On June 22, 2006 Atlas celebrated its 25 th Anniversary at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco. Atlas started the celebrations with a conference, “Prospects for Liberty in Asia,” where we heard experts and scholars from China, India, Japan, Nepal, South Korea, and Vietnam.
AFTERNOON CONFERENCE: Prospects for Liberty in Asia
PANEL 1 – The Escape from Poverty
One of the great, overlooked stories of our age is the fact that hundreds of millions of Asians have lifted themselves from dire poverty over the last three decades. What can be learned from this historic accomplishment? What impediments to prosperity still exist that ought to be removed? This panel will help us understand the answers to these questions, and will inform us about the role of think tanks in creating better environments for wealth creation.
Moderator: Tim Ferguson, Editor, Forbes Asia
- Centre for Civil Society, India)
- Education Advancement Fund International & University of Hawaii)
- Center for Free Enterprise, Korea)
- Manh Cuong Nguyen (Research Center for Entrepreneurship and Development, Vietnam)
PANEL 2 – The Fabric of Civil Society
The Unites States’ network of think tanks and political advocacy organizations is quite unique in the world. In this panel, we invite guests from Japan, China and Nepal to explain the “ideas environment” in their countries, and the challenges (and opportunities) for think tanks and other civil society organizations who wish to bring new perspectives into the policy debates.
Moderator: Tim Ferguson, Editor, Forbes Asia
- Japanese for Tax Reform, Japan)
- Cathay Institute for Policy Analysis, China)
- the boss, Nepal)
Following the Atlas Club Briefing, where the former Mongolian Prime Minister Elbegdorj Tsakhia and Education Advancement Fund International’s Kate Zhou spoke, the evening festivities began. John Stossel, the keynote speaker, signed copies of his latest book, Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel, Why Everything You Know is Wrong, during the reception. The dinner program included Stephen Moore from the Wall Street Journal as the Master of Ceremonies, special remarks from Elbegdorj Tsakhia and Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute for Religion and Liberty, and the keynote address by John Stossel. Below you will find special messages from Atlas President Alejandro A. Chafuen and Atlas Chairman of the Board William O. Sumner. Soon, there will be links to a photo gallery and the dinner remarks.
ARTICLES related to Atlas’s 25 th Anniversary
Early this year at a major Atlas-sponsored workshop in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the speakers started his presentation by paying a compliment to us: “Wherever liberty is being discussed and promoted around the world, there we see Atlas.” When I hear “Atlas” I, too, hear “liberty.”
Atlas is not the only organization promoting the principles of the free society around the globe, but we are the leaders. Our current location is very near Washington D.C., but we remain very far away from its top-down tax, regulate and spend culture. Atlas was conceived by an Englishman of global interests, and was born in San Francisco. Since then, the dedication of staff, board, and benefactors enabled us to plant seeds and sponsor “intellectual entrepreneurs” in over 75 countries across all the continents.
I had the luck to spend a few quality years with Fisher here in San Francisco. I arrived in 1985, when Atlas was already eyeing educational investments in China and India. The Bay Area is recognized as a region of wonderful bridges and forward-looking innovators. In this time of continued challenges and promises coming from Asia, its human capital might prove more valuable than the ones we might find in Washington, London, or Brussels.
Fisher pioneered the notion of a think tank and created Atlas to promote it. Thanks to your generosity and the experience of our peers throughout the think tank network, we are able to nurture dozens of prospective “intellectual entrepreneurs” each year. Invariably, these unique individuals add new value to the broad movement for liberty of which we are apart. We thank you in advance for continuing to support Atlas and its network of friends from around the world.
Alejandro A. Chafuen, Ph.D.
President & CEO
MESSAGE from the CHAIRMAN
Twenty-five years ago, in the Royal Towers on Russian Hill, here in San Francisco, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation was founded. The founder, the late Sir Antony Fisher, had established himself as one of the most effective warriors on the side of the “good guys” in the global War of Ideas – the war between personal freedom and free markets on one side, and centralized power, big government and statism on the other.
Starting with his founding the Institute of Economic Affairs in London in 1955 – which Margaret Thatcher credited with being the source of the ideas behind her iron will – Antony saw the need for free market think tanks to exist in every place where personal freedoms and the free market were being encroached upon. He became a “Johnny Appleseed,” founding free market institutes wherever the opportunity occurred, such as in New York, Vancouver, Dallas, and here in San Francisco with the Pacific Research Institute.
When he created Atlas to formalize the process of founding institutes, his neighbors in the same building, Milton and Rose Friedman, gave generously of their time and advice.
As a long-time believer in these ideas, I readily joined Atlas at Antony’s request soon after its incorporation in 1981. Antony conceived of Atlas as a service organization giving managerial know-how, seed money, networking contacts and encouragement to conservative and libertarian intellectual entrepreneurs who were inspired to enter the War of Ideas by running think tanks.
His legacy is the tremendous success Atlas has become, carrying his vision around the world. I have no doubt that someday there will be a free market think tank in every country, province, state and city around the world.
William O. Sumner
Chairman of the Board
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