Entrepreneurship: is the new standard worth striving for?
Panel conference and debate with international and local guests to take place in Estonian Business School, A. Lauteri 3, Tallinn, May 2nd, at 16:00. Presented by the Austrian Economics Centre, Vienna, and the Centre for Free Economic Thought at EBS, Tallinn.
This year’s theme for the Free Market Road Show focuses on the new societal standards established by politicians and mainstream intellectuals during and after the COVID-19 emergency. When it comes to entrepreneurship, the new standard seems to be the notion that the free market has to be highly regulated, tightly controlled and financed by governments, crafting a dependent private sector that cannot operate without government permission and financial aid. The past COVID-19 has conditioned the populace to obey commands against individual freedom and common sense. The ESG cult is imposing top-down regulatory standards that are becoming the new unanswerable norm. Under the new standards, the entrepreneur must ask for more permissions at every step, buy and sell at prices he cannot choose, waste more time and money in compliance and taxes, and plead for increased regulatory favours and financing, while outwardly virtue-signalling to avoid being targeted for destruction.
A free market in such conditions is far from being a free market, and in Estonia we should remember very clearly what the tragic consequences of a centrally planned economy are. While one could say that Estonia has not advanced on the road to serfdom as much as other countries, we want to discuss this interventionist creep which only leads to socialism, but we also want to offer the optimistic alternative of truly free entrepreneurs and investors able and willing to mobilise creativity, innovation and resources for the prosperity of all society in a moral and efficient way – when left alone. We wish to debate with entrepreneurs, intellectuals, politicians and business students about the perils of centrally planned economies and the virtues and opportunities of unhampered markets. The panellists, from their deep entrepreneurial life experience and intellectual acumen, will present and discuss different facets of the political-economical tension between free market creativity and centrally planned stagnation with a focus on the fundamental source of national wealth: the entrepreneur.
Program:
1. Welcome words, H.E. Peter Mikl, Ambassador of Austria to Estonia
2. Introductory notes, Juan Sáenz-Diez (CFET, Estonia)
3. The new standard: is it worth striving for? Richard Zundritsch (Austrian Economics Centre, Austria)
4. Turning ideas into gold – then gold into ideas, Ron Manners (Mannwest Group, Australia)
5. Educating the new generations of entrepreneurs, intellectuals and politicians, Ivan Jovetic (University of Donja Dorica, Montenegro)
6. Free views from an Estonian entrepreneur, Risto Rossar (Insly, Estonia)
7. Policies and regulation of entrepreneurial activities yesterday, today and tomorrow, Krassen Stanchev (Institute for Market Economics, Bulgaria)
More info about Austrian Economics Centre and the Free Market Road Show: Free Market Road Show (freemarket-rs.com)
Please RSVP HERE
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