Shaping the Future Libertarian Conference Columbia University, New York, NY 13/14 March 1971
Saturday 13 March 1971
Don Ernsberger, Introductory Remarks and Announcements, 12 min.
Jerome Tuccille, The Psychology and Politics of Libertarians, 40 min.
Jeffrey St. John/Roy Childs debate, not recorded, transcript available online at: http://ronmanners.com/1971/03/anarcho-capitalism- or-limited-government-roy-childs-debates-jeffery-st-john
John J. Pierce, The Present State of Science Fiction, 23 min.
Robert Baker, (starts into the presentation), Revolutions and Rational Methods for Conducting Them, 38 min.
Lanny Friedlander, reading Robert Poole Leverage Points Essay, 44 min.
Lanny Friedlander, Futurism, 13 min.
Jarret B. Wollstein, the Myth of Democracy, 51 min.
Sunday 14 March 1971
Robert Baker, Common Law of a Free Society, 50 min.
Dr. Herbert Berger, Drugs, 54 min.
Murray Rothbard, Strategies for Achieving Liberty, 52 min
Jim Fawley, Media and Libertarianism, 30 min.
Walter Block, Urban Economics for the Libertarian, 54 min.
Roy Childs, Domestic Revisionism, not recorded. Columbia University Spectator
300 Libertarians Convene To Debate Individual Rights By Scott Gordon
Over three hundred libertarians from all over the country met at the Law School Saturday and Sunday to discuss anarchy, Ayn Rand’s objectivism and other issues of the philosophy of individual rights.
The conference, titled “Shaping the Future,” was sponsored by the Society for Individual Liberty and the New York Libertarian Association, and hosted by the Columbia University Freedom Conspiracy.
Libertarian journalist, Jeffrey St. John and Roy Child, contributing editor to “The Individualist,” a prominent libertarian journal, opened the meeting on Saturday with a debate on “Limited Government vs. Anarch-Capitalism.”
Mr. St. John advocated a limited government whose sole purpose would be the use of retaliatory force on those who violate individual rights.
“The anarcho-capitalists seem to think that the form and structure of the state is the real enemy, and not its ideas,” he claimed. “They should be trying to overthrow not the sate but communalism.
Anarchism cannot validate the concept of individual rights,” he concluded.
Mr. Childs disagreed, saying, the state has caused more bloodshed, murder and robbery than any other institution known to man.”
He suggested that a number of “defense agencies” could be established as a system of checks and balances on each other.
He also alleged that, “To forbid the sale of arms to independent defense agencies by a single ‘limited’ government would be the use of initiatory force.”
Other speakers included authors Murray Rothbard and Jerome Tuccille.
The diversity of the group attending the conclave was indicated by lapel buttons supporting Angela Davis, Laissez-faire capitalism, revolutionary anarchism and Students for a Democratic Society.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PRESENTERS
Jeffrey St. John is a news commentator and journalist. He’s a columnist also. He does commentary for the CBS Spectrum series, he’s also the host of his own radio show on Sunday afternoons from 12 to 3, WMCA 570, which is Sunday with St. John.
Roy Childs is a freelance writer, frequent contributor to a number of libertarian publications, the author of some very controversial works, such as “Objectivism and the State” and articles of that nature.