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STICERD Public Events and Lectures

The Hayek Programme in Economics and Liberal Political Economy

Hayek Programme in Economics and Liberal Political Economy

Stability is Overrated: Towards a Dynamic Liberalism

Alexander Schaefer (University of Buffalo)

Wednesday 21 May 2025 18:30 - 20:00

Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events. Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.

Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.

Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.


About this event

Contemporary liberals often praise values such as cohesion and stability. Though commonplace, embracing such values marks the abandonment of a major strand in 20th century liberal thought, a strand which eschews cohesion and stability in favor of diversity and dynamism.

Many earlier liberals, following John Stuart Mill, saw dynamism as the hallmark of a liberal society. Thinkers such as John Dewey, Karl Popper, and F.A. Hayek embraced the open society due to its capacity to adapt, develop, and progress. For such thinkers, liberalism is a process, not an outcome. Crucially, this process is not confined to the economic or political sphere, but also involves the revision of our moral beliefs and practices.

This talk attempts to resurrect the dynamic tradition in liberal theory. Despite the recent prevalence of static analysis within Rawlsian liberalism, there are powerful reasons, internal to the philosophical doctrines and institutional proposals of liberalism, to reject static theory and to rediscover dynamic liberalism.

About the speaker

Alexander Schaefer is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buffalo. His research is in the area of philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) and focuses on social complexity, institutional evolution, and the social contract.

This is an in-person event. Please reserve your ticket here.

For further information please contact Lubala Chibwe, by email: l.chibwe@lse.ac.uk.