In March, Enclave (an Italian libertarian review of the news) organized a day-long conference on Frédéric Bastiat in Lecco, Italy, at the Alessandro Manzoni (Hall of the new Hospital). The event, which contributed significantly to the celebration of the "Year of Bastiat" was a most successful and interesting event, drawing 180 people in the morning, and about 320 in the afternoon. It also enjoyed unprecedented media attention. A report on the conference follows:

     On the morning of the event, Sergio Ricossa, an economist at the University of Turin, a well-known libertarian (and a former Mont Pelerin Society vice-president) praised Frédéric Bastiat as a "romantic" classical-liberal figure of the Nineteenth Century.

     Carlo Lottieri, a philosopher at the University of Siena, in a speech entitled "Property and the Law," revealed the connection between Bastiat, Bruno Leoni and Italy's most famous catholic-liberal novelist, Alessandro Manzoni.

     Gérard Bramoulle, an economist at the University of Aix-en-Maiselle, and a Mont Pelerin Society member, prepared a simply marvelous paper about the reception of Bastiat by libertarians. He focused extensively on the "logic" of Bastiat (in a pre-praxeological sense). Gérard's paper was of a very high level, and I was surprised by the enthusiastic response and applause of the audience. I think ninety per cent of them had never heard of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard or James Buchanan. But Gérard was so enthusiastic, and his language so clear and simple (and, also, the simultaneous translation by Nicola Iannello so good), that all the people understood the importance of his speech.

     In the afternoon, Robert Nef (President of the Liberales Institut in Zürich, and a Mont Pelerin Society member, explained (in his first presentation read in Italian!!) why the welfare state is bankrupt and why a renaissance of the individual is on the horizon.

     Then, we ended the meeting with a roundtable (moderated by myself) of people who were not totally libertarian: the most prominent of whom was Roberto Formigoni. Formigoni is now the Governor of Lombardia (the region of Italy where Lecco and Milano are located). Formigoni is very well-known, very important, very influential and will probably be the candidate of the right-wing after Berlusconi. He delivered a very good speech in which he recognized the importance of Bastiat – particularly in this era of globalization.

     The second speaker was catholic writer Robi Ronza, a very intelligent man who submitted an excellent argument about why a catholic must be a libertarian. He also spoke on the "European Union: the New Leviathan".

     The third was a "catholic bureaucrat," from "La Compagnia delle Opere" (a very influential catholic lobby) making points generally in favour of a market economy.

     The meeting ended with an impressive speech by Antonio Martino (former Italian Foreign Minister and current Member of Parliament). Martino was a speaker at the ISIL Rome conference in 1997 and his daughter Alberta was the chief organizer. Martino, through the influence of Bastiat, came to conceptualize "an alternative to statism." He pointed out the importance of so called "tax competition" in the era of globalization (a system where individuals can vote with their feet by moving from high to low or no-tax environments). He also explained why the EU presents such a danger to our freedoms. He was very humorous, but also aggressive and "hard core."

     The local press dedicated a lot of space to the event: "La Provincia" (that's Lecco and Como's daily) published two pages before the meeting, and one after. With some funny titles: "Liberisti alla riscossa," "Lecco si scopre liberista" and so on. "Il Giorno," a paper which is distributed throughout Lombardia, ran a good piece on the event. The same was done in "Libero" (my daily, incidentally). And two weekly newspapers each published a page on the meeting ("Il Giornale di Lecco" and "La Gazzetta di Lecco").

     On the occasion of this conference, the organizers printed and distributed (for free) a collection of Bastiat's translations, and introduced some by Carlo Lottieri and myself. We featured some excellent pieces (the "Petition", "The State", "Laissez Faire" ...). The circulation was quite good.

     We're preparing a collection of the papers presented in the meeting and so far have an Italian and a German publisher (through Robert Nef). If there's anyone interested in publishing this collection in other languages, I think it could be a very good book. All the papers are impressive, well-written, very argumentative and they provide some new reflections on Bastiat.

     Other good news is that the meeting in Lecco was financed totally by local enterpreneurs who now want to launch a small "Bastiat Foundation" here, with purpose of organizing two meetings a year and helping libertarians with money to translate books. The first book planned will be Murray Rothbard's Economics before Adam Smith.

     We're preparing, with the help of "Consulta cattolica di Forza Italia", an other conference in Lecco to be held next October – and an other Bastiat conference to be held in Milan (next September).

Alberto Mingardi / Padania, Italy
amingard@tin.it