Modern Slovakia is like night and day compared to its years under communist rule, before the 1989 Velvet Revolution hastened the end of communist control, ultimately dissolving the Soviet Union in 1991. The nation has forged its own path since its Velvet Divorce separated Slovakia from the Czech Republic only two years after tha...
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Every year Liberty Forum inspires and rejuvenates the individuals in the worldwide freedom movement, and this past weekend was more inspirational than ever. More than anything, there was a palpable connectedness among our partners, our supporters, and various friends and family members. With 58 countries represented, Liberty For...
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In 1980, the Free To Choose documentary series brought the insights of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman and his clear explanations of sound economic principles to millions of public television viewers. Building on that unprecedented success, its producer, Bob Chitester, founded Free To Choose Network and continued creati...
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The United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, known as the “Brexit,” has been controversial in nearly every quarter. Now that the decision has been made, however, the question becomes how to implement the withdrawal in a way that maximizes the benefits of political independence while minimizing potential drawbacks like...
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The world is filled with problems, but few people recognize how markets have dramatically improved quality of life throughout the world in recent decades. Advocates of free markets are often drowned out by mistaken cries for protectionism, so the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) established its Think Conference l...
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Membership in the European Union has obvious benefits from a free-market perspective. It facilitates a tremendous level of trade and labor mobility, allowing resources and people to flow to more productive uses and generate new wealth and prosperity. Unfortunately, the increasingly centralized, bureaucratic, and regulatory appro...
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It was just a year ago this month that the world celebrated the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, a conciliatory agreement between King John and his noble lords at a swampy site called Runnymede about 20 miles west of London. The document served both to legally and rhetorically limit the king’s power and subjugate...
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The inaugural Europe Liberty Forum, held June 8–9 in London and co-hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), focused on spreading the ideas of freedom to millions in the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond. “Think tanks should make life of all established political parties uncomfortable,” said Member of Parliament Dougla...
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In order to produce and promote the most rigorous research and advance the ideas of liberty, think tanks need the most effective tools at their disposal. Atlas Leadership Academy’s Think Tank Leadership Training (TTLT) is a course on think tank management for individuals interested in learning the latest in strategic planning, f...
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The ideas of liberty can be summed up simply, but their implications and the world they illuminate are endlessly complex and require rigorous analysis. Every year, Atlas Network presents the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award to an institute that has published a book, magazine, report, monograph, or study that, in th...
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When many countries exist side by side in the same region, they have an opportunity to attract residents, tourism, and economic growth through policy competition — and people can make an informed choice about where to go to avoid overbearing government restrictions. The Nanny State Index, a new project from the European Policy I...
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The first annual Europe Liberty Forum, co-hosted by Atlas Network and the Institute of Economic Affairs, brings together think tanks from Europe to learn best practices, brainstorm on how to overcome shared challenges, and compete for the inaugural Europe Liberty Awards. This is an exceptional opportunity to learn from those on...
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Imagine, access to a market with 500 million people, which is also the largest economic body in the world. Free access to an economic area which accounts for more than 50 percent of your trade. A political union with the nations that invented democracy and that created Les droits de l’homme. Many of those outside the United King...
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As Mrs. Maria Mothupi held the official deed to her land for the first time, her face spread into a wide smile. Until she was 99 years old, she had never experienced living in her own home or in a home legally owned by her family, because she was only two years old when the 1913 Land Act banned land ownership by black people in...
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Foreign aid and development efforts often focus only on technical solutions to the problems of third-world poverty, but these tend to be implemented by technocratic regimes that don’t take into account the wishes of the poor they aim to help. In his 2015 Hayek Lecture at Institute of Economic Affairs in London, development econo...
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You never know where your next big idea will originate — a dynamic speaker, a moving video, an interactive workshop, a chance conversation. Inspiration can arise from almost anywhere, and a primary reason that Atlas Network organizes Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner (LFFD) every year is to facilitate an environment in which there...
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The virtues of liberty are often intuitive for many of today’s young people, as they struggle to reconcile their individualist tendencies with top-down ideologies of any stripe. At Atlas Network’s 2015 Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner, the panel titled “Motivating Millennials: Can the Freedom Movement Win Over the Next Generation?...
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Day two of Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner 2015 featured panels of experts from around the world, book signings from faces of freedom, and culminated with the gala Freedom Dinner.
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On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), and nearly one year since the organization won the 2014 Templeton Freedom Award, the Vilnius-based think tank welcomed CEOs from Atlas Network partner organizations across Europe and the United States for the inaugural Transatlantic CEO Summi...
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London is repeatedly ranked as one of the world’s top destinations. If you are traveling to London, be sure to stay plugged into the freedom movement by checking out three of our featured partners, Institute of Economic Affairs, TaxPayers’ Alliance, and Network for a Free Society.
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The modern traditions of free markets, limited government, the rule of law, and peace can be laid squarely at the feet of classical liberal thinkers dating back to the 17th century — and perhaps earlier. U.K.-based Atlas Network partner the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has published a brand-new book explaining the history...
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Economists seeking to shore up government power often have a tendency to present their own narrow views as sacrosanct — as though contrary perspectives in the profession didn’t even exist. That’s the primary takeaway from a letter to the Guardian in the United Kingdom that was signed by 79 economists, including Thomas Piketty, a...
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Atlas Network founder Antony Fisher began his work in changing the climate of ideas 60 years ago, when he founded the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in England. In the ensuing decades, the IEA laid the intellectual groundwork that made fundamental free-market reforms possible in the United Kingdom during the Thatcher revolu...
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Atlas Network founder Antony Fisher spent his life dedicated to changing the world by building institutions that helped change the climate of ideas. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the organization created this video remembering Fisher's legacy and his commi...
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Centrally planned economies have always been characterized by chronic shortages, spiraling prices, extensive black markets, government corruption, and political suppression. These kinds of ongoing failure have been increasingly evident in Venezuela both during and following the regime of the autocratic former president, Hugo Chá...
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When political power is concentrated with a relatively small and centralized group, the politicians are both less able to understand the varied social conditions that the political process seeks to address and have less of a vested interest in truly making things better for their widely dispersed constituents. A new paper from A...
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It’s bad enough when people use their own money to lobby the government for money or special treatment. For years, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), an Atlas Network partner based in the United Kingdom, has written about an even more insidious problem — the widespread use of taxpayer funds to lobby for more self-serving p...
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London-based Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was named winner of Atlas Network’s 2014 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award for its book Foundations of a Free Society (2013), authored by Eamonn Butler with a forward by Ali Salman. The book presents in simple terms the moral, economic and practical case for a free so...
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Leonard P. Liggio, Atlas Network’s long-time executive vice president, passed away on October 14, 2014. It’s been very touching to see the outpouring of affection following his death. We knew how beloved Leonard was within the freedom movement, but it remains nothing short of awe-inspiring to see so many tributes to his influenc...
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Six European think tanks recently launched EPICENTER (the European Policy Information Center) in Brussels, Belgium. EPICENTER is a new project aimed at providing “decision-makers with research and insight on a number of key economic issues,” developing free-market solutions to some of the European Union’s (EU) most daunting chal...
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Stephanie Lis of the Institute of Economic Affairs, an Atlas Network partner, says, “It’s ludicrous that millions of middle earners are being dragged into higher rates of income tax,” after the Office of Budget Responsibility released information that over “10 million middle class workers in Great Britain will be put into a high...
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In Memoriam
John Blundell (1952 - 2014)
The freedom movement has lost one of its most influential institution builders. Atlas Network has lost a dear friend, its past President and Board Member. John Blundell died July 22, 2014.
John Blundell spent two decades as the General Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs in Lon...
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With elections for Britain’s National Health System board looming this next year, there has been a call by public officials for more funding. This “no doubt signals the start of another funding arms race”, says Ryan Bourne of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). He suggests introducing co-payments and competition as an alter...
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London-based Institute of Economic Affairs produced a new report called “A U-Turn on the Road to Serfdom”. In the report, author Grover Norquist, Founder and President of Americans for Tax Reform, optimistically explores the potential in the U.S. for winning liberty through competition and limiting government intrusion and taxes...
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On June 4, the U.K. Parliament commenced a new session with the traditional Queen's Speech. Queen Elizabeth II delivered her speech, which lasted barely over 10 minutes. Professor Phillip Booth, the editorial director at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), quickly followed up with comments. He said, “The Queen’s Speech offe...
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In what represented the 24th annual edition of the Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award, named for the founder of the Atlas Network, went to "How China Became Capitalist" written by the late Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase and Ning Wang, Senior Fellow of the Ronald Coase Institute, and co-published by the Institute of Economic Affairs....
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John Blundell, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs and Atlas Network board member, uses the wildly popular show Downton Abbey to highlight the issue of public funding for TV in the UK. Additionally, he offers six shows that should hold you over until Downton Abbey returns.
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