Economics.org.au thinks it is worth learning from the great Greg Lindsay and his Centre for Independent Studies (CIS). Reading Lindsay’s own words may be helpful to this end. Here are insightful writings by Greg Lindsay that we have made accessible:

  1. Greg Lindsay says state schooling unjust — Collecting four Greg Lindsay pieces: “Where has the choice gone …,” freeEnterprise, April, 1975, pp. 6-7; “Curriculum must be out of bounds,” The Australian, July 29, 1993, p. 11; “Maintaining education divide,” The Sydney Morning Herald, April 6, 1998, p. 16, as a letter to the editor; and “Education is another consumer choice,” The Australian Financial Review, September 22, 2004, p. 63. Excerpts: “Education by the state is not just, it is not free and, most of all, it is not in the interests of those being educated …” (1975). And: “Maybe what we should be talking about is not one curriculum, but instead, even more than the seven indicated by the State administrations. Perhaps too, we should be wondering, even aloud, about what the State is doing in education at all” (1993).
  2. The vacuum of libertarian scholarship,” freeEnterprise, April-May, 1976, p. 3. Excerpt: “if there is to be any groundswell of libertarianism in Australia, there must be a firm base of sound intellectual scholarship to feed any other sort of action, be it political or whatever. Socialism has not achieved its position today because the ‘workers’ have felt that they were being badly done by. It is an intellectual movement, full of theories that any well-read libertarian could demonstrate as false, and it was the intellectuals who carried their dreams to the people. However, it is the dearth of just these well-read libertarian intellectuals, that is going to prevent the attainment of any libertarian ideal.” And: “There is irreparable damage being done to libertarian promise right now because of a lack of knowledge, leading to half answered questions and partly developed arguments, which is worse than no answer and no argument.”
  3. Ludwig von Mises,” freeEnterprise, July-August, 1976, pp. 7-8. Excerpt: “When one student could not believe that he heard Mises correctly when he said that government should always refrain from interfering with the market processes, he asked Mises if he meant that the government should do nothing when there was a depression. Mises replied: ‘I mean that the government should start to do nothing much earlier.’ So precise.” And: “He [Mises] was a model of scholarship, a giant of erudition and steadfastness. Truly one of the great teachers of all time. We would be well-employed to assist in making known the work of this great libertarian.”
  4. Frederic Bastiat,” freeEnterprise, vol. 2, no. 11 and 12, special final issue, 1976, pp. 4-6. Excerpt: “When he [Bastiat] was 19, he read the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, from whom he was to learn the habit of always working from fundamental principles when discussing political economy.”
  5. “Politic” today may be impolitic and archaic tomorrow — G. J. Lindsay, “Petrol pump politics,” The Australian Financial Review, January 19, 1979, p. 4, as a letter to the editor; and “Trading goods in a political market,” The Australian Financial Review, July 9, 1980, p. 13, as a letter to the editor.
  6. Give givers a say,” The Australian, December 14, 1990, p. 10, as a letter to the editor.
  7. In defence of traditional liberalism,” Independent Business Weekly, November 14, 2001. Excerpt: “I am wary of using utilitarianism as the basis of liberalism. It doesn’t take much ingenuity to use this kind of argument to justify restricting freedom as well as allowing it.” Another excerpt: “In my view, the last thing we want is a really efficient government.” That piece was referenced in this Greg Lindsay profile, which we also considered worth digitising and making as freely accessible as possible: Diana Bignall, “He Controls Your Future: The Most Influential Man in Australia,” The Bulletin, September 28, 2004, pp. 22-25.
  8. Referenced as a major positive landmark in CIS histories and tributes is this Paddy McGuinness article: “Where Friedman is a pinko,” The Australian Financial Review, April 4, 1978, p. 4.
  9. Last but not least, to give Lindsay the final word, here’s a section titled “A boost for the modest” from the anonymous “Intelligencer” column in The Bulletin, April 1, 1980, p. 108:

Greg Lindsay, who runs the Friedmanite centre for independent studies in Sydney, is also involved with the Adam Smith Dinner Club which this year is instituting an “Adam Smith Award for Outstanding Service to the Free Society.”

The first recipient of the award will be redoubtable Liberal backbencher and writer Bert Kelly, but he won’t know until he reads it here. He will get a gilt-edged certificate and a package of the classic Smith books. Punning on the nom de plume under which Kelly has written (The Modest Member), Lindsay says Australians are too modest about their intellectual heroes and should remedy this defect.