Category Archives: Conference Speeches

What Drives the Modern Left?

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The New Barbarians: What Drives The Modern Left?
Andy Duncan (Honorary Vice-President of Mises UK)
A Speech Delivered in May 2017 at the 5th Austrian School Conference of Mises Brasil

I have a confession to make to you. Up until the age of thirty-five, I was a committed socialist. This is incredible, especially considering that now I am only twenty-seven years old! My personal time frame is quite confused.

I was always what you would consider a difficult child, always asking impertinent questions. I was so stubborn that my parents had to rebel against me, rather than the other way around. It got so bad for some teachers at my local state school, that they put me in a remedial class for children with learning difficulties. This was because I had the temerity to ask them awkward questions, such as why I had to obey them. Read more

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Hans-Hermann Hoppe: The Ethics of Argumentation (2016)

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From the recently-concluded Eleventh Annual Meeting of the PFS, Bodrum, Turkey (Sept. 1–6, 2016).

Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The Ethics of Argumentation

I

            At repeated requests from many sides – and given my already advanced stage in life – I have deemed it appropriate to take this opportunity to speak a bit about myself. Not about my private life, of course, but about my work. And not about all subjects – and there are several to which I have made some, however little contribution in the course of the years – but one subject only. The one subject, where I consider my contribution the most important: the apriori of argumentation as the ultimate foundation of law. Read more

The Greatness of Margaret Thatcher: An Alternative View

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The Greatness of Margaret Thatcher:
An Alternative View
Speech Given to the Property and Freedom Society
Bodrum, 2nd September 2016
Sean Gabb

When she died in April 2013, the mainstream assumption was that Margaret Thatcher had been something like the kind of person Donald Trump is hoped to be. She had humbled the left. She had brought about fundamental reforms in economic policy. She had made her country strong again and respected in the outer world. This being the assumption, conservatives went into ostentatious mourning, and the leftists rejoiced. Read more

Arguments for Freedom of Speech (2016), by Sean Gabb

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Arguments for Freedom of Speech:
A Talk Given at the London School of Economics
to the Hayek Society
on Tuesday the 16th February 2016

On Tuesday the 16th February 2016, Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, travelled to the London School of Economics, to talk to the Hayek Society about freedom of speech.

The London School of Economics is developing a scheme to police all speeches to student societies. This is partly to comply with the British Government’s “anti-radicalisation” laws. The academic who sat in on this meeting was an entirely friendly presence. Even so, Dr Gabb decided at the last minute to give a speech of studied moderation.

He argued:

  • That freedom of speech means the right to publish without legal hindrance on anything that does not breach some private right or involve an act of treason – both of which conditions are to be tightly drawn and continuously monitored;
  • That our only confidence in the truth of propositions outside our immediate knowledge rests on a scholarly consensus, openly reached and openly maintained in the face of open challenge;
  • Without open consensus, knowledge becomes a matter of prudential faith, attended by some degree of private doubt;
  • That the exceptions made for the various kinds of “hate speech” are both arbitrary and inconsistent;
  • That anyone who wants universities to be a “safe space” for the sensitive is arguing not for a university as traditionally known in our civilisation, but for a nursery school.

There was a lively set of questions and answers.

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