In 2001 we have celebrated the bicentenary of the birth of Frédéric Bastiat.
On this occasion, an international congress was held
in Les Landes
, a département
in the South-West of France
(where Bastiat spent most of his life).
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Dr. Donald J. Boudreaux:
"Resisting the Growth of Governments"
Donald J. Boudreaux will become chairman of the Department of Economics
at George Mason University in August 2001.
He has been president of the
Foundation for Economic Education
since May of 1997.
From 1992 until 1997, he was Professor of Law and Economics
at Clemson University.
He also served on the economics faculty
at George Mason University from 1985 through 1990.
During the Spring 1996 semester he was a Visiting Fellow in Law and Economics
at the Cornell Law School.
He has lectured -- in both the U.S. and Europe -- on a wide variety of topics,
including the nature of law, antitrust law and economics,
and international trade.
He is published in The Wall Street Journal,
Investor's Business Daily, Regulation,
Reason, The Freeman, The Washington Times,
The Journal of Commerce, the Cato Journal,
and several scholarly journals such as
the Supreme Court Economic Review, Southern Economic Journal,
Antitrust Bulletin, and Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking.
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Pr. Gérard Bramoullé:
"Bastiat, von Mises, and Epistemology"
Gérard Bramoullé has a Ph.D. in Economics.
After some research work at the "Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique",
he taught Economics in Paris University.
He is now a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille.
He has made some sharp contributions
to the criticism of Environment Protection by the State,
preferring, of course, the market approach.
He has published a widely used textbook on Money,
and various books and articles on economic subjects.
He is very active in local politics,
and has been for years a deputy mayor of Aix-en-Provence.
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Alphonse Crespo, MD.:
"Market Harmonies and the Medical Trade"
Alphonse Crespo is
a Swiss orthopedic surgeon and author (Esculape Foudroyé).
He has written on issues such as Medical Black Markets,
Market and Medical ethics Pensions and socialised medicine.
Advocate (and past creator) of dissident home schools.
Founding member of now defunct Iatros
(International association of private and independent doctors).
Exasperation with the dwindling of freedom in swiss medical care
led him to quit a thriving surgical practice in march 2000.
Now works as an expert for a major accident insurance fund and...
heeding Pangloss' advice to Candide...
has taken to cultivating freedom in his (small) private garden.
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Mary Lou Gutscher
was our Master of Ceremonies
Mary Lou is president of M L Communications Inc.
and creator of The Strategic Communication Process.
Mary Lou is a former Board Member and VP World Conferences
for the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL).
Under her guidance, the ISIL World Conference in July 2000
set new records in attendance, scholarships, net revenues, and total donations.
Mary Lou is also a former chairman of the Ontario Libertarian Party,
a former board member of the LP of Canada,
and a co-founder of the Unparty (now the Freedom Party of Ontario).
She is an international advisor to
the Institute for Liberty and Public Policy Analysis (INLAP), Costa Rica.
She is coaching the creation of the Youth for Liberty movement in Canada.
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Anthony de Jasay:
"The State"
Anthony de Jasay is an independent scholar living in France.
He was born in Hungary, and studied in Hungary, Australia and England.
He was a don in Oxford till 1962,
publishing papers in learned economics journals.
Subsequently, he went into business.
After his retirement, his interest turned to political philosophy.
His books include "the State" (Oxford 1985),
dubbed "the best Libertarian book of the 20th century"
by Murray Rothbard,
as well as "Choice, Contract and Consent" (London 1991),
"Against Politics" (London 1997), and
"Justice and Its Surroundings" (forthcoming).
German, French, Spanish and Chinese translations of some of these works
have also been published.
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Frances Kendall and Leon Louw
participated in a roundtable with Christian Michel and Stefan Metzler
on Switzerland as a Model Country for Libertarians
Frances Kendall is the Executive Director of Amagi Books
(publisher and book distributor) (1986-2000),
and, yes, she is also the Owner and CEO of
Fred Astaire Eastgate Ballroom.
But for all of us, she is mainly famous for her books,
Super Parents Super Children,
The Heart of the Nation: regional and local government in the new SA,
The SeXY Factor: Gender differences at home and at work,
and also the two epoch making books written with Leon Louw:
The Solution, and Let the People Govern.
She is active in local politics,
and has been a consultant to Groundswell SA,
an organisation formed to educate ordinary South Africans about democracy.
Frances is a very popular public speaker.
She has spoken in front of learned audiences in a large number of countries.
Leon Louw is a well known South African personality
who, for over a generation, has been active in diverse aspects of public life.
He is credited with having had a significant impact
on the course of events in South Africa,
especially regarding the extensive economic reforms
that have taken place during the past decade.
He has received numerous international awards,
and, with his wife, Frances Kendall,
has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace prize.
Presently he is the Executive Director of the
Free Market Foundation (FMF)
and of the Law Review Project.
Mr Louw co-authored South Africa: The Solution
and Let the People Govern, both of which
had a significant impact on the constitutional process.
Mr Louw is one of South Africa's most highly regarded
political analysts and forecasters,
and one the country's best known public speakers.
He comments frequently in the local and foreign media,
and on national radio and TV,
and has a reputation for being uncannily accurate in his predictions.
He has also played a key role in the establishment
of half a dozen of South Africa's most respected institutes and NGO's.
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Alain Laurent:
"Bastiat and Proudhon"
Alain Laurent taught Philosophy
(in some "classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles")
and Sociology (at University of Paris I) during his entire professional career.
He is director of the collection "Iconoclastes"
for the book publisher "Belles-Lettres",
in which he published (in French) texts by
Spencer, Spooner, Turgot, Ayn Rand, etc.
He also wrote many essays on individualism,
solidarity and classical liberalism,
including
De l'individualisme (1985),
Solidaire si je veux (1991),
Les grands courants du libéralisme (1998) and
Libéral? (forthcoming).
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Bertrand Lemennicier is
Professor of Economics at the University of Paris (Pantheon - Assas),
and "Directeur du Laboratoire d'Économie Publique de Paris II".
He is a member of the Mont Pélerin Society
He has published three books and numerous earthshaking,
non conformist articles, some of which can be found on his website:
www.lemennicier.com
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Bob Mc Teer is President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
since February 1991.
He grew up in rural Georgia and received his Ph.D. in economics
from the University of Georgia.
He served on the Georgia faculty for two years
before joining the Richmond Fed in 1968 as an economist.
He took on management responsibilities in the early
1970s and served as an assistant to the bank's president.
After spending the 1970s at the Richmond Fed,
Bob became manager of its Baltimore Branch in 1980,
where he remained until coming to Texas in 1991.
Bob was an adjunct professor at the University of Richmond
and Virginia Commonwealth University during the 1970s
and Johns Hopkins University in the 1980s.
He also served on the faculty of several state and regional banking schools.
Since coming to Texas, Bob has been a prolific writer
and has maintained a heavy speaking schedule.
You may find selected articles, speeches and even some poetry
on the Dallas Fed's web site at
www.dallasfed.org.
Bob is a strong advocate for free enterprise,
and under his leadership, the Dallas Fed has become known
as the ``free enterprise Fed'' and, more recently, the ``New Economy Fed.''
He is a past president of the Association of Private Enterprise Education,
a national association of holders of chairs of free enterprise
and other scholars who advocate free market solutions
to public policy problems.
As president of the Dallas Fed, he is a member
of the Federal Open Market Committee,
the Fed's principal monetary policymaking body.
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Christian Michel was born in Paris 57 years ago.
After dropping out of the Sorbonne University,
he did odd jobs in the film and advertising industries,
before entering the real life as telex operator
at an American stock broking firm.
Working his way up the corporate ladder,
he eventually became finance director of a public company in Geneva.
In 1986, he bought his employer's small portfolio management unit.
It grew into a successful trust & corporate services company,
with 12 offices in Europe.
Having sold the business to his partners,
Christian Michel moved to London in June 2000.
Christian Michel is one of the founders of
Libertarian International,
and the main author of
www.liberalia.com
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Serge Milhaud:
"Contractual Recycling of Consumer Packaging"
Serge Milhaud,
after attending the french National School for Statistic and Economy,
joined the Nestlé Group in 1958.
After having hold various marketing positions,
he was nominated Executive-President of Nestlé-France in 1981.
In 1985 he was assigned, at the group headquarters,
the woldwide responsibility for beverages
(Nescafé, Nesquick, Mineral-water, etc...).
In 1992, he was appointed President and CEO of the Perrier-Vittel group,
covering the bottle-water activity of the Nestlé group,
which is today the world leader of this sector.
In 1987, he was one of the creators of ERRA,
the European recovery and recycling association,
and headed this organisation as its executive Vice-President.
He was in the board of Eco-emballages since 1994
and was nominated President when he retired from the Nestlé group in 1997.
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Pr. Philippe Nataf:
"The Future of Currencies"
Philippe Nataf has
a master in Statistics from the Institute of Statistics of Paris,
a Ph.D. in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of California,
and a doctorate in Economics from the Paris University.
At Paris University, he directs Ph.D. theses.
He teaches in different Organisms such as the Bank of France.
He has been invited to deliver conferences at
Harvard, Columbia, George Mason, Pittsburg, Maryland.
He has written a number of books and articles, mostly in English,
on financial matters, and more particularly on Free Banking,
subject on which he has acquired an international reputation.
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Jan Narveson is a native of Minnesota, U.S.A. and was educated
at the University of Chicago (B.A., 1956) and Harvard (PhD, 1961).
He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo in Canada
where he has been since 1963.
He became interested in libertarian theory in the 1970s,
leading to his book, The Libertarian Idea in 1989 (republished 2001).
He is the author of several hundred articles and reviews
in many philosophical and other journals,
and of several other books, including Moral Matters (2nd ed., 1999),
and a new one about to be published,
tentatively entitled Moral and Political Essays.
Jan also devotes a large part of his life
to the arranging of Chamber Music concerts in his own home,
as well as to the support of several musical organizations
in his home city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
You can visit his website at
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~jnarveso/homepage.htm
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Madsen Pirie is a graduate of the Universities of
Edinburgh, St Andrews and Cambridge.
He is President of the free market think tank,
the Adam Smith Institute.
Prior to that he was Professor of Logic & Philosophy
at Hillsdale in Michigan.
In the Institute, Dr Pirie was part of the influential team
which pioneered many policy innovations successfully enacted by government.
These included privatization and the extension of market choices
and incentives into other areas, including education.
Dr Pirie is the author of several books, including
The Book of the Fallacy,
Micropolitics, Privatization, and
Blueprint for a Revolution.
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Pascal Salin has a Ph.D. in Economics and a degree in Sociology.
He is a professor of Finance in the University of Paris.
Former president of the Mont Pélerin Society,
Pascal Salin is a renowned expert in Financial matters,
author of several books translated in various languages,
and numerous articles in the best financial reviews of the world.
He has taught and given conferences in numerous countries.
His latest book, Libéralisme,
is an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of Libertarianism,
possibly the most comprehensive, up to date,
and clearest one in the French language since Frédéric Bastiat.
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Ken Schoolland is currently
an Associate Professor of Economics and Political Science
at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu.
Schoolland served as an international economist
in the U.S. International Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Commerce,
and on assignment to the White House,
Office of the Special Representative for Trade Negotiations.
Disillusioned with the politics of Washington, D.C.,
he left to teach at Sheldon Jackson College in Alaska, Hawaii Loa College,
and at Hakodate University in Japan.
He later became Director of the Master of Science
in Japanese Business Studies Program at Chaminade University of Honolulu.
Ken Schoolland is a member of the Board of Directors of
the International Society for Individual Liberty,
a Sam Walton Fellow for Students in Free Enterprise,
and three years served as Chairman of he Libertarian Party of Hawaii.
He has authored two books:
1) The Adventures of
Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey
is an educational publication of Small Business Hawaii
that has been translated and published in more than twenty languages;
2) Shogun's Ghost: The Dark Side of Japanese Education
was published in English and Japanese.
A previous speech by Ken Schoolland on immigration, given in Berlin in 2000,
is available on
liberalia.com.
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George Sherman received his MBA degree from the University of Michigan,
and joined Standard Oil Co. (NJ), now ExxonMobil Corporation, in 1959.
After assignments in Chile and Japan, in 1973,
George was named Controller of Esso Eastern,
the affiliate responsible for operations in the Far East and Australia.
In 1976 he became Controller of Esso Europe, in London,
with responsibility for Western Europe and Africa.
He was designated Controller of Exxon USA in Houston in 1982.
Mr. Sherman retired in 1990,
and is active as a consultant with the Greater Houston Community Foundation
and as a member of the Advisory Council of the University of West Florida,
College of Business.
He and his wife, Geri, reside in Fulshear, Texas.
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Rigoberto Stewart is a native of Limón Province, Costa Rica.
Besides degrees in agriculture and agricultural economics,
he holds a Ph.D in Economics from North Carolina State University.
He has taught at two universities in Costa Rica
and has consulted internationally
for organizations and governments all over Latin America.
Dr. Stewart is a co-founder of
Movimiento Libertario,
and is founder and Executive Director of
the Institute for Liberty and Policy Analysis.
He has published many books, articles and monographs,
including The Hidden Truths of Protectionism, and
Limón REAL, a Free and Autonomous Region.
He is a frequent contributor to the editorial page
of Costa Rica's major newspaper (La Nación),
as well as other national and international newspapers and magazines.
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Benoîte Taffin was elected
Mayor of the 2nd "arrondissement" of Paris,
and sat at Paris' city council from 1995 to march 2001.
She is since 1996 President of
Contribuables Associés
("United Taxpayers"),
an association of citizens that receives no governmental subsidy,
that gathers over 140 000 members.
The purpose of this association is
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to incite citizens to be informed with regards to public spendings,
so they will control these through their representatives in legislative bodies.
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to incite politicians to save tax money by keeping an eye
on the way government, regions, districts and townships administrate,
and by demanding public justifications from elected representatives
on precise cases of waste or of extravagant expenditures.
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to fight bureaucracy and have it simplify administrative paperwork.
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Michael and Flory van Notten:
"Life in Somalian Stateless tribes"
Michael van Notten is currently President and CEO of the
Awdal Roads Company,
a venture aiming at building roads and a port in Somaliland, East Africa.
He is a Dutch lawyer, with wide experience
in development planning and implementation.
He has practiced law in Europe and the United States,
and has applied this knowledge in various other parts of the world.
He settled among the Somalis in the Horn of Africa in 1991
shortly after they returned to their traditional form of government.
He is committed to the concept of integrated economic development
in an enabling environment based on natural law
with minimum governmental involvement in the conduct of business.
Michael will be helped in his presentation
by his wife Flory and his partner Jim Davidson,
both of whom occupy key positions in the Awdal Roads Company.
Flory van Notten, a.k.a. Nim'a Ahmed,
is a Somali national.
She has extensive experience in management and education.
She and Michael are among the founders of the Awdal Development Agency
located in Borama and the Eastern Harawe Development Agency in Jigjiga,
Ethiopia.
Jim Davidson is an entrepreneur with a wide range of experience
in business development and real estate
including substantial experience in the high technology field.
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Audio and Video tapes of each of the speeches of the conference
are available from
Jim Turney <Jim@LibertyTapes.com>.
There are also a few video tapes of souvenir for those who attended.
The pictures we had of the conference were lost in a hard disk crash.
If you have some of them, you may
and contact us by email.
Lack of backup copies is bad.
Be sure to have a backup of whatever data you have that you care for.
