It was great to have C.Jay Engel join us for this years AERC. 

At AustroLibertarian.com he has written about his experiences at the conference. 

If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, interchangeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not? Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died? The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own.

Despite the central role played by State controlled central banks and financial institutions in bringing about the conditions which led to the global credit crunch of 2008, free markets and “capitalism,” rather than government failure, have taken all the blame for that complex crisis, and Marxism and other varieties of socialism are once again attracting the enthusiastic support of many young people in our universities and colleges.

Liberals stressed the importance of the invidual. The nineteenth-century liberals already considered the development of the individual the most important thing. “Individual and individualism” was the progressive and liberal slogan. Reactionaries had already attacked this position at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Unable to attend AERC 2018 in person? Thanks to our generous sponsors, you can watch live broadcasts of the named lectures at Mises.org/live. All times are CDT.

Friday, 23 March

9:15 - 10:15 a.m. The F.A. Hayek Memorial Lecture (Sponsored by Greg and Joy Morin): Roger Garrison, “The Road to Hayek”

In last year’s French presidential election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, I joked that voters should choose the socialist over the socialist, but made a serious point that Macron – despite having been part of Hollande’s disastrous government – was preferable since there was at least a hope of market-oriented ref

“This is just a truly astonishing moment coming from the White House podium,” tweeted MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt. Like the rest of the media pack-animals she hunts with, Ms. Hunt had been fuming over President Trump’s telephone call to Vladimir Putin, congratulating him on winning another term as president.

Reliably opposed to a truce were party heavies on both sides. Sen. John McCain joined the chorus: “An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,” he intoned.

Today offers the latest reminder that the question of US default is not a matter of “if”, but “how.”