Spectator: We Need Another Arthur Seldon

Nice profile of the Institute of Economic Affairs here. Of Arthur Seldon and Ralph Harris, Colin Robinson notes:

Their common characteristic was sheer perseverance. Without that, they could not have continued to fight for the best part of 25 years a conventional wisdom that favoured highly interventionist economic and social policies, supported by a political and economic establishment that regarded Harris and Seldon as cranks whose views had no relevance to the times in which they lived. Seldon and Harris demonstrated the power of ideas, as few others have done. By the late 1970s they had begun to create a changed intellectual climate which laid the groundwork for the election of a reforming government which implemented a programme which revived the British economy.

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2:46 am on June 26, 2009