My dinner tonight. Hot pot…half Sichuan and half Malay Satay. And it was very, very good!

I’ve got two more days in HK to get a lot of reports and other projects finished, then off to Beijing, where I’ll speak at Peking University and Fudan University on the importance of free trade, with special reference to the US and China (i.e., I will bash the idiotic decision to impose punitive tariffs on the importation of tires made by Chinese firms). Tomorrow I’ve got some meetings in HK and then a talk sponsored by the Lion Rock Institute.

Lobsters at the Rainbow Seafood Restaurant on one of the islands off of Hong Kong, where I dined last night with colleagues and friends

The conference at which I had the privilege of being discussion moderator was quite enjoyable, partly for the chance to spend time with and learn so much from leading Chinese libertarians. I’ve got a “down day” with no obligations, so I’ll catch up on reports, correspondence, and planning documents. (And I’m looking forward to visiting a Sichuan restaurant recommended by friend Bretigne Shaffer, who used to live and work here.) Then I’ll have some meetings and a presentation at the Lion Rock Institute before heading to Beijing and Shanghai for some meetings and lectures at Peking University and Fudan University on the importance of free trade (and the utter stupidity of President Obama’s tariffs on Chinese-made tires).

What I saw when I looked out my hotel window
I’m moderating a Liberty Fund conference here in Hong Kong and my clock is turned upside down. But thanks to not sleeping on the 15 hour flight yesterday, I managed to sleep last night and am now having my coffee and preparing to go and get some breakfast and start a busy day. It’s great to see good friends from various cities in China here in HK.

We had a great party yesterday with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation!

Here’s some of the celebrations in other languages: Russian ( a comment on the importance of the event from Vladimir Bukovsky), Hindi, Bahasa (and a video from Sascha Tamm), Chinese, and Portuguese. I could provide more, but I have to rush to pack for my flight to China early tomorrow!

Ciao for niao

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:

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!)

I gave my talk today at the Adam Smith conference. I’ve had a chance to learn a good deal about the historical context of Smith’s thought, its implications, and much more. Now I’m at the Schloss Ziethen in Brandenburg for a Liberty Fund conference, with a number of learned experts, from whom I expect to learn even more. Then it’s off to New York for meetings and the Bastiat Awards presentation.

I am preparing to leave wonderful Austria, feeling much better due to having finally gone to an Apotheke last night for the evil gut bugs I got in Cairo (”Norita” pills of medicinal coal, of all things, seem to have been very helpful). I will miss Vienna, but I look forward to seeing friends in London and Oxford again and to speaking in London at the Institute of Economic Affairs on “Realizing Freedom” and in Oxford before the Oxford Libertarian Society on ‘Anarchism, Limited Government, and Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State.’ Then, after a very short stay, it will be on to Berlin for two conferences of the Council on Public Policy on the occasion of 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which will be intellectually stimulating and challenging and, as well, a good occasion to spend time with good friends. (I have read The Theory of Moral Sentiments and a good deal of secondary literature, as well as much of Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations again. It’s not such light stuff.)

I had to skip the formal dinner tonight, as I am still very ill and wobbly from something “off” I ate in Egypt, but I managed to go out to the Cafe Diglas on the Wollzeile and have a very dignified Tafelspitz and some Grüner Veltliner and Mineralwasser (mit Kohlensäure), while reading essays by Adam Smith and Robert Musil. Es könnte schlimmer sein.

Tafelspitz

The Cafe Diglas from my table

I had an early morning seminar and book presentation on Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice, at the offices of the Hayek Institut in Vienna, followed by a visit to the Finance Ministry to hear the address of the Finance Minister, Dr. Josef Proll, which, while far from perfect from a libertarian perspective, was far, far, far better than what we have heard from the Obamas and Sarkozys of the world.

(Photos in order)
With Dr. Barbara Kolm at the Hayek Institut

Signing copies of Realizing Freedom at the Hayek Institut’s offices

More of the same

The meeting in the atrium of the Ministry of Finance

I got in last night from Cairo to Vienna, after a successful Egypt Audit program, in cooperation with the Fraser Institute and the IDSC of Egypt. The Egypt Audit applied the methods of the Economic Freedom of the World reports to one country — Egypt — and made recommendations for reforms, which were then discussed by the participants. The papers are being made available to Egyptian cabinet ministers and advisers. There was some very good media coverage and some spirited discussions about how to reduce barriers to trade, reduce the regulatory burdens on entrepreneurs, reform monetary and financial policies, and more.

(Photos in Order)
Being interviewed for Nile TV on the Benefits of Free Markets

With my colleague Dr. Nouh El Harmouzi, Editor of Minbaralhurriyya.org and the primary organizer of the Egypt Audit

Another perspective (taken very artistically by Nouh)

Nouh making the case for radical free-market reforms on Egyptian TV

Two of the Working Groups at the Egypt Audit, preparing their report

After traveling about 35 hours from Central Asia to California, I left after 36 or so hours for Cairo, where I landed a while ago. I’m here for the Egypt Audit of the Fraser Institute and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation’s Minbaralhurriyya.org project, as well as meetings with various Egyptian classical liberal groups. Then I’m off to Vienna for more meetings and lectures. And yes, I’m pretty tired.

I’m a wee bit tired, after driving from Issyk Kul to Bishkek (but I did get some hours of sleep), then a very early departure from Bishkek to Istanbul, then Istanbul to Chicago, where I missed the connection to Denver, so I was rerouted to San Francisco and then on to Santa Barbara. I’m in the San Francisco airport now, rather wiped out after so many hours of flying.

I’m still catching up with emails, which piled up when I was out of internet range.

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

Back in Bishkek, with the Central Asian Free Market Institute. I’ll speak at several events, including the Idea Night and the Free Market School. (Click at upper left for English.)

BBC: “Denmark pulls ‘promiscuous’ video”

Critics says the video implied that along with traditional tourism, Denmark was a place to go to have unprotected sex with strangers, with one Danish newspaper, Ekstra Bladet, labelling it “grotesque” and a “waste of tax payers money”.

Um, right.

I got in from a pretty exhausting set of flights from Odessa to Kyiv to Paris to Washington and am enjoying a long anticipated reunion with my girls Wolly and Tiggy.

The flights gave me the opportunity to get more than half way through Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. (I admit that I also napped a bit and watched a movie.) I had read it before, but never from start to finish like that. It’s a wee bit dry at times, but full of useful insights, not only to understand his theory, but even to become a better person (or at least, to try). In October I’ll be taking part in two conferences in Berlin on “The Adam Smith Problem” (the sometimes alleged incompatibility of The Theory of Moral Sentiments with An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, so I want to be properly prepared, and reading the whole book from the first to the last page seemed a good start. (I will be a bit more selective with An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and may skip the digression on silver, for example.)

I’ve just about finished my talk on “Social Security Without the State” for the InLiberty.ru Summer School (in Russian) in Odessa, Ukraine. I’ve been focusing on that and a number of other things, the combined result of which has been to keep me offline for a while!

It’s been great spending time with advocates for liberty from across Europe (including Turkey) here in Marseille at the European Resource Bank. I’ve learned a good deal about new means of reaching the public and will speak this afternoon on some traditional means, such as the basics of writing a press release. This evening I’ll present my book Realizing Freedom at a dinner talk along with Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic.*

*On the back of the book, you’ll find Klaus’s statement about it: “Tom Palmer has been long involved in fighting the battle of ideas; in confronting collectivism, extensive government intervention, and the suppression of human freedom and economic prosperity. This book should be read by all who care about freedom. It is important to remind each generation that freedom can never be taken for granted. Collectivist, anti-libertarian ideologies did not cease to exist at the moment the Iron Curtain fell.”