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Videos of some previous events can be viewed here, or by clicking the links below.

Sean Gabb - 'Libertarianism: Left or Right?'

Dr Sean Gabb is is the director of the Libertarian Alliance. He was the Economic and Political Adviser to Jan Carnogursky, the Prime Minister of Slovakia. He was also director of the Sudan Foundation.

Terence Kealey- 'Reforming Britain's Universities'

Dr Terence Kealey is a Clinical Bio-Chemist and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, the only truly independent university in the country. As a researcher, Dr Kealey discovered how distorting government money could be, and in 1996 he published his first book The Economic Laws of Scientific Research where he argued that, contrary to myth, governments need not fund science. His second book, Sex, Science and Profits (2008) argues that science is not a public good but, rather, is organised in invisible colleges, which is why Government funding is irrelevant.

Mark Skousen - 'The Economic Consequences of Mr Keynes'

Known as the “maverick” of economics for his contrarian and optimistic views, his sometimes-outrageous statements and predictions*, Dr . Mark Skousen is a distinguished American economist, investment analyst, investment newsletter editor, college professor and world renowned author of more than 25 non-fiction books.

Alex Deane - 'The Big Brother State '

Alexander Deane is a Barrister and Director of Big Brother Watch. He read English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge and took a Masters degree in International Relations as a Rotary Scholar at Griffith University. He is a World Universities Debating Champion. He is a regular writer for ConservativeHome, OnlineOpinion and Human Events. He was David Cameron’s first chief of staff and has also worked for the Liberal Party in Australia.

Robert Oulds - 'Britain must leave the EU'

Robert Oulds is the Director of the Euro-Sceptic Bruges Group.He has a degree in Politics and a Master's degree in Communications Management. Robert Oulds has been a Conservative Councillor in Chiswick since 2002. He is also the Standard-Bearer and Treasurer for the Chiswick Branch of the Royal British Legion.

7th Week - Wednesday, 24th November - 8:30pm - Oxford Union

Adam Smith Drinks Reception

The pleasure of your esteemed presence is requested to celebrate the great Adam Smith. Cava, cakes and cheese will be provided, free of charge, to complement the rigorous 'political' debate and stimulating conversation. Hosted by the Adam Smith Institute in association with the Oxford Libertarian Society and Oxford Conservative Association.

Who was Adam Smith? 
Adam Smith (5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790) studied at Glasgow and at Balliol College (although he believed that at Oxford “the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.”) He was a pioneer of Political Economy, most famous for his works 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' and his magnum opus 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'. Smith expounded a free market ideology, advancing the idea that the pursuit of one’s own interests promotes the interests of society as a whole and that markets best allocate resources. As Smith famously put it, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

Dennis C. Mueller - 'Religion and Liberalism' [video]

Dennis C. Mueller is Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna. He previously taught for many years at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Public Choice, Profits in the Long Run, Constitutional Democracy, and others. He is a past president of the Public Choice society, the Southern Economic Association, and the Industrial Organization Society.

Professor Mueller will discuss the relationship between individual liberties and constitutional rights, and then how religions can pose threats to individual rights and liberties.

Christian Michel- 'Why I am not a democrat' [video]

Christian Michel dropped out of the Sorbonne University in Paris and worked his way from the ground up to being the owner of one of Europe's largest trust and corporate services companies. He is the author of ‘La Liberté: deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle’ published by the Institut Économique de Paris. He is President of the Libertarian International and founder of Liberalia, and is an officer of the Libertarian Alliance.

He will dicuss the failure of democracy, and the potential for alternative more humane forms of social organisation.

Scott Sumner - 'What caused the first Great Depression?' [video]

Scott Sumner received a BA in economics from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. Since 1982 he has taught economics at Bentley University, 8 miles west of Boston. His research interests include the role of the gold standard in the Great Depression, liquidity traps, the use of market expectations in guiding monetary policy, and the history of macroeconomics. He blogs at the Money Illusion.

In his talk, Sumner will argue that the Great Depression in America had two main causes. The initial contraction was triggered by a big drop in aggregate demand caused by worldwide gold hoarding (especially in America and France). Then the recovery was slowed by a large drop in aggregate supply resulting from President Roosevelt's high wage policy. He will also discuss the Depression in other countries, and some modern parallels. View this event on Facebook

Scott Sumner & Kevin Dowd - 'What caused the financial crisis? ' [video]

Scott Sumner is Professor of Economics at Bentley University. His research interests include the role of the gold standard in the Great Depression, liquidity traps, the use of market expectations in guiding monetary policy, and the history of macroeconomics. He blogs at the Money Illusion. Kevin Dowd is Emeritus Professor of Finance at Nottingham University and a Senior Fellow at the Cobden Center. His research interests are in risk management, free banking and financial regulation, macro and monetary economics, and political economy.

They will discuss the causes of the recent financial crisis, and whether it was a failure of short-term monetary policy or an exposure of more fundamental flaws in modern economic theory. Dr Alan Morrison, Professor of Finance at Oxford University's Said Business School, will chair the discussion.

Deirdre McCloskey- 'It's good to be a Don if you're going to be a Deirdre: Gender crossing in academia'' [video]

Deirdre N. McCloskey is Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was Visiting Tinbergen Professor (2002-2006) of Philosophy, Economics, and Art and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Trained at Harvard as an economist, she has written fourteen books and edited seven more, and has published some three hundred and sixty articles on economic theory, economic history, philosophy, rhetoric, feminism, ethics, and law.

In this talk, co-hosted with the Oxford area higher education staff LGBT network, Prof. McCloskey will discuss her experience of crossing gender during her academic career and the unique challenges she has faced while doing so.

Deirdre McCloskey- 'Liberty and Dignity: the root causes of the modern world'' [video]

Deirdre N. McCloskey is Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was Visiting Tinbergen Professor (2002-2006) of Philosophy, Economics, and Art and Cultural Studies at Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Trained at Harvard as an economist, she has written fourteen books and edited seven more, and has published some three hundred and sixty articles on economic theory, economic history, philosophy, rhetoric, feminism, ethics, and law.

In this talk, she will discuss the ethical foundations of the modern world and how free trade and bourgeois values help to generate the conditions in which human dignity may flourish.

Jan Lester -'A pre-propertarian theory of libertarian liberty' [video]

Dr Jan Lester is the author of Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled (2000) and Anti-Politics Dictionary (forthcoming). He has also written two philosophical dramatic dialogues: The Naked Politician and The Philosophical Genie (available on request; performances encouraged). Some other writings of his can be found here.

The liberty that libertarians promote is not inherently about self-ownership and private property. A pre-propertarian theory of libertarian liberty is possible. And from this theory, self-ownership and private property are derivable as contingently normal but not inevitable. This pre-propertarian theory of liberty explains how libertarians are not “just propertarians without a real interest in liberty”. It also enables solutions to various traditional paradoxes and novel problem cases that arise with private-property libertarianism.

Mark Pennington - 'Democracy and the Deliberative Conceit' [video]

Mark Pennington is Reader in Public Policy and Political Economy at Queen Mary, University of London. He has written Rescuing Social Capital from Social Democracy (with John Meadowcroft) and Planning and the Political Market: Public Choice and the Politics of Government Failure. His most recent work, Towards the Minimal State, will be published soon.

Dr Pennington will discuss the theories of deliberative democracy, with a focus on the work of Jurgen Habermas. He argues from a Hayekian perspective that the case against the social democratic state rests with the superior capacity of markets to extend communicative rationality beyond the realm of verbal discourse. Deliberative democrats privilege discourse above other more successful forms of communication and expression instantiated in free market institutions.

James Tyler - 'Banksters: how to get rich quick and destroy the economy' [video]

James Tyler is CEO of Tyler Capital, a derivatives trading firm in the City of London, having previously worked in the bank trading floors for well over a decade. A recent convert to Austrian economics, and a lifelong advocate of free markets, James now concentrates on supporting the cause of social and economic progress, the limitation of the state, and a return to sound money principles wherever he can. He sits on the advisory board of the Cobden Centre.

He will argue that the risks in derivatives and similar markets should be borne by hedge funds and other private firms, and that ordinary banks should concentrate on protecting the investments of depositors.

Adriana Lukas - 'Rescuing Privacy from the Internet'[video]

Since founding the Big Blog Company in early 2003, Adriana Lukas has advised companies in Europe and the US on how to make sense of the web and 'social media' hype and if and how to use blogs, feeds, wikis and tags, social networks in their communications and beyond. She is also working on the Project VRM and runs the Mine! project, desiging a tool that helps individuals manage their personal data online. She is an editor of Samizdata. Fed up with people claiming privacy is dead? Privacy is to identity what freedom is to morality - one can't exist without the other. Adriana Lukas will describe how recent developments on the Internet have destroyed our ability to maintain private information and how we can get it back.

Yaron Brook - 'The Morality of Investing and Financial Markets' [video]

Yaron Brook is the President and Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, which promotes the novels of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. He is a former professor with a PHD in Finance and cofounded and is Managing Director and Chairman of BH Equity Research, a financial advisory firm. He frequently features as a guest on radio and TV having appeared on Fox Business News, Fox News, CNN, CNBC, and C-SPAN.

In his talk, he will explain how and why it is moral and appropriate to be a professional investor or in the financial markets, contrary to popular opinion which holds that investors are just feeding off of those “real capitalists” who make products.  This talk will indicate that, in fact, professional investing, can be a profoundly moral profession.

Cohosted with Capitox.

Jamie Whyte - 'The financial crisis: too much freedom or too much regulation?' [video]

Jamie Whyte is a former lecturer of Philosophy at Cambridge University and winner of Analysis journal’s prestigious ‘best article by a philosopher under 30’ award. He has written extensively for The Times newspaper and had several books published including ‘Crimes Against Logic’, ‘Bad Thoughts’ and ‘A Load of Blair’. He is famous for dissecting confused logic and public political nonsense. 

In this talk, he will discuss whether the financial crisis was the result of too much freedom in banking or too much regulation. Jamie will then scrutinize the new regulatory proposals and examine their likely effects.

The Speak Easy: Nick Cowen - 'Possessing Pornography'

A regular forum organised by the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Compass Oxford and the Oxford Libertarian Society, with discussion topics of interest to liberals of all kinds. This week's speaker, Nick Cowen, is the President of the Libertarian Society and currently completing a Masters in Political Theory, prior to which he worked at the think tank Civitas, where he published Swedish Lessons, about market reforms in education in Sweden, and Total Recall, making the case for direct democracy.

In January 2009, the British government outlawed the possession of what it termed 'Extreme Pornography' in England and Wales. Penalties extend to up to three years in prison. This makes the UK currently the only country to outlaw the possession of some adult pornography in Europe. The content of the law and the grounds on which it was passed have some worrying implications for a free society.

The Speak Easy: Jeremy Cliffe - 'Legalising drugs: how far should it go? '

A regular forum organised by the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Compass Oxford and the Oxford Libertarian Society, with discussion topics of interest to liberals of all kinds. This week's speaker, Jeremy Cliffe, is a modern languages undergraduate at Worcester College and Chairman of Compass Oxford.

The controversial sacking of Professor David Nutt, the government's chief drugs adviser, begs the question of where pharmacology ends and politics begins in the debate on the legal status of drugs. This discussion will consider the state of drugs policy in the UK and elsewhere, and ask how far the legalisation of drugs should be extended. Should 'soft' drugs be decriminalised? If so, what about hard drugs? And if such substances are to be permitted, should that be in the name of public health or individual liberty?

Brian Micklethwait, Chris Mounsey and Tony Brown- 'Liberty needs YOU'' [video]

Chris Mounsey is leader of the Libertarian Party UK and blogs at the Devils Kitchen, which was voted the second most popular libertarian blog by readers of Total Politics magazine. He is professionally Head of Software Implementation and Design at a web application development company.

Brian Micklethwait is a pamphleteer for the Libertarian Alliance and blogs at Samizdata. His previous talk at the society, discussing how to effectively spread free market ideas in a hostile environment, can be viewed online here.

Tony Brown is the editor of Libertarian Press, a newly launched publishing operation to disseminate the ideas of liberty online and in print.

They will give brief talks discussing how to spread libertarian ideas in the UK today; followed by drinks and discussion.

Chandran Kukathas -'The Labour Theory of Justice: A Critique of G.A.Cohen'[video]

Chandran Kukathas holds the Chair in Political Theory in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. He previously taught at the University of Utah and at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He is the author of Hayek and Modern Liberalism (1989), Rawls: A Theory of Justice and Its Critics (with Philip Pettit 1990) and The Liberal Archiplelago (2003).

G.A.Cohen has defended a conception of justice as equality, according to which departures from equality are warranted only when people are rewarded for making greater effort or undertaking more burdensome work. This talk will present a critical analysis of this view of justice, and of the presuppositions that underpin it.

The Speak Easy: Robin McGhee - 'The Decline of Voting'

A regular forum organised by the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Compass Oxford and the Oxford Libertarian Society, with discussion topics of interest to liberals of all kinds. This week's speaker, Robin McGhee, studies at St Anne's College, and will discuss the reasons behind the decline in public participation at elections in recent years.

5th Week - Monday, 15th February - 8pm - Oxford Union

Adam Smith Drinks Reception

The pleasure of your esteemed presence is requested to celebrate the great Adam Smith. Cava, cakes and cheese will be provided, free of charge, to complement the rigorous 'political' debate and stimulating conversation. Hosted by the Adam Smith Institute in association with the Oxford Libertarian Society and Oxford Conservative Association.

Who was Adam Smith? 
Adam Smith (5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790) studied at Glasgow and at Balliol College (although he believed that at Oxford “the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.”) He was a pioneer of Political Economy, most famous for his works 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' and his magnum opus 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'. Smith expounded a free market ideology, advancing the idea that the pursuit of one’s own interests promotes the interests of society as a whole and that markets best allocate resources. As Smith famously put it, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

The Speak Easy: Jock Coats - 'An Introduction to Mutualism' [video]

A regular forum organised by the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Compass Oxford and the Oxford Libertarian Society, with discussion topics of interest to liberals of all kinds. This week's speaker, Jock Coats, is a political blogger of the left-libertarian school, and formerly a local councillor in Oxfordshire.

Mutualism is a left branch of the libertarian family tree that particularly draws on the tradition of the American Individualist Anarchists.  As its best known contemporary exponent, Kevin Carson, describes, its philosophy is to "build the structure of the new society within the shell of the old" before we try to break the shell.  JockCoats, an Oxford based Mutualist, looks at some of the possibilities and practicalities of what he prefers to call "viral anarchism".

John Meadowcroft - 'How Markets Solve Social Problems' '[video]

John Meadowcroft is Lecturer in Public Policy at King’s College London. He is the author of The Ethics of the Market, co-author with Mark Pennington of Rescuing Social Capital from Social Democracy, and editor of Prohibitions. He is also Series Editor of the twenty volume Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series published by Continuum from 2009 to 2011, to which he is contributing the volume of James M. Buchanan.

In this talk he will argue that markets can, do and should solve social problems, but to allow them to do so requires the rejection of the idea that elite political actors should determine what constitutes a social problem and then select the correct solution. It will be argued that a market approach offers the prospect of genuine popular empowerment that political processes are unable to deliver.

The Speak Easy: Hicham Yezza - 'Arbitrary Detention in the United Kingdom' [video]

A regular forum organised by the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, Compass Oxford and the Oxford Libertarian Society, with discussion topics of interest to liberals of all kinds. This week's speaker, Hicham Yezza, is a political activist and employee of the University of Nottingham who was arrested and detained on terrorism related charges in November 2008. When the case against him turned out to be lacking any substance, the Government continued to pursue him on immigration issues and attempted, and eventually failed, to deport him from the UK.

He will discuss his experience of detention by the British state, and the calls to extend the period of detention without charge to 90 days.

Steve Davies - 'Time to Revive ‘Individualism’?' [video]

Dr Steve Davies is program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies. He joined IHS from the UK where he was Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Economic History at Manchester Metropolitan University. A historian, he was co-editor with Nigel Ashford of The Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought and wrote several entries for The Encylopedia of Libertarianism, including the general introduction. He is also the author of Empiricism and History and of several articles and essays on topics including the private provision of public goods and the history of crime and criminal justice. He has recently completed a book on the history of the world since 1250 and the origins of modernity, The Wealth Explosion, on which topic he recently opened debate at Cato Unbound and spoke at the Mercatus Centre earlier this month.

In recent years there has been a clear revival of a political philosophy or coherent set of beliefs, which currently tends to go by the name of ‘libertarianism’ or (among intellectuals) ‘classical liberalism’. This tends to be identified with a particular economic perspective, centred on free markets, but in fact that is only one part of it and in many ways a secondary one. At the moment there are two related problems or obstacles. One is that these ideas tend to be associated with conservatism and a set of other ideas, which in fact are often opposed to them. The other apparently trivial but in fact significant is that of the name given to them. The argument is that it is time to revive the label that they had in the past, that of ‘Individualism’. The history of this term and movement is set out and the benefits of reviving it. The application of the ideas to the present are also set out.

Guy Herbert - 'The birth of the database state - planned parenthood or accident?' [video]

General Secretary of NO2ID, a grassroots campaign against ID cards, Guy Herbert is a prominent figure in the fight for civil liberties in the wake of the progressive growth of the surveillance state in recent years. Most active in opposing the Identity Card project and the National Identity Register, which sits behind it and will collate the intimate personal details of all citizens, NO2ID also oppose the government's efforts to centralise medical records and fingerprint young children. Guy is an occasional contributor to The Guardian and libertarian blog Samizdata, and is professionally a business affairs consultant. He stood for parliament in 1992 for the Green Party, though he now considers himself a 'Tory anarchist.' He will speak on the origins and underlying ideology behind the database state, tracing its roots far deeper than the whim of headline-seeking New Labour ministers.

Tom G Palmer - 'Anarchism, Limited Government, and Liberalism: A Modest Case for Sacking the State' [video]

Vice President of the Cato Institute and General Director of the Atlas Global Initiative, Dr Tom Palmer is a prominent libertarian activist and former H B Earhart Fellow at Hertford College. Whilst at Oxford, he co-ordinated the Hayek Society, which preceded the Libertarian Society, and was President of the Oxford Civil Liberties Society. He was more recently one of the original plaintiffs in the DC vs. Heller gun rights case in the US, where the Supreme Court struck down state government restrictions on handgun ownership. He has recently published an edited collection of his essays, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History and Practice, which defends libertarianism from its critics (including direct responses to Oxford Professors David Miller and the late G A Cohen), and ably sets out, with one eye on history, the case for individual freedom and property rights.

The video of his last lecture at the society, in Michaelmas Term 2008, is available on our blog. His topic then was 'Liberty as a remedy to poverty; socialism as a cause.'

Christie Davies -'The Right and Duty to Tell Politically Incorrect Jokes' '[video]

Author of Jokes and their Relation to Society, The Mirth of Nations and The Right to Joke, Christie Davies is Professor Emeritus of Sociology. His research concentrates on the comparative and historical study of humour and morality, in which latter field he has published The Strange Death Of Moral Britain. He sits on the Advisory Council of the Social Affairs Unit and the Bruges Group, and last year filed an amicus brief with the South Eastern Legal Foundation to the US Supreme in support of Heller in the same gun rights case mentioned above. He will argue that we have not only the right to tell politically incorrect jokes that may offend all manner of sensibilities, but often a duty to do so as well.

Nigel Farage MEP -'Too Much Government: Westminster and Brussels'' [video]

Leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage is a Member of the European Parliament for South East England and one of Britain's best known Eurosceptics. First elected to the EU Parliament in 1999, then re-elected in 2004 and 2009, where UKIP beat Labour and the Liberal Democrats into second place, he is a vocal advocate of British withdrawal from the European Union and limited government within the UK. He announced in September his intention to fight for a seat in the UK parliament at the next general election over the issue of MP expenses, challenging the newly-elected Conservative speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, in his Buckinghamshire seat. He will speak on the growth of the state in recent years and the most effective means of rolling back government intervention at a European and national level.

Dr Helen Evans & Shane Frith - 'Alternatives to Government-Run Healthcare' '[video]

The ubiquitous assumption in British political discourse is that state control of healthcare is a necessary policy to ensure universal access to high quality care, free from profit-motivated decision making. Our speakers challenge this assumption, arguing that evidence from voluntary schemes around the world present a compelling case for rejecting the deference to state-run systems of healthcare. Arguing from her experience as a senior nurse in the NHS, Helen Evans will tackle the reform of healthcare provision, criticising the rationing and bureacracy of NICE, and the special interests served by the state's position as a monopolist in healthcare. Shane Frith will discuss alternatives means of funding healthcare, in particular examining the possibilities of health savings accounts and private medical insurance as means of lowering costs, reducing moral hazard (the tendency to overconsume healthcare because it's 'free' to the end user) and encouraging medical innovation.

Dr. Helen Evans is the Founder and Director of Nurses for Reform, a UK think tank that campaigns for more consumer-led and sustainable healthcare systems in Britain and throughout around the world. A senior nurse with more than twenty years experience in the NHS, her career has seen her work in some of Britain's leading hospitals, including the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, the Royal London Hospital NHS Trust and St. Bartholomew's Hospital. She holds a degree in Health Management, and was awarded a Ph.D in Health Economics from Brunel University in 2006. She is a Health Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, and has recently published Sixty Years On: Who Cares for the NHS? via the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Shane Frith is the Director of Progressive Vision, a London-based think tank that promotes classical liberalism and free markets, and founder of Doctor's Alliance, a pan-European network of medical professionals seeking better ways to deliver healthcare. Formerly Chairman of the International Young Democratic Union, he is active in centre-right politics in the UK and his native New Zealand, and has worked at Reform, the Centre for Policy Studies and Open Europe in recent years.

Kenneth Minogue -'How Political Idealism Threatens Our Civilization' '[video]

Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the London School of Economics, Kenneth Minogue is a well known conservative political thinker. An avowed opponent of rationalism in politics, his 1985 book Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology (discussed here in an interview with the late William F Buckley) dissects and refutes the dominant ideological strains of the first part of the 20th century - fascism and communism - whilst his earlier work The Liberal Mind discusses the characteristics and deficiencies of liberalism, in both its modern and classical variants. He is presently a director of the Centre for Policy Studies and a trustee of Civitas, and a former Chairman of the Bruges Group. He will discuss the threat posed by political idealism to civilization as a spontaneously emergent phenomenon.

Eric Mack -'The Natural Right of Property' '[video]

Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University, Eric Mack is a leading classical liberal political philosopher, with special interests in the foundations of moral rights and property rights. He frequently publishes on these and other topics, nd has edited for Liberty Fund two libertarian classics - Auberon Herbert's The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, and Other Essays, and Herbert Spencer's The Man Versus the State. He has recently completed a new biography and critical exposition of the work of John Locke and is widely regarded as an authority on natural rights. He will speak about the moral foundations of property rights, drawing on the work of Locke amongst others, and will defend the right to acquire and retain property without interference.

Oxford Liberal Conspiracy Debate: 'High Pay Should Be Regulated'

The popular fury over bankers bonuses and the seemingly disproportionate levels of pay accorded to some professions has prompted claims for the government to step in and regulate pay levels in private companies. The effort to dictate wages and prices in the free market is commonly rejected by libertarians as evidence of the conceit of central planners, but remains popular amongst the general public.

The society will be participating in a Oxford Liberal Conspiracy debate with OU Lib Dems and Compass Oxford to discuss these and related issues.  There will be short speeches from Jeremy Cliffe (Co-Chair, Compass Oxford) and Martin Cox (ex-President, Libertarian Society, and Deputy Director, International Policy Network) followed by debate and questions from the floor.

Bart Wilson - 'Discovering how Socioeconomic Orders Form in the Laboratory'

Holder of the Donald P. Kennedy Endowed Chair in Economics and Law at Chapman University, Bart Wilson specialises in the study of experimental economics and industrial organisation. He has published extensively in both fields, frequently collaborating with Nobel Laureate in Economics, Vernon L Smith, and is a guest lecturer at the Institute for Humane Studies.

The lecture will draw on three recent papers concerned with the emergence of property rights and spontaneous order: “Historical Property Rights, Sociality, and the Emergence of Impersonal Exchange in Long-distance Trade;” "Anarchy, Groups, and Conflict: An Experiment on the Emergence of Protective Associations;""An Experimental Inquiry into the Social Construction of Property."

The Centre for Experimental Social Sciences will now be hosting this event. Please email nicholas.cowen [at] worc.ox.ac.uk to register your interest.

Ralf Bader - 'Anarchy, State & Utopia: Nozick's framework for Utopia'

Currently completing his PhD in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Ralf Bader specialises in Kantian metaphysics and ethics. He is also co-editing the Cambridge Companion to Robert Nozick, and will speak about Nozick's 1973 libertarian classic 'Anarchy, State and Utopia'. After examining Nozick's arguments to the effect that the state is only justified in providing for the protection of persons and property (and not much else), he will explain why such an austere state is inspiring as well as just. He will argue for the libertarian vision of utopia - a framework for utopias, a meta-utopia, where each individual is able to interact voluntarily with others in creating his or her own version of the best possible world. Whilst an undergradaute at Oxford, Ralf refounded the dormant Hayek Society - the precursor to the Libertarian Society - and we are delighted to welcome him back.

Alec van Gelder - 'Is Fair Trade Really Fair?'

Network Director at the International Policy Network, Alec van Gelder conducts research into trade and technology, with a focus on the effects on the developing world. The efforts of many Western charities in this arena have a long history of well-intentioned failures, sparking recent enthusiasm for the Fairtrade initiatve, which nominally retains the competitive features which make markets so adaptable and successful. Fairtrade Fortnight is becoming a national fixture, like Red Nose Day or Children in Need. Unlike those events, however, Fairtrade Fortnight, and the Fairtrade movement, claims to be about trade, not aid - an alternative to charity for people in poor countries. Choosing to buy products that guarantee a 'fair price' to the producer is presented as only giving poor farmers their due, allowing them to earn a living that our exploitative trade practises had previously made impossible. Yet is this true? A thoughtful sceptic must ask: why are these farmers poor? Is it really our fault? Moreover, is a fixed price actually the best way to help them? Does sustaining farmers on the land sound like a good strategy for economic development in poor countries?

J.R. Shackleton -'Defending Pay Inequality' '[video]

Professor of Economics and Dean of the Business School at the University of East London, Len Shackleton is an expert on the labour market and recently author of an IEA monograph, 'Should We Mind the Gap?,' a critique of the popular arguments in favour of legally-enforced equality of pay between the sexes. He will discuss this and other interventions into the labour market in pursuit of egalitarian ends, touching on such topical issues as bankers' bonuses, footballers' wages and the minimum wage. Whilst generally well-intentioned, he will argue that these policies lack any sound economic basis and ignore the lessons of previous government interventions in the labour market. He will also discuss the political philosophy underlying such interventions and the light shed on their 'social justice' roots by Hayek's extensive criticism.

Terence Kealey - 'The Myth of Science as a Public Good' '[video]

Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham (Britain's only independent university), Dr Terence Kealey is a clinical biochemist by training and, based on his experiences during that training and as an academic, a strident critic of government funding of science. His first book, 'The Economic Laws of Scientific Research' (1996), argues that state funding of science is neither necessary nor beneficial, a thesis that he developed in his recent combined history & economic analysis of scientific progress, 'Sex, Science and Profits' (2008). A review in the Sunday Times concluded that this latest book "brilliantly extended his hero [Adam] Smith's argument [against state direction of the economy] to the world of science." In it, he makes the stronger claim that not only is government funding not beneficial, but in fact measurably obstructs scientific progress, whilst presenting an alternative, methodologically-individualist understanding of 'invisible colleges' within which science is a private, not a public, good. Vice Chancellor Kealey is an entertaining and erudite speaker, and makes an excellent case for deromanticising science in favour of an academically liberating free market in ideas.

Hilary Term 2009

James Stanfield - 'Towards the Total Privatisation of Education: Lessons from History and Abroad''

Researcher at the University of Newcastle's E. G. West Centre, James Stanfield will speak about the incredible findings of recent research into the role of private schools in the developing world. In the absence of top-down state control of education, a vibrant marketplace of schools has arisen throughout much of the developed world, studies of which have been hitherto neglected by development theorists. The history of education in Britain prior to the introduction of universal state schooling also supplies evidence that the voluntary and for-profit private sectors succeeded in educating the vast part of the populace, contrary to Dickensian fiction. Dr Stanfield argues that the benefits associated with markets, far from being shunned as an inequitable way to allocate education, are in fact the best mechanisms to ensure that the standard of education rises universally, instead of stagnating equally everywhere. The society covered a talk on our blog by Dr Stanfield at the Libertarian Alliance Conference in October 2008.

Brendan O'Neill - 'Why Environmentalism is the Enemy of Liberty'

Editor of Spiked Online, Brendan O'Neill is a journalist and frequent contributor to The Guardian, the New Statesman and Reason, amongst others, as well as a co-founder of the humanist Manifesto Club. He is a controversial figure on the modern left; a Marxist who repudiates many of his fellow travellers, dismissing the anti-consumerist, anti-globalist, statist left as "luddites, locavores and eco-feudalists," as well as opposing the growth of government at the expense of civil liberties and privacy. He will speak about the threat posed to liberty by the environmentalist efforts to curtail consumption, economic growth and population, arguing instead that we should embrace a positive strategy of technological development to deal with environmental problems.

Jonathan Lynn - 'What's the point of Satire?'

Television and Film writer and director, Jonathan Lynn is one of Britain's foremost professional entertainers. As co-writer and co-creator of Yes, Minister (1980-84) and Yes, Prime Minister (1986-88), he was part of the creative force behind the cutting satire of British politics and the civil service machine, now listed in the top ten series of all-time by the British Film Institute. It follows newly appointed Minister for Administrative Affairs, Jim Hacker, as he attempts to climb the greasy pole, with various obstructions from senior civil servants Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Wooley. Rising, through no fault of his own, to lead his party, Hacker becomes Prime Minister, taking a 'courageous' stand on education, arts subsidies and foreign policy. His subsequent much acclaimed work in Hollywood includes Nuns on the Run, My Cousin Vinny, and The Whole Nine Yards. He will speak about the role of satire, and how politics and government can be entertainingly dramatised.

Dominic Raab - 'The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights' [video]

Chief of Staff to Dominic Grieve MP, Conservative Shadow Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab is a human rights lawyer and recently author of ‘The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights,’ an analysis of the trampling of individual freedoms and the hyperinflation of positive rights under New Labour. He argues that policies designed to remove trial by jury and discretionary judicial and police power break with centuries of British tradition, and that the growth of the surveillance state is distinctly totalitarian. Drawing on his time as legal advisor to Liberty, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and two recent Tory Shadow Home Secretaries, he concludes that a strictly formulated Bill of (negative) Rights is the necessary antidote to curing Britain’s “rights culture.”

Anthony J Evans - 'Testing Times for Central Banks: Is There Room for Austrian Ideas at the Top Table?'

Assistant Professor of Economics at the London campus of ESCP-EAP European School of Management, Anthony J Evans is an economist specialising in monetary policy and macroeconomic fluctuations. He also studies the foundations of social and cultural transitions, in which field his first book,The Neoliberal Revolution in Eastern Europe, is shortly to be published. He is one of the contributors to The Filter, a group blog on various aspects of economics and culture. He will speak about the lessons to be drawn from Austrian Economics as to the causes of and correct policy resopnse to the current recession, based on a paper published in the latest issue of Economic Affairs. In it, he claims that central bankers, by focussing solely on the Keynesian and Monetarist approaches to monetary policy, fail to appreciate the necessity of recession to purge malinvestment and the dangers of moral hazard from ubiquitous government guarantees to investors.

Steve Davies - 'The New Challenges to Freedom - a Research and Political Agenda for Classical Liberals'

Senior Lecturer in History at Manchester Metropolitan University, Steve Davies is a specialist in the history of crime and criminal punishment, comparative economic history and the private supply of public goods. He is a Guest Lecturer at the Institute of Humane Studies, as well as lecturing on topics of libertarian interest at Freedom Week and the Institute of Economic Studies. A frequent contributor to The Freeman, his publications also include Empiricism and History (2003) and A Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (1991).

Douglas Carswell MP - 'The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain' [video]

Conservative Member of Parliament for Harwich and Clapton, Douglas Carswell is one of the leading advocates for limited government in Westminister. As a contributor to 'Direct Democracy: an Agenda for a New Model Party' and author of 'The Localist Papers,' he established himself as amongst the vanguard of the highly effective localist movement within the Conservative Party, advocating devolution of the functions of government to the local level. He will speak about a book he has recently coauthored with Daniel Hannan MEP, 'The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain,' a set of policy proposals to radically change the role of the central government in a single legislative session. Amongst the ideas for which Carswell and Hannan argue are Health Savings Accounts, school vouchers, and US-style welfare reform.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe - 'What is Exploitation: Who Exploits Whom?' [audio]

Retired Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian economist at the Mises Institute and a libertarian political philosopher. He founded the Property and Freedom Society in 2005 as a discussion forum for radical libertarianism, and fuses Austrian economics and natural-rights libertarianism in defence of anarcho-capitalist politics. His most famous work, Democracy: the God that Failed (2001) takes as its thesis that, if a state must exist at all, monarchy is preferable to democracy, with the transition from the former being represented as "civilizational decline." In The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (1993), Hoppe presents the novel 'argument-from-argument' for self-ownership and property, and argues that exploitation - the subject of his address to the society - is a pervasive feature of the state, not of capitalism and private property.

For a summary and to download the full audio of Professor Hoppe's lecture, see our blog

David Friedman - 'Market Failure: the Case For and Against Government' '[video]

Professor of Law at Santa Clare University, California, David Friedman is a leading libertarian advocate of anarcho-capitalism. His first political book, The Machinery of Freedom (1973), is a libertarian classic in which he develops an alternative system of competitive government, in place of existing monopoly governments. An expert in the economic analysis of law, his subsequent publications, including Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (2000) have focused on the legal structures most conducive to prosperity. Responding to common criticisms about 'market failure,' Professor Friedman explains how government action greatly suffers from similar problems, and that, between the alternatives of government and market solutions to economic allocation, the latter is much more dynamic and benign.

For a summary and to download the full audio of Professor Friedman's lecture, see our blog

Free Kareem Rally

The society is associated with the Free Kareem Coalition, a group of volunteers protesting against the imprisonment of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, who is currently serving a four year prison sentence “defaming Egypt’s President, incitement to hate Islam, and highlighting inappropriate aspects that harm the reputation of Egypt.” Rallies will be occurring internationally outside the Egyptian embassies in London on 6th November, and a group from the libertarian society will join the protest outside the London embassy. For further details, see here and here.

For a report and photographs from the protest, see our blog.

Brian Micklethwait - 'Propagandising for liberty' '[video]

A prominent libertarian pamphleteer and blogger, Brian Micklethwait has published at length on the arguments for liberty, and the best tactics for advancing liberty. His work as Libertarian Alliance Editorial Director for many years and his ongoing role in propagating libertarian ideas was recognised at the 2008 Libertarian Alliance Conference, at which he was awarded a lifetime achievement award. He will address the society on how to most effectively make the case for individual liberty and free markets.

For an overview of the talk and full video, see our blog.

Chris Rimmer - 'ID Cards and the Database State'

Craig Smith - 'The Errors of Social Justice' [video]

Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Dr Craig Smith is an expert on political philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment, in particular focusing on the thought of Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. He contrasts their conception of justice with those of modern liberals, in particular the school of thought pioneered by John Rawls, and finds this new conception of justice, upon which redistributive state activity is premised, to be flawed.

Tom G Palmer - 'Liberty as the Remedy to Poverty: Socialism as a Cause' [video]

Vice President of the Cato Institute, Dr Tom Palmer is a prominent libertarian activist and former H B Earhart Fellow at Hertford College. Heavily involved in the dissemination of classical liberalism in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union, Dr Palmer leads the Cato Institute's international programs, which more recently have expanded to include the Middle East. He is also a devoted civil libertarian, serving in the 1970s as National Secretary for the Committee Against Registration and the Draft, and was one of the original plaintiffs in the eventually successful historic attempt to overturn Washington D.C.'s handgun ban. Whilst at Oxford, he co-ordinated the Hayek Society, which preceded the Libertarian Society, and was President of the Oxford Civil Liberties Society. He will speak on his recent research on the causes of and correct policy responses to poverty, defending the classical liberal preference for voluntary charity and mutual aid over socialist welfare state schemes and involuntary servitude.