I see that our pal over at Brooks Blog has recently participated in a Liberty Fund event. For those who don't know, Liberty Fund organizes multiple events (they call them conferences) each year; the events consist in a few days of discussion among distinguished academics of some classic text dealing with questions of liberty, equality, justice, and the like. In my experience, the events are typically quite nice-- they usually take place in a posh hotel in a nice city, the social aspects are extremely pleasant, and conversations tend to be interesting.
I've participated in several Liberty Fund events over the years. But I started declining their invitations a few years back. I'm not sure why, but I started thinking that there was something objectionable about the fact that during the conversations among the academics, there was always a Liberty Fund representative quietly sitting in the corner taking notes. In the past, I'd tried to get a sense of what the note-taking was all about, but could not get a clear answer. Maybe it's nothing, and I'm overly suspicious. But maybe not. In any case, I began to think that there was something creepy about it all.
So: Does anyone know what the deal is with them?
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7 comments:
I was equally concerned and I have a definitive answer: they just sit there with any notes mere scribbling. The Liberty Fund has about 16 take part in a roundtable discussion with one extra sitting aside from the rest and not permitted to take part. This person -- as in my case -- was a graduate student. She enjoyed the same deal as all other delegates: she just couldn't take part during the sessions. If we needed something, she'd help but that's it.
I hadn't heard of the group until asked to take part a few months ago and must admit that I enjoyed meeting new people and always enjoy discussing liberty --- even if I tend to be the only fan of Hegelian views on liberty, but that's usually the case with me...
Having never been to a Liberty Fund event I can't say anything about the note-takers in general. The Liberty Fund itself is a weird sort of thing. In some ways it's like the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green- an organization designed to promote libertarian and "classical liberal" ideas where part of this is done by getting non-libertarians to interact with, and thereby legitimize, libertarians. That's fine, so long as everyone knows what's going on. Maybe the note takers are trying to see if you play well with libertarians? Any bad they do, though, can perhaps be forgiven for their publishing inexpensive, high-quality copies of a lot of stuff that would otherwise be very hard to find.
Isn't the Liberty Fund a libertarian group? So, in other words, isn't it a group with an ideological stance? Is it an Ayn Rand group also?
"Any bad they do, though, can perhaps be forgiven for their publishing inexpensive, high-quality copies of a lot of stuff that would otherwise be very hard to find."
Brand new copy of David Hume's Essays Moral, Political and Literary... for around 12 US$ or so, on very good paper. So yeah, I'd forgive them for the notetaker.
In grad school I went to an Institute for Humane Studies workshop-- not sure how closely they're affiliated with the Liberty Fund (according to Wikipedia, the guy who eventually started LF was a big contributor to IHS), but they're definitely similar. I and not a few others were surprised that the workshop, which was ostensibly about liberty generally construed, seemed to be more about right-wing libertarian stuff. There were top-notch academics presenting there, in any case, and they had lots of free booze every night. (I wondered though about who was paying for it all!)
Anyway, a few weeks back I received another envelope from IHS (if you attend once, you're on the mailing list for life), with a letter stating that "new threats to liberty" were in the works, and that we had to be on our guard now more than ever, etc., etc. I took this to be the usual stuff in favor of deregulation, and told them to take me off their mailing list. But then again, I'm sure they'll find plenty of others . . . .
yes, some people find the libertarian right-wing subsidies (like those from the Liberty Fund) creepy, others are happy to take the cash. Some of those happy to take the cash share the ideology. Some just want the cash. (I guess they don't care if they are helping to make the stuff look legitimate.) I'm in the camp of those who find it creepy.
On my guess all this institutions just look for money if they really look help people they will made another kind if activities,it's like the church, they look just for money that's why you always saw the priest in a car 2011 model haha.
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