Classical Liberal International Hootenanny

Several hundred friends of liberty have gathered in Guatemala City for the 2006 international meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society. The Cato Institute is well represented, with numerous Cato authors, adjunct fellows and scholars, officers, board members, and sponsors in attendance. Right now we’re being treated to a great talk on “Latin American Populism” by the brilliant and insightful Alvaro Vargas Llosa. The papers are really of a high order and represent a serious intellectual effort by advocates of freedom and limited government to address new and emerging challenges to classical liberalism. It won’t do just to repeat the same old themes; advocates of individual rights, toleration, free markets, free trade, and limited government have to address new issues and to engage our critics fairly and squarely. I’m really pleased to see that happening here in Guatemala, among participants who have come from throughout the world, from Mexico and Mongolia, Germany and Ghana, India and Ireland, Jordan and Japan. (I’ll post a few times on some of the papers and presentations, at least those that strike me as the most interesting.)