Next week the Mont Pelerin Society has a General Meeting in Sydney (Australia). Speakers will address a range of topics under the general theme of The 21st Century Liberal Enlightenment. I appreciate that there is a high level of scepticism regarding the MPS on this site however this information is provided in good faith with all care taken and no responsibility accepted for products that are offensive or substandard.
The speakers include some locals, among them Sinclair Davidson (academic and Catallaxy blogger), Noel Pearson (Aboriginal leader), Paul Kelly (journalist and author) and John Howard (ex Prime Minister) and some big names from offshore like Harold Demsetz, Terence Kealey, Chandran Kukathas, Deepak Lal and Ken Minogue.
The main program runs from Registration on Sunday 10 to the Closing Dinner on Friday 15. There is a stunning recreational program for partners who want to get out and about and see the Rocks, walk to Manly and take in an Aboriginal tribal experience. They all get to see a sheep station.
Who appointed Noel Pearson Aboriginal leader, Rafe?
He is a leader in thought, in policy and in the spirit of reconcilliation.
http://www.cyi.org.au/speeches.aspx
How come I didn’t get a gig?
Where is Tony Abbott – whom Noel told us was a visionary?
Joe Cambria could surely have added some value.
Amity Shlaes explained why the Great Depression was really a spontaneous mass holiday caused by the prohibition of DDT didn’t she?
Sorry Rafe, I am just being silly. Once upon a time I would have been pleased that our culture didn’t take these people seriously. But some of them had important things to say. And they are taken seriously today. Even though I expect almost all of them would be cranks about the GFC (I like to think Demsetz wouldn’t, but I don’t know).
But really, some of them are prize gooses (my spellchecker wants geese, but they’re gooses). It’s a bad look that if you toe the party line you get an invite.
How do you pronounce ‘Shlaes’?
Tony Abbott is probably in Afghanistan, Joe is too busy in the marketplace and I didn’t get a gig either:)
I will be in the street and bars nearby trying to bludge drinks and small change from the affluent libertines who are attending.
MPS shows Hayek’s similarity to Freud. Both wanted to establish a movement around their ideas – with all the pressures to doctrinal orthodoxy that such a movement entails, rather than to just put their ideas out there. It’s one of the things that, in Freud’s case produced the split with Jung.
It’s one of the things I find most unattractive about Hayek that he identified with the right. Not that I want him to identify with the left, or even the centre, but there’s a tendentiousness about so much of his stuff, and of course much more amongst the acolytes he cobbled together in the MPS.
I can’t think of other major economic thinkers who did what Hayek did (except Marx I guess). Keynes didn’t do it. He identified where he thought his ideas fitted in the political spectrum – in the middle – he used ‘middle way rhetoric’ long before Tony Blair, but he didn’t really proselytise his views as views from any part of the political spectrum. He enjoyed open debate.
Hmmm.
I’ve been wondering if I should part with a few shekels and buy a couple of Hayek’s books. Nick and Prof Quiggin’s recent posts make it sound like it would be a waste of time. Maybe a big fat cheesey pizza would be a better utilization of my scarce resources.
Keynes didn’t need a movement, his ideas were applied by the political establishment pretty quickly because they just so happened to lead to a wealthier, more powerful establishment.
Bear in mind also that Hayek and Mises both got to see fascism in the flesh and were terrified that it, or its cousin, might spread to their new homes. Again, Keynes never had that trouble.
proselytising is rife in economics. Sub-tribes formed around particular doctrines (EMH anyone?), and dynasties of supervisors and PhD students are very important in economics. Perhaps the most successful post-war example is Samuelson whose proselytising came in the form of famous students and widely read textbooks. His success in a way dwarfs that of Hayek and arguably Keynes. Like it or loathe it hence, proselytising is the only way a set of ideas can now truly take off. If an idea is not proselytised, it gets nowhereyou lose.