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Libertarians in Korea

I couldn't believe my eyes. Some American Libertarians in Korea were getting together to have a meeting?

Surprisingly, seven of us got together at the Starbucks in Itaewon last night. We had a pleasant conversation together.

There was two points of disagreement:

1) They were focused on what they could do to help libertarians in America. Even if they were in America they probably couldn't do very much. I suggested that they should try to work with libertarian-minded people where they were. As Booker T might have said: Lay down your bucket where you are.

There is a Korea-based think tank (자유기업원) with a free market focus. I had lunch with the president of the organization a few days ago. He told me that there is at least one Korean politician who is openly libertarian. Unfortunately, he doesn't speak English so I doubt that I will be able to help him much.


2) They are politically minded whereas I focus more on the ideas. So even though everyone at the meeting was libertarian or leaned-libertarian on economic issues, it seems that we read completely different books. A few of them had never heard of Hayek, Bastiat, Nozick or Boaz.

CJL

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