AERC 2021

Taking Rites Seriously: Neither Theocracy nor Liberal Hegemony

Tags: Philosophy, Property Rights

03/29/2021 Francis J. Beckwith

In this plenary address from the 2021 Austrian Economic Research Conference, Francis Beckwith explains the many threats to natural rights that have evolved out of political authorities’ refusal to understand and recognize the meaning and importance of religious rites.

The Lou Church Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Lou Church Foundation. Recorded at the Mises Institute on March 20, 2021. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.

The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. The conference is hosted by the Mises Institute at its campus in Auburn, Alabama, and is directed by Joseph Salerno, professor of economics at Pace University and academic vice president of the Mises Institute.

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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

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