Politics and culture
Scholars and activists share their
insights about cultural trends,
current issues, and the prospects for a free society.
Lindsay
Perigo
The State of the Culture
The annual conference-opening address will be offered this year by Lindsay Perigo,
renowned in New Zealand for his provocative libertarian radio programs and his magazine The
Free Radical. Mr. Perigo
will offer a frank and eye-opening assessment of our cultural environment
while reiterating the case for optimism based on a philosophy of
reason.
Schedule Change: Mr. Perigo will not be presenting this lecture. It will be given by David Kelley instead.
John Bechtel
Seduction, Power, and Happiness: My Life Inside a Cult
Why do people join and remain in cults? How are new members acquired? What is life on the
inside like? When does a movement become a cult? How do successful cults achieve such
incredible motivational power with their believers? What is the psychological legacy of a
cult experience? John Bechtel will describe his personal odyssey through the organization
of Jehovah's Witnesses, including ten years at the top. At the age of five he gave
his first appearance as a child speaker for Jehovah's Witnesses. At 18 he was
accepted to its international headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, where for the next ten
years he continued to write and speak to audiences in the tens of thousands. At the age of
27 he reached a crisis of faith, resigned and moved to Ohio, where he has since built a
successful business and raised a family of four.
 Stephen Moses
How to Survive the Aging of the Baby Boom
The Baby Boom generation is aging during a time of technological change and globalization
comparable in potential impact to the industrial revolution. What is shaping up is a huge
battle of ideas between the old, failing system of altruism and collectivism, and a new
spirit of individualism and self-interest. Stephen Moses will show how we can use the next
ten years (1) to accumulate substantial personal wealth, (2) to mitigate significantly the
damage from social welfare programs, and (3) to mainstream Objectivist values into the
culture. Mr. Moses, a nationally- recognized expert on Medicaid, is director of the Center
for Long-Term Care Financing. He is a tireless and effective advocate of private long-term
care.
John Gillis
Architecture and Freedom
Coercive restrictions on property rights - including zoning laws, rent controls,
building codes, environmental laws, landmark preservation rules, and many
others - reduce the ability of owners and architects to build as they judge best and to
create architecture of distinction. John Gillis will review these limitations, describing
in concrete terms how the denial of property rights can kill aesthetic potential. He will
also present the laissez-faire alternative. Mr. Gillis is the principal of a New York City
architectural firm that has done a wide range of residential and commercial design work.
He has published frequently on architecture and other aesthetic issues.
Charles Tomlinson
Whose Forest Is It, Anyway?
Charles Tomlinson is a consulting forester who has been supplying forestry services to
landowners in the southeast for over forty years. He is the author of A View from my
Stump and many articles and essays in regional forestry magazines. In this talk he
will describe where our forests came from, where they are headed, and how to solve the
"problem" of natural resource management through private property and the market
rather than the government "solutions" favored by most environmentalists.
 It just gets better every year! Both the social
dimension and the intellectual content were a huge source of pleasure for me this
year - I can hardly wait to return "home" in a year's time! Thank you
very much for an experience that energizes and inspires me a whole year long. -
Johann Gevers
Bert Ely, MBA
Who Needs the Fed?
The Federal Reserve harms Americans because, like all central banks, it is a socialist
institution that distorts one of the most important prices in any market economy: interest
rates, that is, the price of credit. Describing the U.S. monetary system as it actually
works today, Bert Ely will explain why the financial markets are far better equipped than
central banks to determine interest rates and growth in credit and money. Mr. Ely is a
consultant on financial institutions and monetary policy. He was an early predictor of the
S&L crisis, and of Japan's current banking crisis. He writes extensively on
monetary matters, consults on the public policy aspects of banking and financial issues,
and publishes a newsletter, Ely's Fed Fax.
Sheldon
Richman
The Dangers of Education Reform
Education expert Sheldon Richman will present the case against the hottest educational
reform measures, vouchers and charter schools. Those proposals, he will argue, do not
reverse the system's assault on liberty and responsibility nor move us toward the
separation of school and state. Seductive as they may be politically, they should be
rejected by advocates of individual liberty. Mr. Richman is the editor of The Freeman:
Ideas on Liberty, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and the author
of Separating School and State: How to Liberate America's Families. Mr.
Richman formerly was senior editor at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane
Studies. He has published widely on a variety of subjects, including education,
population, economics, and history.
 Robert Levy, PhD, JD
Antitrust Insanity: U.S. vs. Microsoft
The Justice Department seeks to transform Microsoft's operating system into public
property, to be designed by bureaucrats and sold on terms congenial to rivals bent on
Microsoft's demise. Robert Levy will show the destructive implications of stripping
private property of its protection against confiscation. By punishing success, politicians
stifle innovation, harm consumers, and convert the antitrust laws into an anti-competitive
subsidy for unsuccessful firms. Meanwhile, our most creative entrepreneurs are forced to
curry favor in Washington, D.C. After a successful 25-year business career, Dr. Levy
earned a J.D. from George Mason University in 1994. He is a senior fellow in
constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and adjunct professor at Georgetown
University Law Center. He has written extensively on the Microsoft case and other issues
of legal policy.
Ed Hudgins,
PhD
New Patterns of Force: Modern Threats to Freedom
In past decades, lawmakers have delegated much of their rulemaking power to unelected
bureaucrats who use vague, open-ended, non-objective authority to limit liberty. Based on
the collectivist premise that each individual's actions affect all other individuals,
statists enslave us through Medicare, the Americans with Disabilities Act, EPA, and other
agencies and programs. They use straight extortion to restrict tobacco and handguns. But
the contradictions in their system offer hope that it can be opposed. Ed Hudgins, who
served as senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, is
director of regulatory studies at the Cato Institute and editor of Regulation
magazine. He has published widely on free trade, the postal monopoly, and other issues.
The most valuable aspect of the Summer
Seminar is the opportunity it provides to meet with other intelligent, benevolent people
who love their own lives and appreciate the value we stand to gain from each other.
- Melinda Ammann
Sam Kazman, JD
Death by Regulation
Government regulatory programs not only restrict human freedom and consumer choice. Some
of these programs literally kill people. Sam Kazman will show how federal auto fuel
economy standards, Food and Drug Administration pre-approval requirements for drugs and
devices, and airline regulations regarding children cause unnecessary deaths. The agencies
that run these programs are often well aware of their consequences, but political
incentives lead them to disregard or conceal these effects, while sovereign immunity
ensures that they will rarely be held judicially accountable. Sam Kazman is General
Counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In 1992 he won a federal appeals court
ruling that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had illegally concealed the
lethal effects of the federal auto fuel economy program on highway safety. He currently
heads CEI's "Death by Regulation" project.
 David Mayer, PhD, JD
Antitrust vs. Capitalism
In the words of Alan Greenspan, antitrust laws "have led to the condemnation of the
productive and efficient members of our society because they are productive and
efficient." This lecture traces the premises of antitrust law to principles that are
feudal, monarchical, and paternalistic - and inapplicable to American society. After
discussing the political origins of the Sherman Act and other major federal antitrust
legislation, David Mayer will then show how the courts have applied the antitrust laws to
punish achievement. A frequent speaker at previous Summer Seminars, Dr. Mayer is professor
of law at Capital University and the author of The Constitutional Thought of Thomas
Jefferson.
Clint Bolick,
JD
Equality: Recapturing an Individualist Principle
Individualism and equality have often been treated as mutually exclusive. In fact,
individualists are the true friends of equality in its surest sense: equality under law.
This lecture will examine competing conceptions of equality, the legal underpinnings of
equality in the American system, and the real-world campaign to recapture the banner of
equality. Clint Bolick is vice-president and director of litigation at the Institute for
Justice, where he leads the nationwide litigation effort to defend school choice programs,
challenge regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship, and eliminate racial classifications.
His latest book is Transformation: The Promise and Politics of Empowerment.
Robert Poole, MS
Flying The Frenzied Skies
Twenty years ago, Congress deregulated airlines, eliminating government controls over
which airlines could fly where and how much they could charge - and saving air
travelers over $19 billion per year. Nevertheless, half a dozen bills to begin
re-regulating airlines were debated last year in Congress, and one or more may pass this
year. Transportation expert Robert Poole will explore the problems that have led to new
calls for regulation. He will show how the dynamic aviation marketplace is running up
against the limits of the bureaucratic, government-run airports and air traffic control
system, and how to move these vital infrastructure operations into the marketplace. Mr.
Poole, the president of the Reason Foundation and publisher of Reason magazine,
has advised the U.S. Department of Transportation and various congressional committees on
these issues.
José Piñera,
Privatizing Social Security
Piñera is the world's leading spokesman and advocate for privatizing Social Security. He is currently President of the International Center for Pension Reform and Co-Chairman of the Cato Project on Social Security privatization.
- Introduction
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