| Abstract | The works here submitted were published at various times between 1988 and 1998. All except two were published by the Libertarian Alliance, either directly or in its quarterly journal, Free Life.
The Libertarian Alliance is a think tank committed to the defence of free markets and civil and political liberties. Though dating under its present name from the 1970s, the Libertarian Alliance can claim, by way of personal membership and of ideological heritage, a line of descent from the Liberty and Property Defence League, established in 1882. It publishes reports on a wide range of subjects by a wide range of authors - both Enoch Powell and Tony Benn are among other published authors, as are Antony Flew, John Gray, and Edward Pearce.
One of the two other pieces (Chapter Eleven) was published by the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (FOREST). This is a movement established in 1979 to defend the rights of smokers against paternalist legislation. The other piece (Chapter Ten) was published by the Adam Smith Institute. Established in 1978, this organisation was partly responsible for devising and explaining the Thatcher reforms of the 1980s. More recently, it has been active in consultancy work in Eastern Europe and in the Third World. It has also maintained close links during the past decade with what is now known as the Blairite wing of the
Labour Party, Publishing reports on welfare reform by Frank Field who is now the Minister responsible for this area of activity.
All three organisations insist on the same standards of scholarship as any academic journal; and are held in high regard by academies and politicians across the political spectrum. Their reports are collected by university libraries and are included in university reading lists.
My own works for these organisations deal with various issues. Sometimes, they are concerned with current issues (Chapters Two, Five, Six, Seven, etc), and sometimes with issues of more timeless importance (Chapters One and Eleven). But taken together, ail constitute an analysis of the English classical liberal tradition. All do consistently address a number of themes. These are: the meaning of classical liberalism, its emergence and its decline, and the possibility of its revival. |
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