Here’s some good news, in the form, for me, of an email from the newly launched Molinari Institute’s Director, Cécile Philippe:
I am delighted to announce the arrival a major new French-speaking free market think tank, the Molinari Institute, and the launch of its website www.institutmolinari.org
Named after the great nineteenth century French-speaking classical libertarian Gustave de Molinari, the institute aims to create an environment in which both individuals and businesses can thrive and be free without the ties of regulation and vested interest.
Through its website and conferences “Les soirées Molinari,” it will help the rediscovery of the work of Gustave de Molinari as well as other French and European liberal thinkers such as Frédéric Bastiat, Charles Coquelin and Bruno Leoni. It will focus on public policy issues such as competition, healthcare, retirement and education.
To launch the website today there is an interview with José Pinera, former secretary of labor and social security in Chile, who radically and successfully implemented in the market-oriented 80’s the pension reform.
The Molinari Institute is a non-profit organization. It accepts voluntary contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. No government funding or endowments are received.
I should say not. I know Cecile Philippe to be both a fearless and uncompromising libertarian activist, and a thoroughly charming and civilised person, two things which don’t always go together. The ideal combination of qualities for someone running an institute like this, in other words. I wish her every possible success, as will many others.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Does Cécile Philippe have a sister? Yes she does
Remember, France counts twice, at least. Whatever opinions, good or bad, sensible or stupid, those French intellectuals may happen to hold, they are, it must be admitted, totally brilliant at spreading them far and wide. Imagine the impact on mankind and its affairs if we could turn the bien pensants of France around, from statists and collectivists into the opposite. That might be a bit incroyable, but wouldn’t it be formidable?
<sci-fi in-joke> So Lando finally got himself a think-tank, eh? </sci-fi in-joke>
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist it… yes, I know it is actually Molari)
I wish them godspeed in spreading free markets and several liberty to the francophone world!
Cécile is indeed good-looking, and that’s why she had better let someone else choose her pictures.
Funny how many free-market economists have been French, really. Jean-Baptiste Say, for example.
I remember reading a breathless article over twenty years ago about the exciting emergence of a school of “New Philosphers” in France. The main thrust of their original take on reality was the need for more individual liberty after the ideology of Marxism had shown its true colors by the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
After several years of pondering this event, the “New Philosophers” decided that statism was actually dangerous and they should look to limited government and even, if you can imagine, free market solutions to economic problems. I’m afraid the movement didn’t take off the way they had hoped.
As long as French academe’, and so many other western intellectuals, are still mesmerized by egalitarianism, and the various Marxist or neo-marxist rationales that underpin the modernist movement, they will continue to deconstruct their way to bankrupcy economically, morally, and spiritually. (And yes, it is collectivism that is spiritually bankrupt, not individualism). But, as they say along the Seine, ca la vie. Or maybe its que serrah, serrah. I can never remember.
That was THE tirade by VERYTIRED…
What ever will be, will beeeeeeeee, la la la…
Kodiak.
There was actually already a Molinari Institute founded by Roderick T. Long, although I don’t think it’s been particularly active.
Just discovered this page. Yes, there is a Molinari Institute founded by me, distinct from Cecile’s. For information on our activities see:
http://praxeology.net/molinarinews.htm