The Heartland Institute calls itself a “public policy think tank,” by which we mean a nonprofit organization devoted to studying public policy issues (such as taxes, environmental protection, and school reform) and bringing our insights to the attention of policymakers and the interested public. But what a think tank does, or should do, has changed dramatically over the years.
War of Ideas
The pioneers of the modern free-market movement–Friedrich Hayek, Leonard Read, Baldy Harper, Lord Harris, and others–urged the creation of think tanks to win the “war of ideas” being fought among scholars seeking to revive the classical-liberal tradition and those committed to socialism and collectivism. Doing so required treating intellectuals–the people who translate the ideas of true scholars into popular language and promote them–as the think tank’s customers.
The founders’ advice was premised on a theory of political change perhaps best captured by John Maynard Keynes when he wrote,
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
Targeting economists and other intellectuals before they become “defunct” is therefore a highly leveraged way to influence the views and actions of “practical” men and women.
Victory
For half a century, great scholars and intellectuals engaged in a battle over the proper role of freedom and government in human affairs. The Mont Pelerin Society, created shortly after a meeting in Switzerland convened by Friedrich Hayek in 1947, was the first think tank created by classical liberals to influence intellectuals in the U.S. and around the world. It was soon followed by others, including the Hoover Institution, Hudson Institute, Institute for Humane Studies, Philadelphia Society, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and National Center for Policy Analysis.
Bit by bit, socialist dominance in the debate gave way to superior analysis and reasoning, as well as the grim evidence of experience. By the end of the 1980s, some of us perceived that the “war of ideas” was over and classical-liberal ideas had triumphed.
Socialism, as many of its previous advocates admitted, was “dead.” The massacre at Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the capitalist transformation of Japan, South Korea, and other nations of the Pacific Rim made it impossible to conceal the truth: Capitalism works, socialism does not.
Having helped win the war of ideas, classical-liberal think tanks could now (a) declare victory and go out of business, (b) keep fighting the war to ensure statist ideas do not make a comeback, or (c) specialize by topic, tactics, or geographic areas to acquire greater expertise and greater impact on public institutions. Think tanks have pursued all three paths, though I can think of only one, the Bionomics Institute created by Michael Rothschild, that was shuttered when its principals concluded its job was finished.
Still Fighting the War
The second path–to keep fighting the war of ideas even though it has been won–may sound self-serving (like “fighting the last war” instead of addressing current realities)–but it is not. No victory in the realm of ideas is ever permanent. Economic principles that were once widely understood and accepted can be quickly lost when political or economic tides shift.
As Milton Friedman said in a 1995 Reason interview, “All battles are perpetual. You go back in the literature of economics, and you’ll find the same kind of silly statements 100 years ago, 200 years ago. And you’ll find the same sensible statements the other way.”
Many of the biggest national think tanks continue to make major investments in the intellectual foundations of classical liberalism, even as they produce policy studies and op-eds and operate popular Web sites. We have not left the battlefield unguarded.
Specialization
The third path, after going out of business and continuing to fight the war of ideas, is to specialize on particular topics (such as taxes or school choice), tactics (such as publishing books or grassroots activism), or a geographic area (such as a city or state). Most of the think tanks created since the mid-1980s have chosen to specialize in one of these ways.
Geographical specialization is represented by the state-based think tank movement, of which Heartland was a pioneer. There are at least 48 such organizations (this is the number who belong to State Policy Network) around the U.S., busily bringing free-market ideas to bear on issues of concern to state and local elected officials.
Being “on the ground” in their respective states’ capitals or major media centers, state-based think tanks are better able than national organizations to tap into what Friedrich Hayek called the “local knowledge of time and place.” Because they are locally organized and primarily locally funded, their senior management is also more likely to act correctly on that information, rather than allow national figures to dictate their priorities and choices.
There are now at least 100 classical-liberal think tanks and advocacy groups in the U.S. Thanks to their existence, the movement today is decentralized, innovative, and growing. New tactics and strategies are constantly being discovered and tested. Groups such as the Philadelphia Society, SPN, and The Heritage Foundation are performing a vital service by making sure the staffs of these groups meet frequently to trade ideas and experiences, and thus learn what works and what does not.
The Challenge Ahead
Winning the war of ideas gave classical-liberal think tanks opportunities to do new and different things, but that victory was only one of many developments affecting think tanks since the early 1980s. Think tanks have had to respond to changes in their audience: more minorities, more people with deeper religious convictions, fewer who are literate or well-informed about economics or history, and many who cannot be reached through the major media outlets.
Changes in the arena in which the debate takes place also have made the classical-liberal think tank’s job more difficult. Today we face well-funded opponents allied with 501(c)4s and “527s,” phenomenally wealthy trial lawyers and environmental advocacy groups, and the Internet–which places a premium on speed and brevity at a time when so much must be taught. In some cases, we have just started to explore tools and techniques to face those challenges.
It is also easy for the leaders of today’s specialized and tactic-driven think tanks to lose sight of the philosophy upon which the movement was founded. We should not rely on politicians to tell us what that philosophy is, even though some politicians can describe it well.
To keep the movement working together and toward the same goals, we need to make sure our best and brightest thinkers speak to our best and most successful activists. There must be two-way communication between these groups, or else our philosophy will become irrelevant to practical men and our activists will burn out.
While victory in the war of ideas has given us the luxury of choosing different tactics to advance our cause, changes in the environment in which we operate have made it imperative that we choose wisely.
Today is not 1944, when The Road to Serfdom was published, or 1962, when Capitalism and Freedom was published, or even 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected president. The tactics used with success back then won’t work as well today. We need twenty-first century tactics to fight a twenty-first century foe.
Note: Joseph Bast’s 28-page report, “Classical Liberal Think Tanks in the 21st Century, is available online.
