Weekend of Capitalism – Afterword
On the 18th and 19th of November Warsaw witnessed the Weekend of Capitalism, the biggest conference dedicated to the ideas of liberty in Poland, with a guest appearance of dr Yaron Brook from The Ayn Rand Institute. The goal of the series of debates, panels, networking events and lectures was to educate and promote the idea which ‘move the world forward’ and makes humanity free and wealthy, which is – according to the organizers – laissez-faire capitalism.
Tomek Kołodziejczuk, initiator and main organizer of the action, while opening a conference, stated: “Ideas have consequences, so dreaming about good results, we must affirm its causes. We’d like people to manifest not their ethnic’ -, but idea’s identity and Poland would be reported to have seen not “60 thousand of Nazis” [as exaggerated in foreign media] but “60 thousand of freedom lovers”. Right after these words, the stage was taken by dr Leszek Balcerowicz (Poland’s famous capitalist intellectual), who started the conference with his lecture about the importance of economic freedom.
The Weekend was organized not only in Warsaw. Organisations from whole Poland joined the action and held partnering events in 10 different cities across Poland. A dozen of biggest polish NGOs which defend entrepreneurship, individual rights, and free market, took part in Weekend, delegating their intellectuals, academics and economists, whose lectures gathered over 400 attendees from 6 countries.
During the second day of the conference, in honor of 60th anniversary of “Atlas Shrugged” publication, the first edition of Atlas Awards was presented – for those who had the biggest merits in spreading and applying principles of liberty. Organisers and ‘capitalist coalition’, satisfied with conference proceedings, announce its continuation on the next year.
More information is to be found at www.weekendkapitalizmu.pl, and at the fanpage www.fb.com/weekendkapitalizmu .
– Tomek Kołodziejczuk, local coordinator at European Students For Liberty
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