:Property and Freedom Society#Allegations of racism
{{Short description|Austro-libertarian political organization}}
{{unreliable sources|date=July 2018}}
{{Infobox organization
| name = Property and Freedom Society
| image = Property and Freedom Society.jpg
| size = 200px
| abbreviation = PFS
| formation = 2006
| type = Social theory
| president = Hans-Hermann Hoppe
| headquarters =
| website = {{URL|http://www.propertyandfreedom.org}}
}}
The Property and Freedom Society (PFS) is an anarcho-capitalist political organization located in Bodrum, Turkey. Founded in May 2006 by the academic Hans-Hermann Hoppe, PFS presents itself as a more radically right-libertarian alternative to the free-market Mont Pelerin Society.{{Third-party inline|date=June 2023}}
The PFS holds annual conferences where paleolibertarian and paleoconservative intellectuals deliver speeches and exchange ideas in what Hoppe suggests is a "political correctness–free zone".{{Third-party inline|date=June 2023}} Leading figures of the European New Right and the American alt-right have attended.{{sfn|Wasserman|2019|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}} The group has garnered controversy for including speakers such as the white supremacists Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer and the eugenicist Richard Lynn.
History and mission
PFS conferences include members of the former John Randolph Club along with "new advocates of stateless libertarianism and racial secession", in the words of the academic Quinn Slobodian.{{sfn|Slobodian|2023|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}} According to the society, it promotes free trade, peace, and the right to "discriminate against anyone in one's personal and business relations".
Hoppe, the founder, is a Rothbardian political theorist and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Business School.{{Third-party inline|date=June 2023}} 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. On the other hand, negatively, it was to unmask the State and showcase it for what it really is: an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers, and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots – an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches."{{cite web |last=Hoppe |first=Hans Hermann |title=The Property And Freedom Society – Reflections After Five Years |url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/hans-hermann-hoppe/my-life-on-the-right/ |accessdate=6 September 2013 |publisher=lewrockwell.com}}
In a 2017 speech titled "Libertarianism and the Alt-Right", Hoppe asserted that "highly restrictive, highly selective and discriminating immigration" was "highly compatible with libertarianism and its desideratum of freedom of association and opposition to forced integration".{{sfn|Hermansson|Lawrence|Mulhall|Murdoch|2020|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}}
Leading figures of the European New Right and the American alt-right hosted by the conference have included Paul Gottfried, Thomas DiLorenzo, Peter Brimelow, John Derbyshire, Tomislav Sunić, Spencer, Lynn, and Taylor.{{sfn|Wasserman|2019|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}}{{sfn|Hermansson|Lawrence|Mulhall|Murdoch|2020|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}}
Conferences
Conferences have been held annually since 2005, in Bodrum, Turkey.{{sfn|Slobodian|2023|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}} At the conferences, "prophets of racial and social breakdown share the stage with investment advisors and financial consultants", Slobodian wrote in 2023.{{sfn|Slobodian|2023|p={{pn|date=January 2025}}}}
The PFS annual meeting explicitly aims to promote discrimination as logical 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.{{cite web|author=The Backbencher |title=The Club Med of Libertarian Conferences |work=The Backbencher |date=14 October 2015 |url=http://thebackbencher.co.uk/the-property-and-freedom-society-the-club-med-of-libertarian-conferences/}}{{Self-published inline|date=August 2023}}{{dead link|date=January 2025}}
Allegations of racism
PFS has garnered controversy for including speakers such as the white supremacists Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer and the eugenicist academic Richard Lynn.{{Cite news |last=Ganz |first=John |date=2021-10-28 |title=Perspective {{!}} Libertarians have more in common with the alt-right than they want you to think |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/19/libertarians-have-more-in-common-with-the-alt-right-than-they-want-you-to-think/ |access-date=2023-08-07 |issn=0190-8286}} A May 11, 2007, Las Vegas Review-Journal article about the PFS noted that Lynn has described black people as "more psychopathic than whites".Mower, Lawrence (May 11, 2007). [https://web.archive.org/web/20070313193453/http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Mar-11-Sun-2007/news/13063858.html "Researchers tied to hate groups get invitations."] Las Vegas Review-Journal Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the 2007 conference as a "serious academic racist event". A 2013 Anti-Defamation League report about "increased cooperation" between European and American racists cited Taylor's speech at the 2013 PFS conference titled "A Brief History of US Race Relations".{{Cite web |title=Racists in Europe and the United States Increase Cooperation {{!}} ADL |url=https://www.adl.org/resources/news/racists-europe-and-united-states-increase-cooperation |access-date=2023-08-30 |website=www.adl.org |language=en}}
Describing the PFS, the SPLC said in 2016 that "in Hoppe one can see the connection between the ultra-Libertarians and white nationalists".{{cite news |last1=Piggott |first1=Stephen |title=PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel to Address White Nationalist-Friendly "Property and Freedom Society" Conference in September |url=https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hate-watch/paypal-co-founder-peter-thiel-address-white-nationalist-friendly-property-and-freedom/ |work=Southern Poverty Law Center |date=9 June 2016 }} Intelligencer in 2017 described the annual PFS meeting as "Davos, but for racists".{{cite news |last1=Van Zuylen-Wood |first1=Simon |last2=Malone |first2=Noreen |last3=Read |first3=Max |last4=Sullivan |first4=Andrew |last5=MacDougald |first5=Park |last6=Willick |first6=Jason |last7=Jacobson |first7=Mark |last8=O'Connor |first8=Maureen |last9=Sherman |first9=Gabriel |last10=Crair |first10=Ben |last11=Richardson |first11=Nick |last12=O'Connell |first12=Mark |title=Beyond Alt: Understanding the New Far Right |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/04/beyond-alt-understanding-the-new-far-right.html |work=Intelligencer |date=30 April 2017 }}
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780429032486 |title=The International Alt-Right |date=2020 |last1=Hermansson |first1=Patrik |last2=Lawrence |first2=David |last3=Mulhall |first3=Joe |last4=Murdoch |first4=Simon |isbn=978-0-429-03248-6 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Slobodian |first1=Quinn |title=Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy |date=2023 |publisher=Metropolitan Books |isbn=978-1-250-75390-8 }}
- {{cite book |doi=10.12987/9780300249170 |jstor=j.ctvnwbxwf |title=The Marginal Revolutionaries |date=2019 |last1=Wasserman |first1=Janek |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-24917-0 }}
External links
- {{cite news |title=Tolerating intolerance: Far-right activists and libertarians converge in Turkey |url=https://hopenothate.org.uk/2019/09/13/tolerating-intolerance-far-right-activists-and-libertarians-converge-in-turkey/ |work=HOPE not Hate |date=13 September 2019 }}
Category:Organizations established in 2006
Category:Anarcho-capitalist organizations