Ed Hudgins Visits East-Central Europe

In August, Edward Hudgins, The Objectivist Center's Washington director, visited Prague in the Czech Republic, Vienna in Austria, and Budapest in Hungary on a trip sponsored by the Center for First Principles and by several businesses. Trip participants included Congressman Ernest Istook (Republican of Oklahoma) and Congressman Todd Tiahrt (Republican of Kansas), as well as scholars and business representatives. They met with their counterparts in the former communist countries and Austria to discuss both regulatory policy and the more general question of America's strained relations with Europe.

In Prague, Hudgins arranged a meeting for the group with three members of the Liberal Institute, a free-market organization, to discuss the economic situation in that country. The group also met with officials at the American embassy, Czech political and business leaders, and the heads of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

In Vienna, Barbara Lamprechter of the Friedrich A. v. Hayek Institut joined the group to discuss economics and politics in Austria, as well as the Austrian school of economics. Hudgins made remarks at that event on the importance of Hayek and fellow Austrian Ludwig von Mises. He also discussed the importance of making moral arguments in favor of free markets.

In Budapest, in addition to meeting with embassy officials and political leaders, Hudgins met with Eniko Takacsy, who translated The Fountainhead into Hungarian, and Levente Lajko and Balazs Ungi, her editors. They discussed the problems not only of the economic but of the cultural and ethical adjustments that still must be made as Hungary overcomes its communist legacy. (The book has sold 2,000 copies since its publication late last year and was featured in a May 21, 2003, article on The Atlas Society Web site, http://www.atlassociety.org.)

Many talks during the trip involved the entry of the Czech Republic and Hungary into the European Union. Officials in these countries admitted that one of the motivations behind the EU is anti-Americanism, that is, defining Europe not in terms of its own principles but in opposition to the United States. Officials and citizens of the former communist countries, however, tend to have a more positive attitude towards America and hope they can advance a pro-American - and pro-freedom - agenda in the EU.

On Other Fronts

Ed Hudgins discussed corporate salaries on the CNN financial news program "Money and Markets."

On September 18 and 19, the Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., held a productivity-and-innovation workshop for Dutch policy experts, as well as interested Americans. On the second day of the event, Hudgins gave a talk entitled "Regulation of Markets - Is It Good or Bad?" He observed that the function of government is to protect life, liberty and, property, and limits on voluntary transactions therefore have no place in a free society. Hudgins reviewed the detrimental effects of regulations, and especially how they undermine a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

An op-ed by Hudgins, on privatizing Amtrak, appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the end of September.

Hudgins appeared on the "Alan Colmes Radio Show" early in October to discuss regulations that forbid people to keep wild animals as pets. He was quoted extensively on the same subject in a CNSNews report.