Abbreviation PFS Type Social theory | Formation 2006 Location Bodrum, Turkey | |
Motto Uncompromising intellectual radicalism Website www.propertyandfreedom.org | ||
The Property and Freedom Society (PFS) is an Austro-libertarian organization devoted to the promotion of property rights, free trade, anti-empiricism when it comes to economics, anti-militarism, anti-egalitarianism, freedom of association, and cultural conservatism. Founded in May 2006 under the stewardship of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a libertarian theorist and former University of Nevada, Las Vegas Business School professor, PFS presents itself as a more radically libertarian alternative to the Mont Pelerin Society. The PFS holds annual conferences where paleolibertarian and conservative intellectuals deliver speeches and exchange ideas in what Hans-Hermann Hoppe suggests is a "political-correctness-free zone."
Contents
Mission
On the fifth anniversary of PFS, Hoppe reflected on its goals:
On the one hand, positively, it was to explain and elucidate the legal, economic, cognitive and cultural requirements and features of a free, state-less natural order.
Annual conferences
Conferences have been held annually since 2006, in Bodrum, Turkey. The tenth conference was held in September 2015. Since 2013 they have been held in September.
The PFS annual meeting explicitly aims to promote discrimination as logical choice, affirming individual responsibility - attracting growing support from intellectuals and entrepreneurs from around the globe due to their purported realisation that there is no practical difference between discrimination and choice. In addition to the formal proceedings of the conferences, there are integrated activities such as a boat trip into the Aegean Sea, excursions to local fishing villages, and firework displays followed by gala nights. The evolution of the nature of the conferences was described in a talk on the History of the Property and Freedom Society in 2015 at the 10th Anniversary Meeting.
The Eighth Annual Meeting of PFS was held in from September 19–24, 2013. Topics on the agenda included "The Myth of American Exceptionalism," and "World War Two Revisited," and "Why are the Jews So Smart?," as well as a presentation on the history of race relations in the United States delivered by white nationalist and segregationist Jared Taylor. PFS Founder Hans-Hermann Hoppe presented his remarks "On the Nature of Man, Truth, and Justice." It featured lectures by LSU law school graduate Stephan Kinsella on the legal structure of an anarchist society; lectures by Hoppe on Rothbardian economics; and discussions on the role of race in America by racialist scientist Richard Lynn and white nationalists Jared Taylor and Richard B. Spencer. Other speakers who have spoken at PFS include: Paul Gottfried, Peter Brimelow, John Derbyshire, and Justin Raimondo. English classical liberal and Libertarian Alliance Director Sean Gabb has spoken at a number of meetings on a variety of topics including the link between conservatism and liberty, the case against the American War of Independence, and the life and politics of Enoch Powell.
Allegations of racism
Noting the racialist affiliations of Richard Lynn and Jared Taylor, the Southern Poverty Law Center condemned the PFS as a "serious academic racist event" populated by the "movers and shakers" of the racialist movement. A May 11, 2007 Las Vegas Review-Journal article described the Anti-Defamation League's criticism of PFS and noted that Lynn has described black people as "more psychopathic than whites".
A 2013 Anti-Defamation League report about "increased cooperation" between European and American racists referred to Taylor as a white supremacist and cited his appearance at the 2013 PFS conference.