDFs. I’ve raised some funds for this already, but anyone who’d like to chip in can send a check made out to “Cato Institute” to my attention at the Cato Institute (Tom G. Palmer, Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001, USA) or make a donation via the Cato web site and send a note to me at tomgpalmer@hotmail.com (also tpalmer@cato.org, but I get a LOT of spam on my Cato account) telling me about it, and I will ensure that it goes into a special account to be spent exclusively on promoting liberty in Iraq and the Arab world. My heartfelt thanks to those who have already pitched in!
Did you know that Juan Cole (www.juancole.com) is doing something similar? It’s called The Americana in Arabic Translation Project. I realize that you two might have different interests but it might be worthwhile to see about working together.
Well, the guys who went wild reading Hayek and the like in Russia turned out to be some of the biggest crooks, chumps, jerks, and fools around, as well as totally incompitant politicians (It’s the SPS crowed I’m talking about) so I hope you do better w/ people in Iraq. I’d not count on it, though.
It’s hard to know what to make of such an “incompitant” remark. I’ll be with a group of rather competent people in Moscow and St. Petersburg soon to give a paper at a conference on “A Liberal Agenda for the New Century” (http://www.cato.org/events/russianconf2004/index.html). In addition to Andrei Illarianov, Economic Advisor to President Putin, liberal reformers from New Zealand, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, the U.S., Lithuania, Chile, China, India, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere will also take part. (I have also arranged for participation by Iraqis.)
Mr. Palmer,
Are there any of the SPS crowed that you think do not fit at least one of those classifications? Chubias is a crook, Nemtsov and Gaidar at best incompitant politicians (did you notice their last campaign? It was hardly briliant). And so on. If you think they have any special virtues, I’d be interested to hear them. I’m sure the people of Russia would as well.
Jesus, man. You were already mocked once for it. It’s “incompetent,” not “incompitant.”
Well, I shouldn’t have mocked Matt for his spelling problems, since lots of intelligent and wise people have had difficulties with spelling and grammar. Two things about Matt’s post were, well, annoying: 1) this posting is about raising money for Iraq, not discussing Russian politics; and 2) I am unaware of any reliable “how to” guides to converting a collapsing and impoverished totalitarian state into a constitutional republic that limits itself to setting and enforcing just rules of conduct, thereby making possible a flourishing and prosperous market economy. Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, Yegor Gaidar, and others certainly made mistakes; had they not, Russia would be richer and freer than it is now. No doubt Matt would have done better. What that has to do with reading books by F. A. Hayek (who never pretended to have had a master plan for undoing the horrors of socialism) is unclear to me. Back in the USSR people used to tell me that it’s easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup. What’s hard is to turn fish soup back into an aquarium.
But back to the main point: reading thinkers such as F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and the like is helpful mainly to avoid mistakes (such as imposing price controls or protectionism, or arbitrarily confiscating property). What is needed in the process of transformation is a set of guidelines for transforming unfree and impoverished societies into free and prosperous societies. The Iraqis have much to learn from both the failures and the successes of the reformers in the countries of the former Soviet Empire. And they will be better able to move from fear and slavery to confidence and freedom if they understand better the principles of liberty, of the rule of law, of property and the market economy, of toleration, and of agreeable disagreement, conversation, and deliberation. Good books help people to learn, but they are no guarantee of success. Nothing is.
Thanks to Bret for pointing to Juan Cole’s translation project. I have read his writings and have often found them very enlightening. His Americana project sounds quite useful. My interests are somewhat less “American” oriented and more oriented toward the universal principles of liberalism that the American Founders espoused. I’d like to get important works by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Milton Friedman into Arabic editions, but also works by Scotsmen (e.g., David Hume and Adam Smith), Frenchmen (e.g., Frederic Bastiat and J. B. Say), Englishmen (e.g., Arnold Plant and Ronald Coase), Austrians (e.g., Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek), and others, as well. I’m also working on some getting some texts into print with facing Arabic and English pages, to assist those who are struggling to learn one language or the other.
I hope that you will be including John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” in your books to translate.