European Students for Liberty, ESFL, holds a regional conference in Reykjavik Saturday 8 October 2016. Three distinguished foreign speakers give lectures: Dr. Tom Palmer of Atlas Network and Cato Institue in Washington DC presents the case for liberty; Tom recently published Self-Control or State-Control: You Decide. Dr. of the Institute for Humane Studies in Arlington, Virginia, describes the main libertarian schools (the Austrian economists, Mises and Hayek, the Chicago economists, Friedman and Becker, the Public Choice school led by James M. Buchanan, the Natural Rights theorists such as Robert Nozick and Ayn Rand, and the anarcho-capitalists, Murry Rothbard and David Friedman). Dr. Barbara Kolm of the Austrian Economics Centre in Vienna provides a libertarian/classical liberal analysis of the European Union.
A Panel Discussion will also take place between two young candidates in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, Aslaug Arna Sigurbjornsdottir of the Independence Party and Pawel Bartoszek, of Vidreisn. They will debate which party is the most liberal in Icelandic politics. Registration starts at 11 at the University of Reykjavik, and the programme starts at 11.30 and ends at 16. The financial company Gamma hosts a reception for the conference 18.30 at its headquarters in Gardastraeti 37.
The Public Book Club (Almenna bokafelagid) offers conference attendees some of its publications at a hefty discount. Heimur batnandi fer (The Rational Optimist) by Matt Ridley; the novels Undirstadan (Atlas Shrugged), Uppsprettan (The Fountainhead) and Kira Argunova (We the Living) by Ayn Rand; paperbacks by journalists on current affairs, Icesave-samningarnir: afleikur aldarinnar? (The Icesave-Deals: The Blunder of the Century?) by Sigurdur Mar Jonsson, Bushaldabyltingin: sjalfsprottin eda skipulogd? (The Pots-and-Pans Revolution: Spontaneous or Planned?) by Stefan Gunnar Sveinsson, Andersen-skjolin: rannsoknir eda ofsoknir (The Andersen Documents: Investigations or Persecutions) by Eggert Skulason; reprints of anti-totalitarian literature, published both online and on paper, Greinar um kommunisma (Articles on Communism) by Bertrand Russell; Konur i þraelakistum Stalins (Women in Stalin’s Prison Camps) by Elinor Lipper and Aino Kuusinen, Ur alogum (Out of the Night) by Jan Valtin (aka Richard Krebs), Leyniraedan um Stalin (Secret Speech on Stalin) by Nikita Khruschev, Orlaganott yfir Eystrasaltslondum (Baltic Eclipse) by Ants Oras and Eistland. Smathjod undir oki erlends valds (Estonia: A Study in Imperialism) by Andres Küng. The participation of RNH in the conference forms a part of a project with AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe, Iceland, and the Future of Capitalism”.
