Event Archives

FMI Public Speaker Series

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2013

November 2 — How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom

September 30 — Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich

September 16 — Adiós to the Cuban Revolution: 62 Years of Agitprop Down the Drain

April 26 — In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

March 30 — The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind

February 4 — Is Bitcoin a Bubble?

How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom — November 2

Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Innovation will shape the twenty-first century. Yet innovation remains a mysterious process, poorly understood by policy makers and businessmen alike. Dr. Ridley argues that we need to see innovation as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens as a direct result of the human habit of exchange, rather than an orderly, top-down process developing according to a plan. 

The Free Market Institute welcomed Matt Ridley, best-selling author and member of the Science and Technology Select Committee for the UK House of Lords, to present an FMI Public Speaker Series lecture at Texas Tech University on November 2, 2021, based on his book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom.

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Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich — September 30

Finger-wagging moralizers say the love of money is the root of all evil. They assume that making a lot of money requires exploiting others, and that the best way to wash off the resulting stain is to give a lot of it away. In his recently published book, Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich, Jason Brennan shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively “giving back” to society just by doing her job.

The Free Market Institute welcomed Jason Brennan, Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Term Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Georgetown University, to present an FMI Public Speaker Series lecture at Texas Tech University on September 30, 2021, based on his book, Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich.

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Adiós to the Cuban Revolution: 62 Years of Agitprop Down the Drain — September 16

Since taking power in 1959 the communist regime in Cuba has excelled at only two things: Repression and Propaganda. Everything else, from healthcare and education to racial equality and economic development has been a bust. Fidel Castro was a narcissistic sociopath who lived a life of luxury while Cubans suffered dire privation. 

Why most Americans don't know any of this is a testament to six decades of skillful control of the narrative from Havana with a lot of help from American journalists and academics. Now a crack in the facade is bringing the whole thing down. Where does Cuba go from here?

The Free Market Institute welcomed Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Editorial Board Member and author of the “Americas” column for The Wall Street Journal, to present an FMI Public Speaker Series lecture at Texas Tech University on September 16, 2021, co-sponsored by the TTU College of Media & Communication and Liberty Fund, Inc.

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In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom — April 26

Some of us must risk everything for the fundamentals of freedom, dignity, and justice. We must all fight against tyranny. Everything must be taught, even the fundamentals we sometimes take for granted: freedom, compassion, love. For Yeonmi Park, growing up in North Korea, right vs. wrong, justice vs. injustice—these weren't concepts inherently understood or taught. Telling her electrifying story of escape from North Korea, Park explains that the life she left there was "a totally different planet." There's only one definition of love in North Korea—"love for the Dear Leader." Romantic love doesn't exist as a concept or possibility. And for most North Koreans, neither does freedom.

The Free Market Institute welcomed North Korean defector and human rights activist, Yeonmi Park, for a public lecture on April 26, 2021, to recount the incredible story told in her searing memoir, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom (September 2016). 

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The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind — March 30

What is property, and why does our species have it? Bart J. Wilson explores how humans acquire, perceive, and know the custom of property, and why this might be relevant to understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing that neither the sciences nor the humanities synthesizes a full account of property, Dr. Wilson offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: Property is a universal and uniquely human custom.

The Free Market Institute hosted Bart J. Wilson, Donald P. Kennedy Endowed Chair in Economics and Law at Chapman University, on March 30, 2021, to present a public lecture based on his book, The Property Species: Mine, Yours, and the Human Mind (August 2020), to explain why people claim things as "Mine!", and what that means for our humanity. 

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Is Bitcoin a Bubble? —February 4

The price of bitcoin soared from around $9,000 in January 2020 to an astounding $40,000 in January 2021. It is currently around $32,000. Naturally, many are left scratching their heads. Why has the price of bitcoin fluctuated so much over the last year? Why does it remain so valuable today? Dr. Luther considers the fundamental value of bitcoin—and various factors affecting it.

The Free Market Institute hosted William J. Luther, Assistant Professor of Economics at Florida Atlantic University, for a public lecture on February 4, 2021, on the economics of bitcoin.

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