Austrian and libertarian ideas are spreading around the globe, thanks in large part to the work done by the Mises Institute to promote and spread these ideas. A case in point is the Mises Seminar being held November 25 and 26 in Sydney, Australia, and being put on by Aussienomics, an Austrian-Australian group, Liberty Australia, and the Macquare University Libertarian League. As the Aussienomics site notes,
On the 25-26th of November, a watershed moment in the history of Australian liberty will be occurring in Sydney: the Australian Mises Seminar. Over the past year we have collaborated with the best and brightest representatives of Austrian economics and libertarianism in Australia to bring you this incredible weekend.
The lead speaker at the event Hans-Hermann Hoppe. The event looks like it will be fantastic and soundly rooted in principled Rothbardian libertarian and Misesian-Rothbardian Austrian economics.
What really impressed me was the beautiful 108 page programme they produced (yes, 108 pages). It’s full of nice pictures and illustrations of Mises, Rothbard, and others, inspiring quotes, and an overview of the seminar. The main reason for its length, however is that it contains “Pre-Seminar Reading”. I’ve never seen this in a programme before but it’s a great idea (and possibly only because the material they drew from was from sources that do not lock down the content using state copyright law). As the programme explains:
The readings help provide a basic foundation and understanding of the core principles used to analyse the more complex issues that will be under discussion at the seminar. They will help you follow the overall themes and make informed contributions should you choose to do so. As a result, everyone gets more from attending the seminar.
The overview section first contains an article entitled A Primer on Austrian Economics by Jonathan M. Finegold Catalan which gives a brief summary of the school of thought, its history and contributions. The fundamental difference between advocates of the Austrian school and the rest of the economics profession is methodology. The second chapter of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book Economic Science and the Austrian Method, is On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology. This enthralling exposition highlights Mises insights and makes the case for praxeology as the ultimate foundation of all knowledge. Anatomy of the State by Murray N. Rothbard exemplifies the case as to what the state is, what it is not and why its existence should be lamented. What Libertarianism Is by Stephan Kinsella clarifies what separates libertarianism from other political philosophies.
The programme may be downloaded here. A podcast by some of the organizers discussing the Seminar may be found here.
Stephan is an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), and the founder and editor of Libertarian Papers. His most recent book is Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, with Jörg Guido Hülsmann; Mises Institute, 2009).
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