I learned a lot at the conference in Schwarzenberg, Austria (held in the beautiful Hotel Hirschen) about the contrasts, commonalities, and disputes between “conservative” and “classical liberal” thinking, based on an excellent set of readings and an even better set of discussants.
I’m in beautiful (and very sunny, in contrast to snow-covered Schwarzenberg) Porto Alegre, after a 22 hour trip (Schwarzenberg-Zürich-Sao Paolo-Porto Alegre). I had meetings and dinner with many of the young Brazilian classical liberals last night and gave a luncheon talk today on “Reform and the Role of Think Tanks” to liberal businesspeople from around Brazil, along with Carlo Alberto Montaner, who gave an inspiring tour of the progress of humanity through trade. Tomorrow I’ll take part in the Forum da Liberdade to speak on “Free Trade: Threat or Opportunity.” Then a dinner talk on the benefits of free trade, followed by meetings, lectures, and debates on such topics as “Is the Free Market Moral“, “The Morality of Capitalism,” and “Why Liberals Should Be Radicals” in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro.
I am working with my colleagues Diogo Costa, Pedro Sette Câmara, and Magno Karl to promote our “Free Order” project in Portuguese: OrdemLivre.org.
Is there a listing of the readings available online or perhaps, please, one or two you could mention for your readers? I recently enjoyed reading James Buchanan’s book Why I, Too, am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism, in which he describes the contrast wonderfully.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Too-Not-Conservative-Liberalism/dp/1845423143
That was our last reading. We also read Toennies and others….
I will respond again later…
Thank you, Tom. I’m glad to hear James Buchanan’s book is getting attention.