Mission
SPONTE
INSTITUTE
Agency Over Algorithms
Advancing human freedom and flourishing in the age of AI, technocracy, and algorithmic markets.
sponte (Latin) — of one’s own accord; freely, willingly, voluntarily
Sponte advances the classical-liberal tradition for a new century defined by AI and technocratic power.
We cultivate the ideas and leaders necessary to ensure that markets, technology, and institutions remain instruments that serve humanity—not systems of hidden control.
Why now
Central planning failed.
Technocracy is succeeding.
The next decade will determine whether technology, markets, and institutions serve humanity—or control it.
1947
Mont Pelerin convened.Mises and Hayek answered the planners and rebuilt the intellectual case for a free society.
2026
The battlefront has moved into code.Ranking, pricing, permitting, scoring, and allocation are being automated into the systems of ordinary life.
Now
The answering institution does not yet exist.Sponte is building it before the defaults harden.
Research program
Strike
the root.
The 21st century’s decisive questions sit beneath today’s policy fights. We make them explicit—and test them.
01
Can AI plan an economy?
Update the calculation debate for machine planning and establish the limits of economic control.
02
When does a price cease to be a market signal?
Develop the theory of HyperPrices: algorithmic, engineered, and synthetic prices that look like discovery while carrying centralized assumptions.
03
Can human purposes be formalized from the outside?
Examine the epistemic limits of models that replace value, judgment, and responsibility with labels, metrics, and proxies.
04
What makes a system genuinely free?
Build usable doctrine around ownership, accountable judgment, contestability, competition, and meaningful exit.
Research map
Four domains. One program.
Freedom and Flourishing are the stakes. Technology is the force reshaping both. Agency is the through-line.
01
Freedom
What must be defended.
- Money
- Markets
- Speech
- Property
- Privacy
- Health
- Education
- Movement
02
Flourishing
What should be built.
- Philosophy
- Governance
- Work
03
Technology
The force reshaping both.
- AI
- Robotics
- Automation
- Surveillance hardware
- Biotech
04
Agency
A person deciding—not a machine deciding for them.
- Due process
- Contestability
- Exit
- Human judgment
- Rule of law
Ideas
Ideas in motion.
Research is where Sponte establishes the formal case. Ideas is the faster-moving stream: arguments, applications, and signals from the systems already reshaping ordinary life.
What must be defended
Freedom
How money, markets, speech, property, privacy, health, education, movement, and the right to earn become conditional when access is governed through opaque systems.
- Money
- Markets
- Speech
- Property
- Privacy
- Work
What should be built
Flourishing
The affirmative case for institutions that respect human purposes, responsible judgment, voluntary cooperation, and the conditions in which people can build meaningful lives.
- Philosophy
- Governance
- Work
The force reshaping both
Technology
AI, robotics, automation, surveillance hardware, and biotech considered as mechanisms—not abstractions—and judged by how they alter knowledge, power, ownership, and choice.
- AI
- Robotics
- Automation
- Surveillance
- Biotech
The through-line
Agency
Can a person understand a consequential decision, challenge it, reach an accountable human, choose among competing judgments, and meaningfully exit?
- Due process
- Contestability
- Exit
- Human judgment
- Rule of law
What we do
Build the counter-establishment.
We shape the ideas, develop the people, and convene the councils where the 21st century’s economic order will be decided.
Research & Publishing
The economics of the algorithmic age, written before its defaults harden.
- Working papers
- Flagship books
- Essays, film & audio
Fellowship
Scholars and builders fluent in the Austrian tradition and in code—trained and placed where systems are built.
- Economics + AI
- Finance + institutions
- Placement network
Gatherings
Closed salons and an annual meeting for patrons, scholars, builders, and the ablest people on the other side.
- Private briefings
- Frontier workshops
- Annual council
About Sponte
A practical Mont Pelerin for the 21st century.
Sponte advances the classical-liberal tradition for an age in which control has migrated into code. We build the ideas, people, and institutions needed to keep technology and markets answerable to human beings.
1947
The precedent
When liberal thought was dismissed, out of power, and out of fashion, thirty-nine scholars gathered at Mont Pelerin. Their work rebuilt the intellectual case for a free society and changed the course of the century.
2026
The new battlefront
Planning now operates through ranking, pricing, permitting, scoring, and allocation systems. The knowledge Hayek said no authority could gather is being collected by the hour—and technocrats believe machines answer the calculation problem.
Ideas · people · nexus
The institution
Sponte produces rigorous research, translates it into language that travels, develops practitioner-scholars, and convenes the people shaping markets, technology, law, and policy.
Agency over algorithms
The standard
A free system disperses power, preserves accountable judgment, permits challenge and competition, protects ownership, and leaves a meaningful path to exit.
Founding Circle
The important conversations begin
before the room fills.
Sponte is assembling a small circle of people prepared to engage seriously with the institution’s work and long-term purpose.