Conferences

Liberty Fund has held more than 4,000 conferences around the world. These small, Socratic-style conferences focus on themes in economics, history, law, political thought, literature, philosophy, religion, and the natural sciences.

Two Businessmen Meeting In Lobby Area Of Modern Office

Conversations Worth Having

Liberty Fund conferences seek to illuminate individual liberty and responsibility through informal yet serious discussion of ideas that have shaped human civilization and free society. These invitation-only events bring together scholars and professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to explore ideas of liberty.

Businessman working on a business trip at the hotel room

A Format Designed to Engage

For each conference, Liberty Fund invites a multidisciplinary and diverse group of individuals to participate in a moderated roundtable discussion about perennial issues of liberty and responsibility. Conferees read assigned texts in advance of the sessions and bring their unique perspectives to the table.

Young businesswoman having discussion with colleagues at conference table

Discussions That Refresh Your Thinking

The conference program reflects the conviction that education in a free society requires discussions that freely engage with ideas that have shaped human civilization and a free society. Liberty Fund brings people together to examine, refine, and expand their own ideas in the company of inquiring colleagues.

Sample Conference Topics

Free Will, Character, Fate, and Dharma in the Mahabharata
Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville on the Conditions of Individual Freedom
The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, and the Constitution They Created
Trust and Economic Growth in Brazil
Liberty and the American West in the Films of John Ford

Virtue, Private Property, and Freedom: East and West
Big Business and the Free Society
Liberty, Responsibility, and Intergenerational Justice
Balzac’s Capitalism: Money, Passions, and Morality in Père Goriot
Cicero and the Republican Tradition of Liberty
Liberty under the Tudors in Hume’s History of England

Liberty Fund hosts conferences that reflect what academia should be. Scholars from different backgrounds and different areas of expertise gather for a long weekend to discuss important books, with no agenda other than an engaged meeting of minds about ideas that matter.

James Otteson

Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Liberty Fund conferences are governed by an understanding that the purpose of its gatherings is not academic disputation, policy formulation, or political proselytizing, but collaborative inquiry and learning. For many of us already schooled and credentialed, Liberty Fund has—through its offerings—supplied a welcome means by which to meet others, share ideas, learn, and so to further our education. Long may it continue in its mission.

Chandran Kukathas

Chair Professor of Political Science, Singapore Management University

In a sense, the conferences embody a fundamental principle of equality: we are all here to learn from each other and exchange thoughts with each other—not to confront, not to impose—but to keep an open and critical disposition, and not be afraid to revise premises or conclusions.

Dr. Roberto Salinas-León

Executive Director, Center for Latin America, Atlas Network

Global Reach

Co-Sponsored Conference Program

In 2004, Liberty Fund began partnering with other organizations to expand our discussions to their networks. Through these partnerships, over 1,000 co-sponsored conferences have been held in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.

Learn More

I have attended many Liberty Fund conferences and meetings that included the writings of Adam Smith... Without this Liberty Fund education and experience, I could not have written with Bart Wilson our book Humanomics. The same acknowledgement applies to my current work with Sabiou Inoua in our program on the rehabilitation of classical economics.

Vernon Smith

Nobel Laureate, Chapman University

An opportunity to read something of enduring interest and exchange thoughts with others bringing diverse perspectives to an open-minded discussion: who would believe something like Liberty Fund conferences could be possible?! These gatherings have enriched my teaching and writing, introducing me to new books and ideas, leading me to rethink familiar ones in a fresh light, and initiating through dialogue friendships that have grown over the years.

Ronna Burger

Professor of Philosophy and Economics, Tulane University

Liberty Fund has managed to create an environment in which genuine conversations—where people listen attentively as well as speak effectively—can occur.

David Womersley

Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature, St. Catherine's College Oxford