The good professor sings Chicago and thinks it\u2019s time to question a broadcasting dynasty.<\/p>\n
Please, nobody mention the Dimblebys.\u00a0 I used to be a fan.\u00a0 The melodious Richard on the monarchy, and the balanced, reasonable voice of David on Question Time.\u00a0 Now, David has put his communication skills to telling the wonderful story of how free-market thinking came to dominate politics.\u00a0\u00a0 However, I am not at all happy with him giving Hayek all the glory for this achievement.<\/p>\n
It may be true that Hayek\u2019s work received a significant boost from being published in condensed form by Reader\u2019s Digest, which led Keith Joseph, the so-called \u2018Mad Monk\u2019, to read him. Joseph was regarded as an intellectual, which raises the question of why he was reading Reader\u2019s Digest in the first place. Of course, Joseph famously introduced Hayek to Thatcher who devoured its anti-socialism with gusto and then sold it to Reagan, my all-time heartthrob.<\/p>\n
However, this overlooks all the remarkable economists who were also advocating for the benefits of the free market from a much more scientific perspective. After all, Hayek didn\u2019t even utilise mathematical models. His approach was more about handwaving than anything else, even if it was generally good handwaving, aside from his completely misguided support for a basic income from the state. Fortunately, Thatcher disregarded that.<\/p>\n
The real intellectual powerhouse at that time was the University of Chicago, where I was fortunate enough to visit in 1976 through a research fellowship<\/a>.\u00a0 I had the rare opportunity to hear firsthand the great insights of dashing Milton Friedman and witness him defeat Saul Bellow in hand-to-hand combat, which led to the toppling of the Keynes statue.\u00a0 This was the epicentre of serious economic thinking that fuelled the Thatcher-Reagan revolution. Naturally, it drew from the seminal works of 19th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup>-century thinkers: Adam Smith\u2019s invisible hand, William Stanley Jevons\u2019s concept of marginal utility, and L\u00e9on Walras\u2019s development of the general equilibrium model.<\/p>\n