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| Abbreviation | PFS |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2006 |
| Type | Social theory |
| Location | |
| Website | www |
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 source needed]
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 source needed] Leading figures of the European New Right and the American alt-right have attended.[1] The group has garnered controversy for including speakers such as the white supremacists Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer and the eugenicist Richard Lynn.[2][3][4][5][6]
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.[7] According to the society, it promotes free trade, peace, and the right to "discriminate against anyone in one's personal and business relations".[2]
Hoppe, the founder, is a Rothbardian political theorist and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Business School.[third-party source needed] 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."[8]
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".[9]
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.[1][9]
Conferences have been held annually since 2005, in Bodrum, Turkey.[7] At the conferences, "prophets of racial and social breakdown share the stage with investment advisors and financial consultants", Slobodian wrote in 2023.[7]
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.[10][self-published source?]
PFS has garnered controversy for including speakers such as the white supremacists Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer[3] and the eugenicist academic Richard Lynn.[6][2] A May 11, 2007, Las Vegas Review-Journal article about the PFS noted that Lynn has described black people as "more psychopathic than whites".[2] Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the 2007 conference as a "serious academic racist event".[2] 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".[3]
Describing the PFS, the SPLC said in 2016 that "in Hoppe one can see the connection between the ultra-Libertarians and white nationalists".[4] Intelligencer in 2017 described the annual PFS meeting as "Davos, but for racists".[5]
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