Mont Pelerin Society
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Search complete. 24 mentions across 16 episodes found for "Mont Pelerin Society".
Sep 18, 2026
Simon WesternHOST
Sure.
Jeremy LentGUEST
Yeah, I find this story very fascinating because I actually see this Mont Pelerin Society, that most people have never even heard of, as being really the source of the most successful movement for transformative change in the 20th century.
Jeremy LentGUEST
And, you know, normally when people think what are the most successful movements, be like, well, communism or socialism, whatever.
Jeremy LentGUEST
But what these people did is they transformed our entire world over a matter of a couple of generations.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
Following that interest, Caldwell is the author of Hayek's Challenge, An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
The ge-- He's the general editor of the Collected Works of Hayek and the editor of MPS 1947, which is the transcript of the founding meeti- meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
He is currently working with Hans-Joachim Klausinger on a family-authorized biography of Hayek titled Hayek: A Life.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
Bruce Caldwell has held research fellowships here at the LSE, at New Y- New York University, at Cambridge University, and at the Hoover Institution.
8 MINS LATER
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
He also, uh, undertook institutional work.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
It's not mentioned in this slide.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
Uh, it was at, well, he was at LSE that he helped organize, uh, the Colloque Lippmann in 1938 and subsequently the, the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in 1947, uh, which was a meeting of, of liberals from around Europe and North America, many of them meeting each other for the first time.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
He was worried about the fate of liberalism in the post-war period, and this was, uh, an attempt to bring them together to discuss the, the principles of liberalism, the foundations of a liberalism that might be appropriate, uh, for the twentieth century.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
Following that interest, Caldwell is the author of Hayek's Challenge, An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
The ge-- He's the general editor of the Collected Works of Hayek and the editor of MPS 1947, which is the transcript of the founding meeting, meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
He is currently working with Hans-Joachim Klausinger on a family-authorized biography of Hayek titled Hayek: A Life.
Mary MorganMODERATOR
Bruce Caldwell has held research fellowships here at the LSE, at New Y- New York University, at Cambridge University, and at the Hoover Institution.
8 MINS LATER
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
He also, uh, undertook institutional work.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
It's not mentioned in this slide.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
Uh, it was at, well, he was at LSE that he helped organize, uh, the Colloque Lippmann in 1938 and subsequently the, the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in 1947, uh, which was a meeting of, of liberals from around Europe and North America, many of them meeting each other for the first time.
Bruce CaldwellGUEST
He was worried about the fate of liberalism in the post-war period, and this was, uh, an attempt to bring them together to discuss the, the principles of liberalism, the foundations of a liberalism that might be appropriate, uh, for the twentieth century.
Rusty RenoGUEST
Of course, I think he'd be rolling in his grave to see how people put these ideas to use.
Rusty RenoGUEST
I think he was a moderate liberal in his own thinking, one of the founders of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Rusty RenoGUEST
although he withdrew from the society in its early years.
Rusty RenoGUEST
But, you know, part of it was he wrote the book during the war in a kind of fevered state.
Alex HimelfarbGUEST
And how it changed when it came into the world of power, because a lot of corporate leaders who were worried in the 1980s that their profits were declining saw in this package of ideas something very valuable.
Alex HimelfarbGUEST
And I describe in the book how over the decades when, in fact, the social democratic view prevailed, The neoliberal view created a society called the Mont Pelerin Society, but also built a network of persuasion, think tanks, hundreds and hundreds of think tanks throughout the world, including many in Canada, which I identify, intended to persuade people about the dangers of welfarism, the dangers of too much democracy, and how the market was the answer, right? Let me give you a caricature definition that's slightly unfair, but I actually think more accurate than unfair.
Alex HimelfarbGUEST
And that is that as it evolved in public policy for people like Thatcher and Reagan and Mulroney and leaders that followed him was a single minded person.
Alex HimelfarbGUEST
pursuit of economic growth as the major role of government.
Daniel HannanGUEST
And Ralph said, look, there's no point.
Daniel HannanGUEST
I do not want to spend the rest of my life giving papers to small audiences at the Mont Pelerin Society.
Daniel HannanGUEST
We need to be in the business of changing minds and changing politics and changing policies and outcomes.
Daniel HannanGUEST
So there were two more or less statist parties at that time.
Jeff NelsonGUEST
You're right.
Jeff NelsonGUEST
I mean, there is the whole question of the role of Christianity and morality in the Mont Pelerin Society and his thought later and some of the things that I think.
Jeff NelsonGUEST
But in terms of the fundamental questions of economics and also about the knowledge problem and things that Hayek was obviously very well known for.
Jeff NelsonGUEST
And Dr. Kirk was wholly subscribed.
Nicholas ShaxsonGUEST
It came out of the so-called Chicago School.
Nicholas ShaxsonGUEST
I mean, the ideas themselves came from a kind of a small group called the Mont Pelerin Society that it was sort of financed by-
James KanterHOST
That dates from the '40s
Nicholas ShaxsonGUEST
1947, I think-
Arnaud SolomonGUEST
I mean, I encourage you to go on Wikipedia to read about it.
Arnaud SolomonGUEST
And the Mont Pelerin Society is basically one of the first think tanks in the world that was created after the Second World War.
Arnaud SolomonGUEST
And it was created by Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, even Milton Friedman, and some others, like thinkers in general, and people
VanceHOST
who want to promote liberty.
48 MINS LATER
Arnaud SolomonGUEST
Yeah.
VanceHOST
So, well, thank you for listening.
Arnaud SolomonGUEST
Have a look at the Mont Pelerin Society on Wikipedia.
Arnaud SolomonGUEST
You will learn a lot of things.
Stephanie SladeGUEST
He writes The Road to Serfdom, which is so influential.
Stephanie SladeGUEST
He founds the Mont Pelerin Society.
Stephanie SladeGUEST
He's all about defending liberalism.
Stephanie SladeGUEST
And he writes an essay famously, Why I Am Not a Conservative.
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