I’ve been extremely busy lately (meaning work until 4 am frequently, plus travel) and have been behind on some writing projects, but I am really, really pleased that I brought along on my trip to China James C. Scott’s The Art of Not Being Governed. It’s a remarkably interesting treatment (I’m only a bit more than 100 pages into it at present, so I’ve got more stimulating reading ahead of me) of the nature of “ungoverned” regions of the world, with a focus on various hill peoples of Asia. To put it in a nutshell, he argues that the traditional view of such ungoverned people is that they are holdovers from previous civilizations, or representatives of how people lived before states, etc., etc. Scott looks at them in a very different way: they live in ways that have enabled them to elude capture or domination by the state, and those ways of life (including agriculture, settlement patterns, kinship systems, religion, etc.) have been deeply influenced by the proximity of predatory states. They have, in effect, evolved in ways that elude being ruled by states. When you think about it for a few minutes, it certainly seems a more fruitful way of understanding such peoples and their ways of life than the dominant mode. And it should tell us something, as well, about the likely success of the Pakistani government in extending its writ throughout the Northwest Frontier Province or of the Afghan government extending its writ from border to border of the territory of Afghanistan. (That said, Scott’s thesis should not be confused with fantasies or romantic notions about how the most wonderful thing imaginable is to live without a state; some — not all — forms of statelessness, such as those that have emerged among groups that have avoided being captured by states, are remarkably brutal and savage, and there are some stateless populations [think contemporary southern Somalia] who are fare worse off by most criteria, including freedom, than people who live under relatively limited government.)

I recommend visiting a new project, Commerce 21, which offers European liberals more opportunities and resources to advance freedom.

Commerce21 (http://www.commerce21.org) is a new online forum dedicated to those who share the principles of individual liberty, free market and the rule of law. Its aim is to give an online space for dialogue where young libertarians from Europe at large will be able to discuss, socialize, learn and exchange ideas and best practices to advocate liberty.

Commerce21 is a free and integrated platform that provides a lot of forum categories (Events, Action, Politics & Society, International, Science & Technology, Economics & History, Business, Books, Arts and Culture, Chit Chat Café, Arts in Liberty) where you can exchange ideas and start thinking about actions to promote them.

Commerce21 was created on November 9, 2009 by Liberaux.org, an independent and non-partisan organization which has been running a forum in French for libertarians since 2002.

It’s definitely worth a visit.

My long-time friend Tibor Machan with “Thoughts on Objectivism and Ayn Rand” from London.

laconf09, Tibor Machan: “Thoughts on Objectivism and Ayn Rand” from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

My talk to the Oxford University Libertarian Society on “Anarchism, Limited Government, and Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State”:

Tom Palmer – “Anarchism, Limited Government & Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State” from oxford libertarian on Vimeo.

(I had not had a chance to listen to it before, but I think it stands up well. I can now see — or hear — from my gravelly voice how sick I was at the time. I am now recovering from a nasty upper respiratory tract infection I got on the road; maybe it was the 35-hour travel time I endured from Central Asia to Santa Barbara, followed by about 30 hours in that city, and then another 25 or so hours to get to Cairo, where I got a nasty case of food poisoning before heading to London and then Oxford.)

I have been working with colleagues on some videos and other work on the Fall of the Berlin Wall (to be celebrated November 9 at the Atlas Freedom Dinner), and I remembered I had some old photos, which I rummaged around and found and then scanned. I was in West and East Berlin a few times (and was just in both recently, with a conference on Adam Smith’s moral theory on the east side of where Die Antifaschistische Schutzmauer once stood). So here are a few old shots from my trips in the 1980s:

(You can click them for more legible versions. In order: me [above] expressing my view of communism — from the western side; one of my transit visas from a train trip from Bavaria to West Berlin across the DDR; cross commemorating the murder of Heinz Sokolowski, 48 year old East Berliner killed November 11, 1965, after 7 years of imprisonment, shot when fleeing; me in the early 1980s before the Brandenburger Tor; a shot of a “normal” section of the wall near the Brandenburger Tor; my lunch bill from the Palast der Republik, on Marx-Engels Platz — I had a bottle of something and a trout)

And two shots I just found in another box: one from the winter of 1989 in Central/Eastern Europe (not sure where, but I had bought the coat, which I still have, in Vienna) and one from Prague during the Revolution:

Thanks to a lot of hard work from friends in Russia…..Free to Choose.

I have been busy lately with a lot of projects (I’m involved in launching new libertarian ventures in Vietnamese, Chinese, and Urdu, for example, as well as raising funds and working on other projects), so I have neglected posting some wonderful pics from projects my colleagues have been organizing. Here’s a nice shot from the conclusion of the Minbaralhurriyya.org Summer School (on the theme “The Arab World: New Solutions to Old Problems”), held in Arabic in Harissa, Lebanon in September. It was one of fourteen summer schools in thirteen countries we organized this year.

The Cato book forum on the two fascinating new Ayn Rand biographies will be on Book TV on Sunday, November 8.

If you’re in Oregon (or just the Northwest), check out the Freedom Seminar in Portland, November 14, with Larry Reed and Sheldon Richman.

For libertarians who read Hindi, that is! Available at Azadi.me. (And if you’ve ever wanted to read about Ayn Rand in Hindi, here you are.)

A project of the Centre for Civil Society and the Atlas Global Initiative!

My OrdemLivre.org colleagues Diogo Costa, Bruno Garschagen, Gabriel Gallo, Lucas Mafaldo, and Rodrigo Constantino just finished their gigantic tour through Brazil, with seminars and programs at 17 universities in 13 cities. More details here.

(Anyone who cares to donate to support such events, drop me a note at tom.palmer@atlasnetwork.org!)

Cato University will be held July 25-30 in 2010 at the Rancho Bernardo Inn near San Diego, California. See ya there!

I was quite pleased to find today this review of my book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice by the distinguished Argentine economist Alberto Benegas-Lynch:

In our time, the open society around the world has come under severe attack including in the United States, going back to at least Franklin Roosevelt’s administration and continuing more recently with the administration of George W. Bush (who relied on state intervention “to save the free market” sic) and that of Barack Obama. Individual rights are being replaced by affirmative action; private property is undermined by socialist ecology; the war on drugs is destroying individual liberties; state education (as opposed to “public education” because private education is also for the public) has turned into indoctrination; public expenditure, federal debt and fiscal deficits are increasing at an exponential rate; compulsory bailouts with other peoples’ resources are paving the way for another crisis; legislation is on its way to intensify socialized medicine; the so-called Social Security program will soon go bankrupt; the monetization of debt and the manipulation of interest rates by the Federal Reserve are destroying the dollar; and there are always new wars to fight in the name of security.

In this climate of affairs nothing could be more timely than the collection of brilliant and provocative papers by Dr. Tom G. Palmer, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History and Practice, published by the Cato Institute. Civilization means understanding and endorsing certain values and principles, which in turn depends on an open debate of ideas. This collection of essays provides a unique and insightful perspective on classical liberalism. Palmer’s arguments are powerful and combine the abstract with the tangible in unusually well written and thoroughly researched essays. They are a philosophical feast, touching on a board range of topics. It is an honest and outspoken voice. It is entertaining and enlightening. The essays are a sweeping blow to those who advocate collectivism and they reinforce the stand of those of us who believe that a free society is a much better place to live for all persons of good will.

Alberto Benegas-Lynch, Jr.
National Academy of Sciences
Buenos Aires , Argentina

Here’s the review by Alberto Mingardi that appeared in the Italian paper Il Riformista: Il Riformista review of Realizing Freedom Alberto Mingardi
I’ll try to get an English translation up soon. (But I have to rush to finish a hundred things before I fly to China in a bit over a week!)

I attended a book forum at the Cato Institute on The Life and Impact of Ayn Rand that featured the authors of two new biographies of Ayn Rand, Anne C. Heller’s Ayn Rand and the World She Made and Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, followed by dinner with the authors and a group of very interested people. You don’t have to be an enthusiastic Objectivist to find the ideas and the life of Ayn Rand interesting. The discussion this evening was well worth the time. If you’re interested in libertarianism, or even just twentieth century American intellectual and political history, you should find this interesting. (The video should be up at the link above soon.)

U.S. Cutting Pay for Bailed Out Company Executives

Hat Tip: Ken

EurasiaNet.org: GEORGIA: SAAKASHVILI WANTS TBILISI TO BECOME “GOVERNMENT-LITE”

Ilia Chavchavadze

The Georgian leader used a reference to a national cultural icon, the revered 19th century novelist Ilia Chavchavadze, to sway any doubters who believe that liberalism is “a non-Georgian word.” Chavchavadze, a nobleman who led Georgia’s 19th century national movement and was later canonized, was “the first Georgian libertarian,” Saakashvili claimed, the Civil.ge news service reported.
“By choosing liberalism, we are choosing Ilia’s way,” Saakashvili said.

His speech is available in Russian here. (I will search for English.)
More information: “Saakashvili Lays Out ‘Act on Economic Freedom’”

Talking about Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice (available at a deep discount from Amazon.com and at a sliiiightly deeper discount from Laissez Faire Books).

The Central Asian Free Market Institute organized a really impressive and brilliantly coordinated program last night in Bishkek, “Idea Night.” (They expected 100 and got well over 150 [I counted 170].) Young Kyrgyz made a series of presentations, including a very impressive one on the evil “propiska” system of residency permits and internal passports. There was a spirited discussion of several important topics, including the nature of liberty, the role of the free media in a free society, internet freedom, and more. I made a presentation on different concepts of freedom, partly drawn from the lecture on “Freedom Properly Understood” that I delivered in Hamburg at the 60th anniversary meeting of the Liberal International. (It’s presented as the first chapter of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.) I’ll make two presentations tomorrow at the ReCAmp (Central Asian Research Camp) and then two presentations at the Free Market School in Issyk Kul.

CAFMI Executive Director Mirsulzhan Namazaliev welcoming participants and introducing CAFMI

CAFMI seminar participant Gulshair Abdirasulova presenting the case for abolishing controls on movement


CAFMI Volunteer Sabina Reingold as Master of Ceremonies at Idea Night

From the founders:

Liberty-Finder (http://liberty-finder.com) is a new Google based search engine with a database restricted to 400+ websites that display resources in English on individual liberty, free market and limited government.

Liberty-Finder’s goal is to make the world’s classical liberal and libertarian resources more accessible and useful. The added value of Liberty-Finder is to keep authoritarian “noise” aside from your research and make you discover classical liberal and libertarian resources from quality websites you don’t know the existence yet. When you search for something on Liberty-Finder, you get the websites’ link, pictures, videos, PDF documents and suggested books on the same page!

Liberty-Finder was founded by two libertarian entrepreneurs, Anton and Guillaume (an ex-IES Europe scholar), on August 2009.

A friend, Bright Simons, who is a member of the AfricanLiberty.org team, is featured in The Economist article (September 24, 2009) “Beyond voice: New uses for mobile phones could launch another wave of development“:

Bright Simons, a Ghanaian social entrepreneur, has devised a phone-based system called mPedigree to tackle the problem of counterfeit drugs. Some 10-25% of all drugs sold are fakes, according to the World Health Organisation, and in some countries the proportion can be as high as 80%. Under Mr Simons’ scheme, which is being implemented in Nigeria and Ghana, a scratch-off panel on the packaging reveals a code which can be texted to a special number to verify that the drugs are genuine. Most mobile-health projects are still at the trial stage, but a report compiled in 2008 by the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation documented around 50 such projects across the developing world. Studies are now under way to quantify their benefits.

Bright is a voice for freedom, prosperity, justice, and peace, not only in Africa, but around the world. He is pioneering ways to help Africans to avoid the misery and death attendant on poor enforcement of trademark laws, drug falsification, and criminal fraud. (I spent some time with him this summer, as he was a participant in several programs in which I was involved last month in France, including the European Resource Bank, the Summer University, a Liberty Fund conference on “Universal Values and Cultural Pluralism,” and an international meeting on strategies for advancing liberty.)

NOTE: Bright is also a teacher at the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy in Ghana. Anyone who’d like to help to fund the work of AfricanLiberty.org or the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy, please do write to me. I can get your donations directly to them.

Courtesy of FreedomToTrade.org