Libertarian International Organization

Dr. Palmer challenges  the often self-serving misidentification of moral capitalism with cronyism by officials in this excerpt from a talk at the Locke Foundation.

LIO Fellow Dr. Tom Palmer is travelling the world to share views on Libertarianism, encourage young scholars, and promote study societies and think tanks. His book Morality of Capitalism (Free e-book, please share)  is an entertaining, paradigm-busting set of essays  being translated into many languages.

The Liberatarian advocate and educative  philosopher travels to many countries with his book as a core text shared in translation with local workshops. The book introduces key information and helps the reader who challenges common false choices and myths--such as identification of free capitalism with cronyism--needed for those in countries where information is often hard to obtain or effectively censored. Usrs say the  book is suitable for preparation towards more advanced awareness of Libertarian themes, while stimulating interest in historical mythologies, economics and policy in general.

Topics handled include the concept of capitalism as a moral tool for empowering individuals and voluntary and effective co-operation; common misconceptions; themes of application beyond usual business ones; and extensive recommendations for additional research bibliography and refrences for young scholars and informed citizens.Many feel the work is an an excellent companion to LIO Fellow Ayn Rand's Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal or Economics in One Lesson (Free e-book) but is also being provided as a book free to students.

Dr. Palmer earned his B.A. in liberal arts from St. John's College, his M.A. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, and his doctorate in political science from Oxford University, where he was an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College. During the late 1980s and the very early 1990s he worked with the Institute for Humane Studies and other organizations to spread classical-liberal/libertarian ideas in Eastern Europe. He traveled throughout the region to hold seminars and smuggled books, cash, photocopiers, and fax machines from an office in Vienna, Austria.

Palmer is currently attempting to duplicate in the Middle East some of the work he did in Eastern Europe. He has commissioned translation into Middle Eastern languages (Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Azeri) and publication of works by Frederic Bastiat, F. A. Hayek, James Madison, and other libertarian influences, and has published essays in Middle Eastern languages on such topics as "Challenges of Democratization" and "Religion and the Law."

In April 2005 Palmer addressed members of the Iraqi parliament in the parliamentary assembly hall on constitutionalism and has written on Iraq.] He has also promoted the creation of a libertarian web site, lampofliberty.org, where it is available in Arabic, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and Persian; and started an Arabic publishing venture. He continues to lecture in the Middle East and works closely with Arabic and Persian bloggers. He has been actively involved in campaigning for free speech rights in the Middle East, notably with the campaign to free Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, through articles in the Washington Post, the Daily Star of Lebanon, and other activities.

Palmer's political activities include being founding member and national secretary of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (1979–81), president of the Oxford Civil Liberties Society (1993–94), and manager or communications director for several political campaigns. He was a plaintiff in Parker v. District of Columbia, a successful lawsuit in Washington, D.C. to secure the right to own a handgun in one's home, based on the text of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

RESOURCES

• To contribute to his project  and watch free videos, http://atlasnetwork.org/blog/2011/02/the-morality-of-free-enterprise/
• Learn of his latest work, please see: http://tomgpalmer.com/