Welcome to the Free Market Road Show! The annual international conference organized by the Austrian Economics Center and Hayek Institute, in collaboration with the Centre for Free Economic Thought, returns with a very special program: the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence and the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which together mark the first explicit articulation and moral-political defense of what would later be recognized as Capitalism – a system based on individual rights, private property, and voluntary exchange.
Program:
1776: The 250th Anniversary of the Birth of Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal. Celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence and the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.
What were the critical contributions of Adam Smith and the Founding Fathers to our civilisation based on individual rights, private property and free markets? Our civilisation is under severe threat today from forces opposed to Capitalism in all of these critical features. Is it too late to save it? What was missing in 1776 that facilitated the current state of affairs? What philosophical foundations are required to sustain Capitalism today? Why has Capitalism been described as “the unknown ideal”?
Join us to learn and debate these topics with international speakers from the USA, the UK, Australia, and Spain. Two of them were audience favourites in previous FMRS events at EBS.
- Opening & Welcome Remarks:
Matt Wall, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn
Philip Gater-Smith, Head of the British Embassy’s Political Team - Eamonn Butler: ”Adam Smith and his Wealth of Nations”
- John Fund: ”The US Declaration of Independence”
- Juan Sáenz-Diez: ”The philosophical birth of Capitalism”
- Ron Manners: ”Freedom, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
- Q&A
- Social Hour
Capitalism is widely credited with lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, extending life expectancy, and reducing child mortality where it has been most consistently applied. It unleashed and sustained the Industrial Revolution, which brought about unprecedented levels of discovery and technological advancement that explain our present levels of prosperity and well-being. The independent and almost simultaneous publication in 1776 of “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith, and the United States Declaration of Independence, marked a turning point. These events were the culmination of a long intellectual development—from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment—that placed reason, individual liberty, and scientific inquiry at the centre of human progress.
Capitalism developed out of a long philosophical journey, a logical accumulation of philosophical and scientific insights. And yet, Capitalism as a philosophical system was not yet fully developed by 1776, which left it vulnerable to internal contradictions and external critique. It did not receive a full systematic philosophical articulation until the mid-20th century – by which time socialism and the welfare state had taken a strong grip on most economies in the world, leading to the erosion of freedom and inferior economic outcomes.
