Guido Huelsmann, “The State and the Gold Market” (PFS 2012)

The Eighth Annual Meeting of the PFS will be held from Thursday, September 19, to Tuesday, September 24, 2013, in Bodrum, Turkey, at the Hotel Karia Princess. Those interested in attending should contact Dr. Hoppe or Mr. Grözinger, Administrative Secretary, regarding conditions, availability, and requirements. More information about the speakers and topics may be found here. (Please be advised that nearly half of all available places have already been reserved. So don't wait too long.)

[The Seventh Annual Meeting of the PFS was held in Bodrum, Turkey, from Thursday September 27 through Monday October 1, 2012. The list of speakers and topics may be found here. ]

“Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.” — Frédéric Bastiat

The Property and Freedom Society (PFS; Facebook) stands for an uncompromising intellectual radicalism: for justly acquired private property, freedom of contract, freedom of association—which logically implies the right to not associate with, or to discriminate against—anyone in one's personal and business relations—and unconditional free trade. It condemns imperialism and militarism and their fomenters, and champions peace. It rejects positivism, relativism, and egalitarianism in any form, whether of "outcome" or "opportunity," and it has an outspoken distaste for politics and politicians. As such it seeks to avoid any association with the policies and proponents of interventionism, which Ludwig von Mises identified in 1946 as the fatal flaw in the plan of the many earlier and contemporary attempts by intellectuals alarmed by the rising tide of socialism and totalitarianism to found an anti-socialist ideological movement. Mises wrote: "What these frightened intellectuals did not comprehend was that all those measures of government interference with business which they advocated are abortive. ... There is no middle way. Either the consumers are supreme or the government."

(A more complete statement of our Principles can be found here.)