As I note here, the latest PFS book has just been published by Sebastian Wang and his Hampden Press, co-published with the Property and Freedom Society.
Sebastian Wang, Freedom Under the Sun: Proceedings of the Property and Freedom Society, Bodrum, 2025, edited and with an introduction by Sean Gabb (Hampden Press and Property and Freedom Society, 2025). It is available in paper, Kindle, and audiobook (Amazon.com).
My foreword is below.
Foreword: Anything Under the Sun Discussed by Man
The timing of this volume is felicitous, as it covers many of the speeches delivered at the most recent annual meeting of the Property and Freedom Society and will be ready before its twentieth to be held as always in Bodrum, in September 2026.[1] The concern of the PFS and each annual meeting is always freedom, and yes, it is held under the sun on the beautiful Turkish coast on the Aegean Sea. The PFS stands not only for freedom and uncompromising intellectual radicalism[2] but its meetings provide an atmosphere of open discourse with no concern for political correctness—where “anything under the sun” may be discussed.[3] As Sean Gabb notes in his introduction,
It is important to emphasise that the PFS is not a political organisation. It issues no manifestos, endorses no candidates, and passes no resolutions. Its influence lies in persuasion, not power. Its method is conversation, and its atmosphere one of courtesy even amid the fiercest debate. Disagreement is assumed, even encouraged, because the pursuit of truth requires friction. Hoppe himself insists that the best way to refine an idea is to expose it to intelligent opposition.
The presentations and panels from PFS 2025 are no exception. For most of its history, the proceedings have been recorded and the presentations made available online on the society’s Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/propertyandfreedomsociety), website, and the Property and Freedom Podcast (propertyandfreedom.org/pfp). The present volume provides concise overviews of selected presentations by Sebastian Wang.
The video of all presentations from PFS 2025 may be found online, but one virtue of Wang’s slim volume is its brevity and focus on short summaries of selected speeches. Freedom Under the Sun is written with verve and assurance and gives readers a nice sampling capturing the flavor of a typical PFS meeting. And all in just over 70 pages, making it easily readable and an excellent stocking stuffer.
The book begins with an informative introduction by Sean Gabb, who was present at the founding meeting in Bodrum in May 2006 and for most meetings since. This is the meeting at which I became fast friends with Sean and other libertarians from around the world.[4] For me, it was a welcome break from the usual American-centric libertarian conferences. For once, a libertarian conference not dominated by Americans! The environment was unique and gorgeous, and though difficult to get to—requiring three flights for me in the earlier years, until more Turkish Air flights to Istanbul started opening up—it was well worth it.[5]
As Sean notes,
Over the years, these meetings have become the intellectual equivalent of a private salon: part university seminar, part philosophical refuge, and part family reunion for those who refuse to separate property from civilisation or freedom from moral order.
The [PFS] arose from [Hoppe’s] conviction that existing libertarian and conservative institutions had grown timid, or compromised, or even corrupt. He had seen how bodies like the Mont Pèlerin Society or major Washington think-tanks softened their criticism of the state once invited to its tables. The PFS was designed as the opposite: an uncompromising home for radical thought, beyond the reach of political patronage.
… Hoppe’s ambition, as the history of the Society records, was to bring together two traditions that modernity had driven apart—libertarianism and traditionalism. He rejected both the collectivist economics of many traditional conservatives and the rootless cosmopolitanism of many libertarians. Each, he argued, without the other, was incomplete. The traditionalist without respect for property descends into paternalism; the libertarian without respect for tradition dissolves into libertinism. The PFS became the centre of a new synthesis: a gathering of men and women who believed that freedom must rest upon civilisation, and that civilisation itself cannot survive without property, hierarchy, and restraint.
… He has revived the idea that a society of free owners requires more than the absence of regulation. It requires families, manners, religion, and the right to exclude. To defend liberty, one must also defend the civilisational soil in which it grows.
Attempts at fusing together radical libertarian politics and Austrian economic insights with those of traditional conservatism had been tried in the past, but failed. Hoppe’s focus at the PFS is to recognize the importance of traditional values but to maintain a principled and free-market libertarian perspective on politics. Libertarianism can be enriched by insights of traditionalists, but principles of individual rights and sound economics must have primacy.[6]
After Gabb’s introduction, the volume kicks off with Wang’s own experience—his first—at the most recent PFS meeting, in his essay “Bodrum 2025: Reflections on a Journey.” These colorful reflections on Wang’s experience in Bodrum echo the warm thoughts of other participants over the years.
These two introductory essays are followed by concise summaries of ten speeches over the three speech-days of the meeting, providing the reader with an excellent feel for the content of a typical PFS event. As Gabb notes in his introduction, the speeches covered by Wang
show how wide the Society’s concerns have become: from Guido Hülsmann’s critique of state universities to Saifedean Ammous’s analysis of property rights in Palestine; from Tom DiLorenzo’s moral history of American imperialism to the reflections of David Dürr, Thorsten Polleit, and others. Each piece represents a facet of the same question: how can free and civilised life endure under the pressures of empire and ideological conformity.
As the presenter of the first speech covered here, I can attest that Wang’s overview is spot-on, as is his eye for detail in the other nine surveyed. Mirroring the minority status of American speakers at most PFS meetings, only three of the ten speeches covered in this volume are by yanks; 70% are by others, as is appropriate for this gloriously international association.
Wang concludes his volume with a review of long-time but absent PFS member Doug French’s book When Movements Become Rackets and Other Swindles: The PFS Trilogy, which was published and presented in a moving ceremony in Doug’s honor at last year’s PFS meeting.[7] Doug sure liked his Turkish haircuts.[8] He started a tradition that inspired others: our annual trip to a local barber to get a Turkish haircut.
Doug’s book was based on two speeches delivered at recent PFS meetings, and included a final chapter that he was unable to deliver in person. Like the current volume, Doug’s book was brief and readable. It is fitting that Wang’s excellent review concludes Freedom Under the Sun.
Stephan Kinsella[9]
Houston
December 2025
NB: Professor Hoppe’s second festchrisft, A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe,[10] was published by Papinian Press and released at the PFS annual meeting in 2024. Doug French’s book, presented at the 2025 annual meeting, was the first to be co-published by the PFS (with Papinian Press). It is expected that the present volume, co-published with the Hampden Press, will be followed by other collections drawing or commenting on other presentations made over the years at the Property and Freedom Society.
[Endnotes]
[1] The inaugural meeting was held May 2006 and last year’s meeting would have been its twentieth, but global responses to Covid required the 2020 meeting to be canceled. For more on the 2025 Annual Meeting, see Juan Fernando Carpio, “PFS 2025: Cozy, Inspiring, Invigorating: My Thoughts on This Year’s PFS Meeting,” Property and Freedom Blog (20 Oct. 2025; propertyandfreedom.org/2025/10/pfs-2025-cozy-inspiring-invigorating); Martín Cabrera y Marisa Jarquin, “First Guatemalans at the PFS,” Property and Freedom Blog (15 Oct. 2025; propertyandfreedom.org/2025/10/first-guatemalans-at-the-pfs); Stephan Kinsella, “PFS 2025: Photos and Memories,” StephanKinsella.com (30 Sep. 2025; stephankinsella.com/2025/09/pfs-2025-photos-and-memories); and Sebastian Wang, “Bodrum 2025: Reflections on a Journey” (in this volume).
[2] See “History and Principles,” PropertyandFreedom.org (propertyandfreedom.org/about); “Press & Offsite Material,” PropertyandFreedom.org (propertyandfreedom.org/press).
[3] This foreword’s title is a nod to the title of this volume and is inspired by the notion that patentable subject matter should include “anything under the sun that is made by man.” Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_patent_law#Patentable_subject_matter_(%C2%A7101).
[4] Other memoirs of various attendees’ experiences at the PFS may be found on its Press & Offsite Material page, including several by Sean, such as his account of the inaugural meeting of the PFS in 2006, “The Inaugural Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society: An Incidental Record,” Free Life Commentary No. 148 (14 June 2006).
[5] My own reports of various PFS meetings may also be found at the PFS Press & Offsite Material page, such as “Bodrum Days and Nights: The Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society: A Partial Report,” The Libertarian Standard (16 June 2010; libertarianstandard.com/2010/06/16/bodrum-days-and-nights).
[6] See references in Stephan Kinsella, “The Three Fusionisms: Old, New, and Cautious,” StephanKinsella.com (16 Jan. 2022; stephankinsella.com/2022/01/the-three-fusionisms); Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Property and Freedom Society—Reflections After Five Years,” The Libertarian Standard (June 10, 2010; https://libertarianstandard.com/2010/06/10/article-the-property-and-freedom-society-reflections-after-five-years), reprinted as ““My Life on the Right,” in The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline (Laissez Faire Books, 2012; second revised edition, Mises Institute, 2021; hanshoppe.com/tgf); idem, “Libertarianism and the Alt-Right: In Search of a Libertarian Strategy for Social Change,” Libertarian Alliance (UK) (20 Oct. 2017; hanshoppe.com/2017/10/libertarianism-and-the-alt-right-pfs-2017).
[7] Douglas E. French, When Movements Become Rackets and Other Swindles: The PFS Trilogy, Stephan Kinsella, ed. (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press and Property and Freedom Society, 2025; propertyandfreedom.org/books/french-racket). Doug’s own reports of the inaugural meeting of the PFS are “Hoppe Talks Turkey,” LewRockwell.com (30 May 2006; archive.lewrockwell.com/french/french43.html) and “Property and Freedom,” LewRockwell.com (21 June 2006; archive.lewrockwell.com/french/french44.html).
[8] Douglas E. French, “A Haircut in the Turkish Style,” Laissez Faire Books (Oct. 3, 2012; https://perma.cc/WJ9B-HL4X) and Doug’s Preface to When Movements Become Rackets and Other Swindles.
[9] Stephan Kinsella, an attorney and libertarian writer in Houston, is a founding member of the Property and Freedom Society. His publications include Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Papinian Press, 2023), International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution (Oxford, 2020), Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2001), and A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Papinian Press, 2024). This Foreword is published under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 1.0 License; No Rights Reserved.
[10] Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds., A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024; stephankinsella.com/hoppe-liber-amicorum).
