by Neville Kennard, veteran preaching and practicing capitalist

The Mont Pelerin Society is the creation of Professor Friedrich von Hayek, the famed Classical Liberal Economist and Philosopher. In 1946 he gathered some other Classical Liberal types together at the Swiss Resort of Mont Pelerin to look at the perilous state of economic and popular thinking at the time. Not only were communism and other authoritarian ideas for governing countries in vogue, but the interventionist Keynesian economic policies were holding sway.

The MPS has survived and prospered in the ensuing 64 years, representing the peak body in Classical Liberal ideas, people and Think Tanks to explore and propagate ideas for limited government, free market economics and Classical Liberal philosophies.

This year it was time for Sydney to play host to the prestigious Annual MPS General Meeting. Some 300 people gathered for informed and scholarly discussion on matters that afflict our country and our world.

Where the MPS and the Classical Liberals go wrong, in my view, is that they like governments, they like The State. They think it is too big, too intrusive, spends too much, taxes too much … but generally they like the construct and the idea of an over-arching authority, subject to constitutional and democratic constraints, of The State.

The MPS is part of the Free Market Think Tank Industry, a multi million dollar network of institutions all over the world now doing work to educate and influence. Their message generally is Utilitarian as opposed to Ethical or Moral. They set out to demonstrate What Works as distinct from What is Ethical and Moral.

The message put out by the Think Tanks and the Classical Liberal Establishment has gained wide currency over the last thirty or so years, and is widely accepted — except in governments where taxes, spending, regulation, bureaucracies continue to grow. The Global Financial Crisis could have been the Tipping Point for the Think Tanks to see their ideas, of small government, deregulation, low taxes, put into practice. But it did not happen! Instead the opposite has happened.

Long discredited Keynesian ideas re-emerged, “stimulus spending” gained sway, new regulation got piled on old regulation, and much of the world has fallen into a long a severe recession.

So how could this be? How could so much good, sound economic theory, so well expounded by such good people and scholars and so widely disseminated and praised be ignored? What went wrong?

Well I have a view on this. Two views actually. The first is that the problem lies in the very nature of the Nation State, and its propensity to grow and intrude and tax and spend. The Nation State, and its servant, Government, by their very nature, are evil. People in Government are mostly not good people. Politicians are often not employable in the real world of business and professions. Bureaucrats too are more concerned with control, with their own security, with building their fiefdoms, than with the freedom and prosperity of their citizens.

And the Free Market Think Tanks like to associate with these Politicians and Bureaucrats. It gives them and their supporters a sense of being part of The Ruling Class. Big Business, Government, and Think Tanks are now a cosy club. Thus the Think Tanks and the Mont Pelerin Society propound utilitarian (rather than principled) ideas and ways for economic prosperity. Left out most of the time is the very idea of Self Ownership, of a person’s right to own his life and the products of his life.

The Think Tanks, now part of The Establishment, find themselves in the Fund-Raising Business, and because they have a message that appeals to business people, the funds roll in. They are well funded with excellent people doing good work, and yet they have been ineffective despite this work being going on for thirty or more years now.

Mont Pelerin and the Free Market Think Tanks mostly avoid arguments for the fundamental right of people to have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and property. They are too frequently unprincipled, avoiding issues of a moral and ethical nature.

In short the Mont Pelerin Society looks backwards to some hypothetical era of a golden age of Classical Liberalism; they seek now a Twenty First Century Classical Liberal Enlightenment (the theme of the conference). The MPS seldom addresses issues of the very nature of the Nation State, of the Nature of Government and their propensity to violate the rights of their citizens.

Not discussed at MPS was Minarchism v. Anarchism, of how actually to limit the size and growth of government, of the right of people to Secede, of the Impossibility of Constitutional Constraint, of the threat to Capitalism posed by Democracy, of the Myth of the Rule of Law, etc.

There are principled and ethical Think Tanks around and the best in my view is the Property and Freedom Society — small but punchy, politically incorrect and propounding ethical ideas of individual liberty. And the very best educational institution is the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which clearly and unapologetically publishes the works of Mises and his successors of the Austrian Economics School.

At MPS Conferences delegates’ sights would be taken away from their rear view mirror with a healthy dose of anarcho-capitalism that challenges the comfort of the Think Tankers and their wishful-thinking on the notion of small government.

But that may be too much to ask of a bunch of well-funded members of the Think Tank Industry who enjoy travelling around the world to MPS Conferences in exotic places and expensive hotels to associate with each other in a self-congratulatory way.