Mt.Hamilton Society - John Samples: "The Future of Libertarianism"

The Future of Libertarianism: a look from DC and Beyond." - VP of the Cato Institute shares his long libertarian movement insights.

Americans have lived under one Constitution for over two centuries. But that Constitution has proven compatible with different political institutions and ideas. Modern libertarianism came to life in the 1970s in response to failure of the “post war consensus” of rule by technocrats. I believe we have a time of transition to institutions far less liberal than in the past. In particular, the presidency will become more directly the agent of electoral majorities and thus less constrained by other parts of government. How will and should libertarianism adopt to these new circumstances?

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John Samples is a vice president at the Cato Institute. He founded and directs Cato’s Center for Representative Government, which studies the First Amendment, government institutional failure, and public opinion. Samples serves on the Meta (Facebook's parent company) Oversight Board, which provides final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and Instagram. (Samples’s opinions are his own and do not represent those of the Oversight Board or of Facebook.)

Samples is currently working on a book‐​length manuscript about social media and speech regulation that extends and updates his policy analysis “Why the Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation of Social Media.” He previously wrote The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History and The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform. Samples also coedited with Michael McDonald The Marketplace of Democracy.

https://www.cato.org/people/john-samples

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Please join the Mont Hamilton Society in this 16th year since our founding, to hear and interact with John Samples on this important topic.

This meeting, including lunch, will be in-person for no more than 24 individuals only. We think you will enjoy the intellectual stimulation, the edification, the camaraderie, and meeting new people.

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About the Mont Hamilton Society - In 1947 Friedrich Hayek, an economist and social philosopher who later won the Nobel Prize, organized a meeting at Mt. Pelerin, a resort in Switzerland. Hayek convened a modest sized group of (39) economists, historians, philosophers and journalists for the purpose of supporting research and discussion on the role of markets vs. government. The Mont Pelerin Society is now a large and prestigious international organization.

In 2009, a group of friends began to meet in San Jose for the purposes of improving their understanding of economic theory, applying it to current events and sharing their understanding with others as well as promoting a joyous sense of camaraderie. In recognition of the example set by the Mont Pelerin Society, they decided to name their group the Mont Hamilton Society. Members understand the realities of the business world, share an interest in economic thinking, and value civil discourse from a variety of perspectives. Faculty and students from the Department of Economics at San Jose State University are frequent guests at Society meetings. In June 2017 the Mont Hamilton Society became the San Jose affiliate chapter of the Bastiat Society, an AIER.org project, hence our name from then till late last year was: Mont Hamilton/Bastiat Society. However AIER decided late in 2024 to discontinue the Bastiat Society program, so we are reverting to our original name: The Mont Hamilton Society and continuing on our own.

There are no membership fees or organizational meetings at this time, but all interested are encouraged to join and participate.

If you would like to be on our invitations list, or know someone else who might like to receive notice of our 7 - 10 luncheon or other events per year, or if you have any questions, please send an email to:

MtHamiltonSoc@Outlook.com

You or your suggested contact(s) will receive an announcement/invitation and a reminder or two for each event as they are scheduled, or a prompt answer to your question/s.

These events are discussions, not standard lectures. To facilitate this, the in-person gatherings before Covid Lockdowns were kept "small," typically 12 - 24 individuals only. Some presentations are video recorded, depending on demand and available resources. Constructive feedback on our events and interest in recordings is welcome, since we are continuing to evolve our meeting formats.

Thank you for your interest.