One of the reasons for slow output on this blog over the weekend was that several of your regular scribes, such as yours truly, Guy Herbert, Brian Micklethwait and Philip Chaston, were at the annual Libertarian Alliance (UK) conference in London. Several of us remarked on how many people turned up for the two days. By my reckoning, we had about 140 folk in total. What was particularly gratifying was the number of younger people in their early 20s whom I had never heard of before. Several of the newbies mentioned that they had come across the LA via the world of blogs. This is encouraging: there is nothing more dispiriting than to observe that the circle of folk who share similar views is static and getting greyer and more wrinkled. Suddenly, that appears to be changing.
There may have been several reasons why the LA conference proved so successful in terms of numbers. First of all, the speaker list was particularly strong: Aubrey de Grey, David Friedman and Hans-Herman Hoppe, to name just three. I thought Professor Friedman (son of Milton Friedman) was terrific when he spoke about how new technologies, such as nanotech, artificial intelligence and new forms of encryption, would throw up all manner of new legal issues. He is an irrepressible speaker and great value. Another reason for the high numbers at the conference is that I wonder whether the credit crunch has produced an unintended result by refocusing attention on the arguments about capitalism and financial markets. People want to know about what defenders of laissez faire think. Quite a few of the attendees were students furiously writing stuff down for assignments. The LA is getting used as a resource for academics.
I came home from the event yesterday feeling enthused and proud of how Tim Evans and Sean Gabb have driven the LA forward after the sad loss of Chris Tame, its founder, more than two years ago. He’d have been very proud, I have no doubt.
Damn you. I just did a posting that was pretty much identical to this, in some passages almost word for word the same. I’ll probably work at it some more and still post it. anyway.
LATER: yes, did that.
I am pleased it went so well. Sadly, a combination of work pressure and a worse-ythan-usual bout of rheumatoid, grounded me, otherwise I’d have been there.
Anyway, I kept the blogfires burning for you out in the styx, with the usual spats of controversy!
When and how can one book for the 2009 conference?
I am still hung over from the event!
Well, I looked over the entire site for Libertarian Alliance and it says nothing about registration for the 2009 conference. If someone could please comment when I should check back to register with time to spare, this 21 year old American college student would appreciate it. Thanks
Whoops, correction:
“…entire site *of* Libertarian Alliance…” would be more accurate, sorry for spamming
As one of the younger crowd (though not a first timer), hello to everyone I met there, was a pleasure.
All the speakers were excellent, my only criticism (if even that) was that there was nothing really new or thought-provoking for me, more a case of reinforcing and builidng on my existing ideas than discovery of new ones.
Andy
There was a similar conference in Berlin yesterday, under the auspices of the Hayek Association. Here’s the link to a report about it: http://ef-magazin.de/2008/10/30/780-gipfeltreffen-der-freiheitsfreunde-wenn-die-nacht-am-tiefsten-ist
(for those who can read German).