Not all villains write policy papers

The differences between Lord Harris’ intellectual battles and ours

Ralph Harris, later Baron Harris of High Cross (1924 – 2006), was the first Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, technically from 1957 to 1988, but he was with the Institute for much longer than that. Harris first met Antony Fisher in 1949, when they started hatching plans for a future classical liberal institute, and as is often the case with “former” IEA staff members, Harris never really left.

I narrowly missed my chance to meet him when I was an intern at the IEA in 2006, and Lord Harris came in one day to film an interview. I must have known who he was at the time; otherwise, why would I even remember this? But I did not know that there would not be a second chance.

Last December, I was asked to join a panel at the Ralph Harris Centenary Lecture, where I was initially going to say a few words about the differences and commonalities between the intellectual battles Ralph Harris used to fight, and the ones we classical liberals are fighting today. As so often with panels, there was not enough time left for that. So I will instead address that question here.

Ralph Harris spent most of his life battling against bad ideas. Keynesianism (or at least, the bastardised version of it, which always calls for more government spending no matter what). Marxism. The belief in an activist industrial policy. Welfarism.

Photo by Ian Sanderson on Unsplash