The Pin Factory Blog

The Adam Smith Institute is looking for a bright, enthusiastic student on their gap year between school and university to come and work for us. The role would be a mixture of administrative work around the office and helping the ASI team with their research and policy work on an ad hoc basis.

It’s a great opportunity if you want to gain some experience in an exciting think tank. We are nice, fun people to work with, so candidates should enjoy working with others as part of a team. You should be interested in our work and willing to roll up your sleeves to do some of the less glamorous work around the office too.

This position pays £6.31/hour, and depending on the candidate is either a six-month or year-long position.

If you’d like to apply, send the following to tng@adamsmith.org:

1. an up-to-date CV;
2. two hundred words about yourself and why you think you’d be good for the job;
3. a four hundred word blogpost in the style of the ASI blog about why liberty is the best policy in an area of your choosing.

Applications close on June 22nd.

On a gap year and looking for something interesting?

If you are already on a gap year and looking for something stimulating, rewarding and worthwhile that can also enhance your CV and your experience, you might consider spending some time with the Adam Smith Institute.  We have space for someone currently on a gap year who might join us to help on some exciting new projects. 

You know what we do and where we stand.  If you feel this is compatible with your own position, get in touch with us at TNG@adamsmith.org with a copy of your CV and a few paragraphs about yourself. We will cover expenses and compensate you for your time.

It's that time of year again. After the roaring success of last year's inaugural conference, the Liberty League Freedom Forum 2013 is only weeks away.

For just £35 per ticket, they've booked out the UCL School of Pharmacy in central London, and will be providing your accommodation, meals, drink and books for the entire weekend, as well as giving you the chance to meet other young pro-liberty activists from all over the UK. If you're based in London, it's £25 without accommodation.

You'll have the chance to meet and debate some of the liberty movement's best speakers, and take part in seminars and lectures with topics such as Bleeding Heart Libertarianism, free-banking and currency reform, the feasibility and desirability of anarcho-capitalism, why healthcare costs seem to always rise, whether the private sector can really build the roads, how innovation undermines Leviathan, libertarian conceptions of the law, free market environmentalism, out-innovating dictatorships, and a whole lot more too.

This will be alongside activism and training sessions exploring and improving skills in journalism, public relations, public speaking, and how to set up and run pro-liberty student societies on campus.

With even more speakers to be announced over the next few days, the list already includes Sam Bowman, Research Director of the Adam Smith Institute, along with Mark Littlewood, Dr Richard Wellings, Brendan O'Neill, Steve Baker MP, Douglas Carswell MP, Abebe Gellaw, Dr Anders Sandberg, Dr Terence Kealey, Dr Kevin Dowd, Professor Mark Pennington, Chris Snowdon, Dr Steve Davies, Linda Whetstone, JP Floru, Wolf von Laer, Professor Randy Barnett, Mark Wallace, Alex Singleton, and Jamie Whyte.

Date: 5th-7th April

Venue: UCL School of Pharmacy, and Generator Hostel, London.

Check out full details all of the sessions and speakers, and book your ticket right away by clicking here: http://uklibertyleague.org/2013/01/14/llff13/

On March 8th-10th, European Students For Liberty (ESFL) will present the second ESFL Conference, hosted by the Classical Liberal Students Association at the Catholic University of Leuven (15 minutes away from Brussels) in Belgium. Inviting students, graduates, and guests across the continent, ESFLC will feature lectures from scholars and activists in the liberty movement, free meals, books, pamphlets and campus swag for student groups to take back to their universities. Students will be able to connect with top liberty organizations to find information on internships, jobs, seminars and conferences at the liberty fair. Evening socials with speakers and students will top off Friday and Saturday nights in the Leuven area for lively discussions and good cheer for liberty.

Confirmed speakers include James Turk of the GoldMoney Foundation, Tom Palmer of the Atlas Network, David and Emily Skarbek of King’s College, entrepreneurs like John Chisholm and Daniel Model, and more. A lively student debate on rival concepts of liberty will give students an exciting and thought-provoking opportunity to engage with their peers. ESFL invites all students to participate and join the largest pro-liberty network among young people across Europe. With registrations currently spanning over twenty five countries, this will be a prime opportunity to forge new friendships, share ideas and further advance key debates and conversations about the philosophy of liberty. All conference details and registration information are located on ESFL’s conference webpage.

Seats are going fast, so those interested should reserve their spots sooner rather than later! We expect more than 300 friends of liberty to come to the ESFLC. The ESFL team is looking forward to seeing you and your friends in March!  Gathering the brightest young minds interested in liberty helps bring us one step closer to a free academy and a free society.

Check out last year's conference video.

When: 8th-10th of March 2013

Where: Leuven, Belgium. Located 15 minutes outside of Brussels

Conference fee: 30 Euros students / 45 Euros non-students (until 31st of January). Late registration: 40€/55€

Your registration fee includes: all meals provided, three days of speakers, Liberty Fair, networking, and awesome socials

Expected number of participants: more than 300

Conference website and registration link: ESFL’s conference webpage

For more updates please check out Facebook and Twitter.

2013 is shaping up to be a good year for young fans of liberty. Here are some opportunities available to them.

Free Books for Schools
In October we began sending out books for A‐Level students studying politics, economics and philosophy. By December we mailed out over 1,000 books to Sixth Form students. The books available are listed below, and we can provide up to three copies of each to your school.

Freedom 101 (Free PDF)
Freedom 101 gives answers to 101 common errors made by opponents of free markets and open societies.

A Beginner’s Guide to Liberty (Free PDF)
A short, accessible introduction to liberal ideas from free trade to banking to legalized drugs.

The Condensed Wealth of Nations (Free PDF)
An explanation of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations that uses Smith's own words and explains them for a modern audience, point-by-point, to allow his great ideas to shine through.

Win £500 in our Young Writer on Liberty Competition
If you’re under 21, there is still time to enter our writing competition before the closing date on February 1st. The first prize includes £500 and an internship at the Adam Smith Institute. You can find more information here.

Independent Seminar on the Open Society (ISOS) March Student Conference
The Independent Seminar on the Open Society (ISOS) is a free one-day seminar for sixth-formers, held in London twice a year. This March the conference will focus on free market economics. Topics covered will include:

Limits of knowledge
The benefits of trade
The fallacy of evidence-based policy
The private supply of public goods
Debate: Should we be able to sell our organs?

Students are welcome to attend independently, or with teachers. Refreshments will be provided.

If you are interested in finding out more about any of these, do contact us at info@adamsmith.org.

Among the most fun things I did this year was the series of short videos about economics.  My book Economics Made Simple was published in January, so I decided to upload some YouTube videos to put across its basic ideas in a snappy way, taking only about 3 minutes for each. They were not really scripted, except that they were based on the book.

Xander stepped in, and there were just two of us.  I was presenter and he handled cameras, lights, sound, filming, cutting, editing and graphics.  We recorded them over a three-week period, doing several per day.  I picked up whatever was to hand at the last minute to use as a prop. For the first one I collected the office bell on the way up to the mezzanine overlooking the street, and rang the bell for each error.  We deliberately tried to keep them user-friendly and with an amateur look to them, instead of a slick finish. I wore a different T-shirt for each of the 20 videos.

The series took off well, and we advertised them on Guido's site to keep up the momentum.  The total views now exceed 50,000, and we've had many invitations to give talks to schools from teachers who've seen them.  We called the series "Economics is Fun," and it was.  It's much better than calling it "the dismal science."

This year we ask students to submit three essays for the ‘Young Writer on Liberty’ competition on the theme:

Three policy steps to a freer, better world

The title of each article is entirely up to you.

1st Prize:
£500 cash prize
3 articles published on www.adamsmith.org/blog
3 books on the subject of liberty
2 weeks work experience at the ASI

2 Runners up:
2 articles published on www.adamsmith.org/blog
A collection of Adam Smith Institute books

Entrants must be 20 or under on the closing date, the 1st February 2013. All articles must be under 400 words. All entries and questions should be submitted to pete@adamsmith.org. Good luck!

The Adam Smith Institute’s Sixth Form conference - The Independent Seminar on the Open Society - was attended by over 280 students this October. The event focused on economics, offering students an insight into some aspects of the discipline which are not covered by the A-Level syllabus.

Dr Madsen Pirie began proceedings by speaking on the importance of economics. He debunked concepts such as the Marxist Labour Theory of Value and explained the impotency of mathematics in explaining human action. Those interested in such arguments should watch Madsen’s series ‘Economics is Fun’ which now has over 113,000 views.

Steve Baker MP put the case for markets as promoters of moral actions. While any moral code we know (including the secular portions of the commandments) have not been able to make all act morally, neither can markets make us moral. However, market institutions do promote and encourage moral behaviours.

Emily Skarbek introduced her research on the Chicago fire of 1871, a fascinating existence proof for community responses to natural disasters. The ability of local people with particular knowledge of the needs they faced calls into question the commonly held view that governments are best placed to deal with such tragedies.

Tim Evans reminded students that we do not have a free market in the United Kingdom. In fact, even the money we use is controlled in a distinctly soviet fashion. Indeed, the Berlin Wall of today is in our pockets. It is this state control of money that Tim argued will be responsible for the next financial crisis.

Chris Snowdon and Tam Fry debated the need for a fat tax to combat obesity in the United Kingdom. While Tam argued that obesity posed a coming crisis for the NHS, Chris argued that a tax would be ineffective and against the paternalistic tones of such a measure. The students voted against a fat tax.

The event attracted students from around 30 schools, with most rating the day as Good or Excellent. Teachers and students should note that our next ISOS event is planned for the Spring of 2013, and they can e-mail pete@adamsmith.org if they wish to receive further details.

Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark succinctly summarises the only real obstacle to individual achievement in a single line: “the question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

Fans of Rand (and private sector workers) know that few forces in the world have more stopping power than a government. With its monopoly on violence and its ability to rewrite the rules, government possesses the power to interfere with the private lives of those who live under it even when these persons are willing to abide with the multitude of other laws, regulations and taxes, not all of them fair, to which they are subject. And in the exercise of this power it can be unfair and arbitrary; democracies and tyrannies alike have the power to reduce the efforts of a single person to nothing, to crush him utterly for any reason such a government might choose. Last month brought the news that, as has happened many times in many nations, our government has done exactly that.

By revoking the “very highly trusted” status of London Metropolitan university without providing for any transitional arrangements, the Home Office gives that institution’s current and future students a mere 60 days to either find an alternative sponsor or to self-deport. These are not very good options.

Continue reading...

Next month the ASI hosts its annual event, The Liberty Lectures on the 23rd August from 2-6pm. An afternoon of lectures for students only [but we'll be putting everything on Youtube as well — ed.], that aim to introduce them to big ideas they might not otherwise encounter. This August, the conference will cover economics, history and politics, with lectures on four big ideas that can help how we view the world.

'Only Individuals Choose' – Dr. Anthony J. Evans

A discussion of the use of individualism as an approach to social sciences. As opposed to a conventional perception of Economics as being something akin to Newtonian Mechanics, Anthony will put the case for doing away with an overreliance on models.

'Public Choice Theory' – Dr. Mark Pennington

Going within the black box of government, Mark will put forward the Public Choice School case for considering the role of incentives in public institutions.

'History as the Story of Liberty' – Dr. Stephen Davies

Eschewing the conventional narrative of history, Steve persuasively argues for a conception of history as a struggle between ruling and ruled classes.

'Causes of the Next Financial Crisis' – Jamie Whyte

Many see us as in a post-crisis state after the turmoil of 2007. Rather than just being in a slump, Jamie will argue that we are merely in the eye of the storm. The solutions to the last crisis which politicians are now putting in place are setting us up for an even bigger fall.

If you would like to attend, or you know a student who might be interested, please RSVP to events@adamsmith.org.

We look forward to seeing you there!