At a time when economics is losing sight of the human person, Lithuanian Free Market Institute seeks to restore its philosophical roots. Join us join us for the Lithuanian free Market Institute’s upcoming seminar Economics and the Human Condition: Bridging the Philosophical Gap, taking place in Prague, April 27–28, 2025.
Modern economic and monetary policies, along with the theories underpinning them, have increasingly diverged from the foundational principles of economic action and important insights into the entrepreneurial processes through which economic goods are created and exchanged. In recent decades, egalitarian and environmental concerns, coupled with the rise of econometric expertise, have been leveraged to justify expanding government control over human action.
This shift has led to an ideological view of market order, where economic policy is dictated by political will deemed necessary to combat scarcity of resources and insecurity, rather than by an effort to align institutions with foundational principles. The organic processes of economic and moral discovery and advancement—rooted in voluntary exchange, entrepreneurship, and human ingenuity—are increasingly subordinated to technocratic planning and social engineering.
How can we realign policies and institutions with the foundational principles of human action? Why do we need to step out beyond economics to uphold free enterprise and to better protect the freedom of humans continually to discover ways to improve their livelihood?
This seminar will invite a deeper reflection on how economic inquiry can be grounded in a deeper ontology and philosophical understanding of the human condition and economic action. It will discern core philosophical concepts that should inform the assumptions brought to bear in broader questions of human action, ethics, and institutional integrity.
Hosted by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, will bring together scholars, economists, and philosophers to explore the essential question: what does it mean to place the human being back at the center of economic thinking?
Guided by Philip Booth, a professor and prominent voice in the moral foundations of economics, Saulius Matulevičius, a philosopher focused on the ontology of economic action, Elena Leontjeva, economist and co-founder of LFMI, and Aneta Vainė, Vice President of LFMI, the discussions will span a full day of in-depth Socratic dialogue.
The seminar will open with a session on how the experience of lack gives rise to economic behavior. Participants will explore the ontological nature of scarcity and how it defines not only economics but human striving itself. Attention will turn to the anthropology of exchange, revisiting Marcel Mauss’ The Gift to examine the roots of cooperation and social interaction. The third session will address the meaning and function of money—drawing on the paper Scarcity and the Ontological Roots of Money by Elena Leontjeva—to reveal how monetary systems reflect deeper structures of meaning. The final session will critically examine Universal Basic Income as a philosophical and political experiment, engaging with Naglis Kardelis’ reflections in The Dangers of Social Experimentation with Reality.
This is not another policy conference. It is a rare space for rediscovery—a seminar that reclaims economics as a human science grounded in truth, meaning, and freedom.
PROGRAM
