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Speakers

Conference "Toward Liberty: Turning Principles into Reality"

July 6-10th 2003, Vilnius, Lithuania

Prof. Jan Narveson

Jan Narveson has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo in Canada for forty years. His books include the Libertarian Idea, Moral Matters, and Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice, plus a couple of hundred papers and reviews in journals and anthologies. He has been active in the Libertarian Party of Ontario and of Canada, and with the ISIL since 2000. He has presented hundreds of talks and seminars around North America and Europe, about moral philosophy generally and libertarian morals and politics in particular. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recently (2003) was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, both for his academic work and for his long-time involvement with classical music, especially chamber music, of which he arranges frequent concerts in his home.

On the Moral Justification of Capitalism

Capitalism can make a remarkable claim: that the morality by which it is justified actually does have the property wrongly ascribed to communism by Karl Marx: namely, that it is generically human, universal, in the strict sense of the term. The moral basis of capitalism is very simple: respect for other people. More precisely: we do not proceed by simply ignoring or trampling on the interests of other people in the pursuit of our own. Rather, we concede to them the right to be the sort of people they are and do the sort of things they do – provided only that they in turn concede those rights to others. This is basically a proscription against violence, a right to any and all peaceful activity. A peaceable community in that sense recognizes property rights; indeed, a property right is nothing but a right to continue action involving the thing owned, on one's own terms, unless and until the user employs it to violate the rights of others. Once we have these in place, we do not need the special ties of tribal loyalty, custom, sentiment, or even the sense of community or common interest that is presupposed by all more involving theories of morals. And indeed, all those theories involve major costs, and major liabilities to conflict: we love the Fs so much that it causes us to hate the Non-Fs; we expect so much from these or those people that we think we can imprison or rob them if we don't get it. With capitalism, however, relations of mutual agreement are all we need, and those relations are typically based on mere self-interest. That is a big advantage. Everyone, whatever else he may be interested in, is interested in himself, and if we can align our activities so that we both do better for ourselves, that is going to be a very solid basis for interaction. That is what capitalism does, and what no other comparably general moral outlook can do. Some illusory claims to the contrary will be discussed in the body of this presentation.

Doug den Uyl

An American philosopher and the Director of Liberty Foundation

Algirdas Degutis

A philosopher, an apologist of liberty ideas in Lithuania

Prof. Hans Hermann Hoppe  ( photo)

Professor Hoppe was born on September 2, 1949, in Peine, West Germany. He attended the Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, the Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt/M, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for studies in Philosophy, Sociology, History, and Economics. He earned his Ph.D. (Philosophy, 1974) and his “Habilitation” (Sociology and Economics, 1981), both from the Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main. He taught at several German universities as well as at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center for Advanced International Studies, Bologna, Italy. In 1986, he moved from Germany to the United States, to study under Murray Rothbard. He remained a close associate of Rothbard until his death in January, 1995. An Austrian school economist and libertarian/anarcho-capitalist philosopher, he is currently Professor of Economics at UNLV, Senior Fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and Editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies .

Remigijus Simasius  ( photo)

The senior policy analyst at the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (www.freema.org ), a leading think tank in Lithuania. He holds PH.D. in social sciences in the field of law. His main areas of research are economic analysis of law and legal theory. Remigijus Simasius teaches legal theory at the Law University of Lithuania, is a chief editor of journal „Teises problemos“ (“Problems of Law“), a member of Classical Liberalism fraction of Lithuanian Liberal Union, and a member of Vilnius city Council elected for a second round in 2003. As a policy analyst, Remigijus Simasius often appears in Lithuanian media to promote ideas of liberty.

Universalism and Pluralism of Social Order in Free Society

“Universalism and Pluralism of Social Order in a Free Society” will draw attention to the fact that there are some essential contradictions between the statement that freedom is a universal virtue for a mankind and the acceptance of pluralism of social institutions in society. Questions to which the libertarian tradition has no clear answers yet will be raised. Is some sort of unfreedom acceptable in a free society? Do we have to liberate every individual, even if he chooses to live under governmental or other social restraints? What sort of social institutions are compatible with a free society, and what are not?

Dr. Yuri N. Maltsev

Dr. Yuri N. Maltsev, Professor of Economics, Carthage College, Wisconsin. Dr. Maltsev held, over a fifteen-year period, various teaching and research positions in Moscow, Russia. Before coming to the U.S. in 1989, he was a member of a senior team of Soviet economists that worked on President Gorbachev's reforms package of perestroika.

Before settling in the Midwest, he was a Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, a research institution sponsored by the United States Congress. There he analyzed problems of the post communist transition to a market economy, with special emphasis on privatization and deregulation.

In the US he has visited 47 states of the Union, giving lectures at leading universities, corporations, banks, colleges, churches, schools and community centers. He has charmed diverse audiences with his wry humor hand-in-hand with his shrewd analysis of the current economic and political situation, prospects for freedom, and outlooks for business opportunities for American entrepreneurs in the Baltic States, Eastern Europe and Russia. Dr. Maltsev has appeared on Cable Network News, Financial Network News, PBS NewsHour, C-Span, CBN, CBC and other American, Canadian, Spanish, and Finnish television and radio programs. He has authored five books and over a hundred articles published in The Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, Washington Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Journal of Commerce, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Seattle Times and others. His latest work: Chapter on Franklin Delano Roosevelt was included in a monumental volume: Reassessing American Presidency published in 2001 in Auburn, Alabama. Now he is working on the second edition of his previously published “Requiem to Marx” (1994).

Dr. Maltsev serves as a member of the advisory boards of the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-On-Hudson, New York; Heartland Institute in Chicago, Illinois; Wisconsin Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics published by Transaction Periodicals, Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey; he is also a Senior Fellow of the Ludwig Von Mises Institute at Auburn, Alabama.

Winners and Losers in the Transition Process: An Austrian Perspective

This theme will concentrate on post communist states transition from socialism to market economy analysis from Austrian theory perspective. In this theme will be discussed the erosion of property rights that started under communism, fascism and National Socialism, and was continued under Western welfare state by pervasive regulations, confiscatory taxation, elements of the central planning and militarization of economy.

The major lesson to be learned from the spectacular failure of the command system is that it failed due to internal contradictions, not due to human error.

Antony Flew

Professor Antony Flew is a veteran rationalist, philosopher, author and Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at the University of Reading. Born in 1923 in the UK, he was in the war service during the Second World War as a State Scholar in Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (1942-43). Joined Oxford as an exhibitioner and later became Caseberd Scholar of St. Johns College. Obtained first class Honors in Litterae Humaniores ('Greats') in 1947, and was awarded the University Prize in Philosophy -the John Locke Scholarship in Mental Philosophy - in 1948. B.A. (Oxon.) in 1947, which was converted into M.A. in 1949 and D.Litt. (Keele) in 1974. Was lecturer in Philosophy at University of Oxford (1949-50), University of Aberdeen (1950-54) and Professor of Philosophy at the University Kelee (1954-74) and the University of Reading (1973-82). Since then Visiting Professor in several universities. Authored 23 titles including God and Philosophy (1966), Evolutionary Ethics (1967), An Introduction to Western Philosophy (1971), The Presumption of Atheism (1976), A Rational Animal (1978), Darwinian Evolution (1984), Atheistic Humanism (1993) and Philosophical Essays of Antony Flew (1997).

Christian Michel  ( photo)

Christian Michel was born in Paris 60 years ago. After dropping out of the Sorbonne University and various odd jobs, he bought his employer's small portfolio management unit. It grew into a large trust & corporate service company, with 12 offices in Europe. Having sold the business, Christian Michel moved to London in June 2000. He is the author of "La Liberté", published by the Institut Economique de Paris, 1986, and numerous articles and conferences. His website at www.liberalia.com has become a prime source of documentation in French and English on libertarian issues for students and scholars.

Andrej Ilarionov

Illarionov Andrei is Economic Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation and Personal Representative of President Putin to the G-8 Summit. 1993-94, Chief Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Head, Group of Advisers to the Prime Minister, Moscow; 1994, Vice-President, Leontieff Centre, St Petersburg; 1994-2000, Director, Institute of Economic Analysis. Member: European Association of Comparative Economic Studies; Global Economic Freedom Network; International Institute of Public Finance. Expertise/interests: macroeconomic policy, economic transformation, international and inter-regional economic comparisons, economic history, international economics, historical economic statistics.

Illarionov holds a Ph.D. and master‘s degree from ST. Petersburg University. Before 1983, MSc and 1987, PhD, St Petersburg University; training programmes, IASSA, Laxenburg, Austria, Birmingham University, UK and Georgetown University, Washington

Jacques de Guenin

Jacques de Guenin has studied Science, Engineering, and Economics in Paris and Berkeley. He studied economics under two Nobel Prize winners. He is a former executive of Exxon and PSA Peugeot Citro?n, and a former mayor of his little town, Saint-Loubouer. He is president of the Cercle Frédéric Bastiat. He has written articles in Economics and Libertarianism, a pamphlet on ATTAC, and a book on "Course Landaise" a folkloric show of his area based on wild cows. He is currently managing an English edition of the complete works of Bastiat.

Know your enemies: the new antifreedom movements.

Synopsis : Some international movements have risen to fame through their shattering manifestations in Seattle and other places. Under cover of nonpolitical and edifying names, they are dangerous antifreedom people, recovered by clever leaders among the orphans of the collapse of communism. Their methods and credos will be analyzed and weapons to combat them will be provided.

Elena Leontjeva

Elena Leontjeva is a founder of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute and President of the Institute from the very beginning until 2001. She has diploma of Vilnius University in Economics. E. Leontjeva is a member of American Economic Organization and Association for Comparative Economic studies.

Louis James

Fred Foldvary  ( photo)

Fred E. Foldvary obtained his Ph.D. at George Mason University and teaches economics at Santa Clara University, California. He taught economics in Latvia during 1992-1993. Foldvary won the Atlas Foundation's Antony Fisher International Memorial Award in 1995 and was also first-place winner in 1992 of the Community Associations Institute Research Foundation's Award of Excellence. At SCU he is a member of the Civil Society Institute.

Foldvary also is a senior editor for "The Progress Report" online journal www.progress.org. His main areas of research include public finance, public choice, social ethics, and the economics of real estate. His books include Soul of Liberty, Beyond Neoclassical Economics, Public Goods and Private Communities, Dictionary of Free-Market Economics, and (co-edited) The Half-Life of Policy Rationales.

Apparatchik Economics: the Past or the Future?

Apparatchik economics is the conventional theory published and taught today. Like the Soviet apparatchiks who served the state, apparatchik economics is confined to statist systems such as central banking, restrictive regulations, and taxes that damage the economy. The people who lived under the old USSR have rejected totalitarian central planning, but they now also need to go beyond the apparatchism of conventional western policy and consider a much greater use of markets as well as public finances that are based on benefits rather than just the power to tax.

Jaroslav Romanchuk

Analytical Center "Strategy", Minsk.
Economic analyst. Expertise of legal acts concepts and activities of the government and related bodies, monitoring of the development of the social security reform. Participation in working out strategy of reforms in a transitional economy. Establishing communications with international think tanks. November 1997 - up till now.

Analytical Information weekly "Belorusskaya Gazeta".
Deputy Editor-in-chief. Covering economic issues, working out the concept of the paper, marketing of the weekly on the market. Author of special supplements "BG-Capitalism", "BG-Investor". May 2000 - up till now.

Ken Schoolland

A director for the International Society for Individual Liberty, is the author of The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey . It is the satirical tale of a young man—Jonathan—shipwrecked on an island with a government bureaucracy run amok. Schoolland has also published essays in Liberty, The Japan Times, The Asahi Evening News, The Honolulu Advertiser , and Freedom News Network . And he teaches Economics and Political Science at Hawaii Pacific University. Without imposing his views, his lectures do show the careful listener how government regulation hurts both consumers and producers. (And he makes excellent use of his vast collection of John Stossel documentaries.) Professor Schoolland invites his students to make not merely utilitarian judgments of government policies but moral judgments . Along with all his other professional credentials, Schoolland can boast of having studied and taught in Japan: he taught in a university exchange program at Hakodate University in Japan, and was Director of the Master of Science in Japanese Business Studies Program at Chaminade University of Honolulu. He's also been an advisor to the White House.

Dean Ahmad

An ideologist of Minaret of Freedom website

Mary Ruwart

Mary J. Ruwart, Ph.D. (E-Mail) is a former pharmaceutical research scientist and Assistant Professor of Surgery. She has worked extensively with the disadvantaged in low-income housing and was a contender for the 1992 Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential nomination. Her scientific, political, and community activities have been profiled in several prestigious biographical works, including American Men and Women of Sciences, World's Who's Who of Women, International Leaders in Achievement , and Community Leaders of America .

Dr. Ruwart is the author of HEALING OUR WORLD: THE OTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE , hailed by Visions Magazine as "what may be the most important book of the decade." HEALING applies win-win strategies to the political realm, "bridging the gap between conservatives and liberals, Christians and New Agers, special interests and the common good with practical solutions to our economic, environmental, and societal woes" (Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman (R-TX) and 1988 Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee ).

Barun Mitra

Mart Laar

On October 21, 1992, Mart Laar was appointed prime minister of the Republic of Estonia by President Lennart Meri. In 1999, he repeatedly became a prime minister. From 1990 to 1992, Mr. Laar was a member of the Congress of Estonia and the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia. He was also a member of the Constitutional Assembly from 1991 to 1992. He is chairperson of the Pro Patria National Coalition party. Mart Laar was born on April 22, 1960, in Viljandi, Estonia. He graduated from Tartu University in 1983 with a degree in history. From 1983 to 1986, Mr. Laar was a teacher at Tallinn Secondary School. He worked at the Ministry of Culture from 1987 to 1990 as head of the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. As historian, Laar has also written a book about the metsavennad , or the "forest brothers" resistance movements following the Soviet occupation.

Ramunas Vilpisauskas   ( photo)

The Associate Professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University in Lithuania, and a Senior Policy Analyst at the Lithuanian Free Market Institute. He is also a research associate at the Maxwell EU center, Syracuse University, where he taught an undergraduate course on EU enlargement in Fall 2002. Prof. Vilpisauskas is an expert on the politics and economics of EU enlargement. He has served as a consultant to the Lithuanian government, the World Bank, and the OECD, and has published widely on European integration, trade policy in Europe, cooperation among the Baltic states, and the role of international institutions in post-communist transitions. He is also an active contributor to public debates in Lithuania, with regular comments on the National Radio and the main national newspapers. He holds a PhD from Vilnius University, a MA in International Relations and Strategic Studies from Lancaster University (UK), and has also done research at Columbia University (USA), the European University Institute (Italy), Oslo University (Norway), Arhus University (Denmark), and Thames Valley University (UK).

Erik Lakomaa  ( photo)

M.Sc.in Business & Economics
Political Consultant and Campaign Director for "Citizens against EMU"
Editor for "Nyliberalen" (Swedish libertarian quarterly)

Hubert Jongen

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