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Libsem 2025

THE PATH TO LIBERTY AND THE VOICES BEHIND IT

21 and 22 November 2025 Cape Town

LIBSEM 2025

 

Key Note Speaker - Congressman (Rep) Thomas Massie, Kentucky, and leading US libertarian.

Your hosts:  Mike hull and Garth Zietsman

What is

LIBSEM 2025? 

LIBSEM 2025 marks the 40th anniversary of South Africa’s longest-running gathering of liberty-minded individuals.  A landmark event for thinkers, doers, and disruptors who believe in individual freedom, responsibility, and innovation.

This year, we celebrate with a two-day Cape Town program featuring:

  • National and international speakers

  • Debates, panels, and bold ideas

  • 40th Anniversary Dinner honouring the founders of the movement

From economics to AI, from policy to personal freedom.

LIBSEM 2025 is where critical thinking meets courageous conversation.

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WHY ATTEND?

Where ideas ignite, conversations matter, and real connections are made.

Find out whats on the mind of some movers and shakers in the business and political world.

Engage in meaningful discussions and think tanks.

Develop actionable insights to take back to your work, community, and network.

Connect with liberty-minded individuals from across sectors.

Speakers / entertainers and panel

Thomas Massie, Leon Louw, Bonang Mohale, Vivian Vermaak, and many more

Executive Director, Freedom Foundation

Leon Louw

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Business Leadership South Africa

Bonang Mohale

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Economics: Not just for the Economists

Unlock the real-world impact of economic principles. How policy, inflation, and incentives shape your life more than you realise.

 Power, Panic & Policy

Energy security, government control, and global brinkmanship.  Is nuclear the future, or just the states favourite toy?

Possible Futures: Can We Still Choose?

Do we still have agency in an algorithmic world? Examine liberty in an age of nudging, tracking, and compliance. begin?

The True State of South African Prosperity

Rethink wealth beyond money. Freedom, opportunity, and enterprise. What prosperity really means in the South African context?

Clash of Libertarian Titans

Expect sparks, stats, and subversion in this no-holds-barred debate between two icons of principled provocation.

Behind closed doors and what's keeping you up at night?  

Legacy Relay

At the 40th Anniversary Dinner, we honour those who helped carve the path to liberty in South Africa through perseverance.

In a Legacy Relay, six distinguished speakers will each take the mic to reflect on their chapter in the liberty movement. Together, they’ll trace the evolution of thought, activism, resistance and renewal and their personal path to libertarianism. 

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Programme
Outline

Lagoon Hotel and Spa
Cape Town

Day 1 –Friday, 21 November : 9am - 5pm.
Breaks and lunch provided

Entrepreneurs, scientists, economists, media disruptors, political commentators, policy specialists, medical experts, data analysts, and cultural critics. These are individuals who’ve stood firm in uncomfortable conversations and carved new paths in their fields.

Topics on the table include:

  • Liberty in the Age of Algorithms
    What happens when machines know more than the state — and more than you?

  • The Unspoken Economics of Control
    From subsidies to sanctions: how money shapes what we’re allowed to say or do.

  • Medical Autonomy: Who Owns Your Body?
    Behind the treatments, trends, and pharma influence — what does true consent look like?

  • Race, Power & Narrative
    Are we having the right conversations about inequality, or just recycling headlines?

  • Nuclear Myths and Energy Freedom
    The fear, the facts, and the future of energy independence.

  • Rewriting Climate Conversations
    Between panic and denial lies a space for reason — and it's time we found it.

  • Disobedience and the Law
    When is civil disobedience not just justified, but necessary?

  • The Poverty of BEE Thinking
    Why intent does not equal outcome — and how liberty might offer a better way forward.

  • Who Owns the Future?
    The rise of digital identity, data economies, and the shifting definition of freedom.

  • South Africa: Collapse or Reinvention?
    An honest assessment of where we stand and what a future worth living looks like.

Audience participation is encouraged throughout the day via open-floor Q&A, and you'll leave with more questions than answers. By design.


Programme
Outline

Lagoon Hotel and Spa
Cape Town

Day 2 –Saturday 22 November : 9am - 5pm
Breaks and lunch provided

Day two continues the momentum with a mix of legal insight, global perspective, cultural reflection, and provocative debate culminating in a full day of challenge and conversation for those who believe liberty is not a luxury, but a necessity.


Lawyers, political thinkers, entrepreneurs, economists, reformers, tech innovators, and public intellectuals. These are voices who’ve worked inside the system and those who’ve worked around it.

Topics include:

  • The Role of Government: What’s Enough?
    Exploring the line between leadership and overreach in modern democracies.

  • Regulating Power in a Free Market
    How laws meant to protect consumers sometimes suppress competition — and what to do about it.

  • Liberty on Trial: Lawfare, Rights, and the Courts
    A look at how legal systems are used — and misused — to limit or preserve freedom.

  • Free Markets, Digital Frontiers
    What software teaches us about decentralisation, ownership, and permissionless innovation.

  • Debate: Israel, Hamas & the Language of Liberty
    A rare civil discussion about one of the most polarising conflicts of our time.

  • From Marx to Markets and land grabs
    A personal journey through ideology, disillusionment, and finally, freedom.

  • Why Vision Still Matters
    Reimagining political strategy beyond cycles, parties, and short-term promises.

  • Cultural Creep and the Cost of Consensus
    How slow, incremental shifts in cultural norms can erode individual freedom — and why we rarely notice.

This is a day for bold minds, unfiltered thinking, and candid conversations. Bring your voice, your questions, and your willingness to rethink the narrative.

Libsem Program 2025

Friday- 21 November 2025

09:00-09:30

Attendee Arrival & Registration (coffee/tea)

09:30-09:45

Welcome - Mike Hull & Garth Zietsman

09:45-10.45

Rand Paul (online) How small minorities can influence political majorities

10:45-11:15

Tea

11:15-11:45

Christo Wiese (or Graham Giles) Property rights, our most urgent priority

11:45-12.15

Vivienne Vermark: Ozempic - The good, the bad and the libertarian

12:15-13:15

Lunch

13.15- 13:45

Gail Daus-van Wyk - Sandton Rent Boycot as model for civil disobedience

13.45-14.15

Princess - Nuclear

14:15-14:45

Phumlani Majosi - What black people have done for themselves

14.45-15.15

Afternoon Tea

15:15-15:45

Petrus Potgieter - The Death of Ownership: Copyright, Markets & New Feudalism

15.45-16.15

Nick Hudson

16:15-16:45

Andrew Kenny - Climate Change 

16:45-17:15

Bryan Caplan (online) - Why democracies choose bad policies

Cape Town Legacy Dinner

Friday- 21 November 2025

18:30-19:00

Arrival & Welcome Drinks

19:00-19:05

Opening Remarks - Mike Hull & Garth Zietsman

19:05-19:35

Entrée served

19:35-20:05

Frances

20:05-20:20

Theresa, Trevor, Ria etc

20:20-21:00

Dinner & Conversation

21:00 +

Reflections & Close

Saturday- 22 November 2025

09:00-09:30

Attendee Arrival & Registration (coffee/tea)

09:30-10.30

Keynote: Thomas Massie - Does the government shutdown cause less harm

10:30-11:00

Martin Brassey - Legal regulation of power, market and social, in a developed economy. Focus on the Competition Act

11:00-11:30

Morning tea

11:30-12:00

Leon Louw

12:00-12:30

Neil Emerick - The Morality of BEE - challenging the ethics of redress

12:30-13:30

Lunch

13:30-14:30

Debate: Garth Zietsman vs Jaco Strauss - Israel's action in Gaza was justified and reasonable

14:30-15:00

Temba Nolutshungu - Journey from radical  to libertian

15:00-15:30

Paul Harris (or Carl Sammeli) - Why the government does not adopt high growth policies

15:30-16:00

Afternoon Tea

16:00-16:30

Busi Mavuso - How business can ensure pro-business polcies

16:30-17:00

Rob Hersov - South Africans long-term scenarios and strategies

17:00-17:30

Robin Hanson: Cultural Creep, the erosion of societal cultural foundations

17:00+

Networking

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LIBSEM 40th Anniversary Dinner

Friday 21 November 2025
Lagoon Beach Hotel, Cape Town
6:30pm till late 
3-Course Dinner
Legacy Speakers

JOHANNESBURG

Programme

Outline

THE VENUE
Morningside
Sandton

Day 1– Saturday, The Venue, Morningside
Liberty Horizons with Key Note Speaker - Thomas Massie

9:00-9:30

Morning Coffee and registrations

09:30 –12.30

Speakers, panel discussions and debates

09:45–10:30

 

Speaker 8: To Be Announced
 

11:30–12:15

Think Tank Manifesto 

12:30–13:30

Lunch 

13:30– 15.30

Speakers, networking, interactive session

40th Anniversary Drinks on the rooftop - weather permitting

10:30–11:15

Speaker 9: To Be Announced
 

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Purchase your tickets 

Ticket options - Choose full access, Friday-only, Saturday-only, or just the Gala Dinner. Mix and match your experience from just R500.

Cape Town 21 and 22 November

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