On line registration for this event is closed. Walk in registrations will be accepted.

Francis H. Buckley of the George Mason University School of Law delivers the March Bradley Lecture.

F. H. Buckley is an associate dean at the George Mason School of Law and executive director of the George Mason Law & Economics Center. His most recent books are Just Exchange (2005) and The Morality of Laughter (2003). In 2006–2007 he will be a visiting professor at the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques (Sciences Po).

Antiliberals left and right lay two complaints at the door of free markets. The first is that is that markets are self-defeating because they subvert the virtues that sustain them. The second is that markets succeed all too well. In the process, however, they dry up other sources of joy. Getting and spending, we lose the power to appreciate beauty and the bonds of solidarity which unite us to each other. Neither of these complaints is compelling. The commercial virtues that sustain markets flourish in market regimes, nor is there much reason to think that life is more joyous in illiberal regimes.