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Waging the War of Ideas John Blundell Forewords by Walter E. Williams and Philip Booth Fourth edition Waging the War of Ideas Waging the War of Ideas Waging the War of Ideas JOHN BLUNDELL Fourth edition The Institute of Economic Affairs First published in Great Britain in 2001 and this edition published in Great Britain in 2015 by The Institute of Economic Affairs 2 Lord North Street Westminster London SW1P 3LB in association with London Publishing Partnership Ltd www.londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. This collection copyright © The Institute of Economic Affairs 2015 ‘How to move a nation’ reprinted, with permission, from the February 1987 issue of Reason magazine. Copyright 2001 by the Reason Foundation, 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd, Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034. www.reason.com ‘Waging the war of ideas: why there are no shortcuts’ Copyright © 1990 by the Heritage Foundation; reprinted by permission ‘The right use of ideas’ reprinted by permission of the Daily Telegraph ‘On Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday we still need his remedy’ reprinted by permission of the Daily Telegraph ‘Beyond ideology: towards the demise of the state and the coming era of consumer politics’ reprinted by permission of The Scotsman © Scotsman 2003 ‘Lessons of the past fifty years show we need to create a freemarket Utopia’ reprinted by permission of the Daily Telegraph All other individual articles copyright © The Institute of Economic Affairs The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (elec- tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-255-36685-4 (interactive PDF) Many IEA publications are translated into languages other than English or are reprinted. Permission to translate or to reprint should be sought from the Director General at the address above. Typeset in Kepler by T&T Productions Ltd www.tandtproductions.com To the memory of: F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) Antony Fisher (1915–1988) Ralph Harris (1924–2006) and Arthur Seldon (1916–2005) ‘They were the few, but they were right, and they saved Britain.’ Margaret Thatcher (1987) The IEA’s founding in nine words: ‘Hayek advised Fisher; Fisher recruited Harris; Harris met Seldon.’ John Blundell (often) CONTENTS The author xi Foreword to the 3rd edition xiii Foreword to the 4th edition xvi 1 How to move a nation 1 (Reason, February 1987) 2 Waging the war of ideas: why there are no shortcuts 19 (The Heritage Lectures, no. 254, at the Heritage Foundation, 14 November 1989) 3 No Antony Fisher, no IEA: The Case for Freedom after 50 years 37 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 3, September 1998) 4 Hayek and the second-hand dealers in ideas 47 (Introduction to The Intellectuals and Socialism, IEA, Rediscovered Riches no. 4, October 1998) 5 The power of ideas 58 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 4, December 1998: review of three books on the influence of institutes and ideas) vii Contents 6 The right use of ideas 62 (Daily Telegraph, 1 March 1999) 7 More on the power of ideas 67 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 3, September 1999; review of four books on institutes and the direction of government policy) 8 Hayek, Fisher and The Road to Serfdom 73 (Introduction to Reader’s Digest condensed version of The Road to Serfdom, IEA, Rediscovered Riches no. 5, November 1999; reissued as IEA, Occasional Paper 122, October 2001, reprinted April 2003) 9 Foreword to The Representation of Business in English Literature 87 (IEA, Readings 53, October 2000) 10 Foreword to A Conversation with Harris and Seldon 99 (IEA, Occasional Paper 116, May 2001) 11 Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution 105 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2, June 2000: review of Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution, by John Hoskyns, London, Aurum Press, 2000) 12 The Hoover Institution 112 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 2002: review of The Competition of Ideas: How My Colleagues and I Built the Hoover Institution, by W. Glenn Campbell, Illinois, Jameson Books, Inc., 2001) viii Contents 13 On Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday we still need his remedy 119 (Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2002) 14 The achievements of Peter Bauer 123 (IEA, Occasional Paper 128, September 2002) 15 Beyond ideology: towards the demise of the state and the coming era of consumer politics 128 (Scotsman, 17 March 2003) 16 Looking back at the condensed version of The Road to Serfdom after 60 years 133 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2004) 17 Lessons of the past fifty years show we need to create a freemarket utopia 149 (Daily Telegraph, 7 March 2005) 18 A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America 153 (Economic Affairs, Vol. 26, No. 2, June 2006: review of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America, by John J. Miller, San Francisco, Encounter Books, 2006) 19 Tribute to Lord Harris of High Cross and Dr Arthur Seldon CBE 157 (Speech to a meeting of the members of the Mont Pélerin Society, Guatemala City, 9 November 2006) ix Contents 20 John Blundell – an obituary 162 (Stephen Davies, 23 July 2014 ) Chronology 1945–2009 166 About the IEA 190 x THE AUTHOR John Blundell, 9 October 1952 – 22 July 2014 THE AUTHOR John Blundell was educated at King’s School, Macclesfield, and at the London School of Economics. He headed the Press, Research and Parliamentary Liaison Office at the Federation of Small Businesses from 1977 to 1982, and was a Lambeth Borough councillor from 1978 to 1982. From 1982 to 1993 he lived in the USA where he was, inter alia, president of the Institute for Humane Studies (1988–91); president of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (1987–91); president of the board of the Congressional Schools of Virginia (1988–92); and president of the Charles G. Koch and Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundations (1991–2). He assumed his duties as Director General of the Insti- tute of Economic Affairs on 1 January 1993 and stepped down in 2009 to pursue lecturing and writing opportuni- ties in the USA. He also served as co-founder and chairman, from 1993 to 1997, of the Institute for Children, Boston, MA; founder director (1991–3), Institute for Justice, Washington, DC; international trustee (1988–93), The Fraser Institute, Van- couver, BC; and founder trustee of Buckeye Institute, Day- ton, OH. xi The author He was a director of Fairbridge and of the International Policy Network and chairman of the Institute Development and Relations Committee of the board of Atlas Economic Research Foundation (USA). He was also a board member of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason Uni- versity, Fairfax, VA; of the Institute of Economic Studies (Europe) in Paris, France; and of the Mont Pélerin Society. xii FOREWORD TO THE 3RD EDITION Basic to the struggle to promote personal liberty is the FOREWORD TO THE task of persuading our fellow men not only that free 3RD EDITION market allocation of goods and services is economically efficient and wealth-enhancing but also, and much more importantly, that market allocation is morally superior to other methods of exchange. Waging the War of Ideas, this IEA Occasional Paper, containing published papers by its Director General, John Blundell, is part of that continuing struggle and duty of liberty-loving people worldwide. John Blundell’s papers and reviews include a short doc- umentation of the war of ideas from the post-World War II days, when communism and economic planning were seen as the wave of the future, to the post-Thatcher/Rea- gan period. The pro free-market policy of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations went a long way towards laying the groundwork for the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a result of tales of economic incompetence, human suffering and murder in pursuit of the Marxist-Leninist world vision under the USSR’s brutal regime, communism no longer has any intellectual respectability. Indeed, save for minor mopping-up operations here and there, communism as an idea has been relegated to the dustbin of history. The UK’s top generals in the war of ideas were Antony Fisher and Professor Friedrich Hayek. Professor Hayek’s xiii.
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