Freedom Forum 2012
It's that time of year again. After the roaring success of last year's inaugural conference, the Liberty League Freedom Forum 2012 is only a month away.
For just £30 per ticket, they've booked out the entire Albatross Hostel in Newcastle, so will be providing your accommodation, meals, drink and books, as well as giving you the chance to meet other young pro-liberty activists from all over the UK.
You'll have the chance to meet and debate some of the liberty movement's best speakers, and take part in seminars and lectures with topics such as whether the state should ever intervene in parenting, banking and currency reform, the Ancient Greek and Renaissance conceptions of freedom, the evolution of libertarian thoughts, whether humanitarian military intervention is ever justified, the morality of food, free market environmentalism, and a whole lot more too.
This will be alongside activism and training sessions exploring and improving skills in journalism, public relations, debating, and how to set up and run pro-liberty student societies on campus.
With even more speakers to be announced over the next few days, the list already includes Madsen Pirie, President of the Adam Smith Institute, along with Mark Littlewood, Claire Fox, Angus Kennedy, Max Wind-Cowie, Nick Pickles, Josie Appleton, Dan Hamilton, Kevin Dowd, Mark Pennington, Chris Snowdon, Patrick Hayes, Rob Lyons, Alex Singleton, and Jamie Whyte.
Date: 30th March - 1st April
Venue: Newcastle University, and Albatross Hostel, Newcastle.
Check out full details all of the sessions and speakers, and book your ticket right away by clicking here: http://uklibertyleague.org/2012/02/08/sessionssofar/
Economics is fun, part 12: Banking
He's back, and you might notice one big improvement — from this video onwards, the sound should be a lot better. In this video, Madsen talks about banking. Banking isn't about money stored in vaults, he says, but people acting as middlemen between savers and borrowers. In lubricating the lines of savings and credit, bankers are indispensible to a well-functioning economy. But there's a dark side, too: politically-driven bailouts for banks that go wrong.
You can watch the rest of this series here, and buy Madsen's book, which these videos are based on, here.
Economics is fun, part 9: Joint enterprise
Madsen explains why we have firms today. It's all about specialization and economies of scale. This is the point where threads of past videos are beginning to be woven together, adding another layer to the foundations he's laid so far. If you've missed these earlier videos, you're in luck. They're all available on Youtube to watch right now.
Economics is fun, part 8: Speculators
Madsen takes on speculators this week. Or, rather, people who object to speculators. As Madsen explains, when you think about what speculators do on an individual level, they seem rather reasonable — and, indeed, valuable to the rest of us. Speculators are a form of insurers. They don't gamble any more than your car insurer does, but they absorb risk so you don't have to worry about it. It's all a form of specialization and trade.
You can watch the rest of Madsen's videos here, and be sure to subscribe to our channel too.
The Armchair Economist on why more sex is safer sex
Steven Landsburg, better known as the Armchair Economist, is one of the closest things the economics world has to a rock star. His book was one of the first of the series of pop economics books like Freakonomics - and one of the best at that.
I'm delighted to say that he'll be speaking at the Adam Smith Institute next Monday, on his new book "More Sex is Safer Sex and Other Surprises From Economics". You can see the event details here — it's free and open to everyone, so do come along if you can. Please RSVP so we know you're coming, and let your friends know — they'll never forgive you if you don't!
Join the Next Generation
In Facebook's drive to annoy its users to the point of madness, our The Next Generation (TNG) group for under-30s (this is quite a strict rule, I'm afraid) has been archived so it's no longer useful. Our Next Generation events are hugely popular monthly events for under-30s with a short speech by a person of interest and an informal reception afterwards. If you'd like to subscribe to our Next Generation emails and come along to future TNG events, please enter your email address in this form.
You should also like us on Facebook — much as we'd love to leave Facebook behind, it has its uses.
Our next TNG is being held on Tuesday 7th Feb with Nick Pickles, Director of Big Brother Watch. Details here.
Economics is fun
Madsen starts a new ASI series today. For a few weeks we'll be posting a short video of 2-3 minutes very week on the ASI's YouTube channel. The theme of the series is that "economics is fun", and in each of the videos Madsen will be covering a different point about economics. Far from looking and sounding like worthy but rather dull lessons, the videos are designed to be quite lively and entertaining. Short and sweet are the bywords. The series marks the release of Madsen's new book, "Economics Made Simple".
Young Writer on Liberty 2011
After an exceptionally high number of entries this year, I'm pleased to announce the winners of the Young Writer on Liberty Award, 2011:
First: Henry Hill
Second: Adam Memon
Third: Karishma Puri
The standard of entries was extremely high and I'd like to thank everybody who entered on behalf of the Adam Smith Institute. The amount of clear and thoughtful writing in defence of individual liberty made even the most pessimistic of us wonder if the world might not be completely doomed after all.
Even if you were unlucky this time, don't be discouraged! Be sure to re-enter next year, and do come along to one of our excellent student events in the meantime. We'll publish a selection of the winning entries on the blog over the next few days.