The Mont Pelerin Society, Milton Friedman, and the World
I spent most of a week recently in Guatamala at a meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society, an organization created by Friedrich Hayek after the Second World War. At the time it was created, supporters of free markets were rare, especially in the academic world. One reason to create the Society was to give people with classical liberal views the opportunity to spend at least a few days a year with other people who did not regard their beliefs as obvious nonsense, fit only for the wastebasket of history.
Some decades later, a number of people associated with the Society, including my father, suggested that perhaps it was time to dissolve it. Views that had been regarded as obviously obsolete in the late forties had become, if not always accepted, at least widely known and widely viewed as serious contenders in the marketplace of ideas. It was no longer necessary to go to some far corner of the world to find colleagues who shared a generally pro-market viewpoint; with luck there were at least one or two down the corridor.
The argument that ultimately persuaded him and others that the Mont Pelerin Society ought to be continued was that, although libertarian views were now widespread and respected in the U.S., the situation was very different elsewhere. Especially in the Third World countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and to a significant degree even in Europe, believers in free markets still found themselves in the situation that Hayek and others had faced when the Society was founded, isolated in a sea of left wing orthodoxy. For them, at least, the Society could continue to serve its original purpose.
I was reminded of this reading the comments on my memorial post for my father. What was striking was not the number but the geographical diversity. In addition to the U.S., condolences came from people who identified themselves as from:
Angola
Argentina
Australia
Bangladesh
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Costa Rica
Croatia
Denmark
France
Guatamala
Germany
Hong Kong
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Maldives
Mexico
Netherlands
Phillipines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Serbia
Scotland
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Turkey
UK
Uruguay
Venezuela