Keynes wrote that ideas, either right or wrong, are stronger than one might think. ‘Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. In this view, people exaggerate the power or influence of particular interests in particular circumstances on social changes, and undermine the importance of ideas. What would practical men answer to that? They might say that Keynes is dead for too long a time to be worth investing any resource in ideas. In other words, there is a wide a gap between the victory of ideas and its influence on history. Or maybe it’s not the ideas of social scientists that drive changes, but that interest groups pick what they like from a big pool of anonymous researchers.

Instead of a particular text, on Friday we shall focus on the more general problem directly concerning our activity: what are the structural barriers that a pro-liberty think tank faces? The aim of the workshop is to build a map or a list of hurdles that hinder the influence of liberty ideas.