Economic View Points - Institute of Economic Affairs 2005.
Published by Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ARTHUR SELDON
Colin Robinson
This article discusses the achievements of Arthur Seldon as
Editorial Director of the IEA in the context of recently published
Collected Works of Arthur Seldon.
Arthur Seldon as Editorial Director of the IEA
Arthur Seldon was for about 30 years the Editorial Director at
the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). In that capacity he edited
the work of hundreds of authors - ranging from the already famous,
to the up-and-coming - to produce a remarkable and influential
body of IEA publications. Not only did those publications lead
directly to the economic reforms undertaken by the Thatcher governments,
they moved the 'middle-ground' of politics so that British governments
from the 1980s onwards, whether Conservative or Labour, have felt
obliged, in order to be elected, to accept much of the economic
agenda that IEA authors set out in the 1970s and 1980s.
Seldon's influence, through the IEA's publications programme,
has been felt worldwide. Economic reforms of the Thatcher period
- such as the privatisation of state industries, freeing labour
markets, and the replacement of fiscal 'fine-tuning' by monetary
control of the economy - have been exported to many countries.
In Milton Friedman's words, "The IEA's influence has not been confined
to the United Kingdom. Its publications and the able group of scholars
who became associated with it, contributed greatly to the change
in the intellectual climate of opinion around the world." Another
result was the establishment in many countries of 'think-tanks',
modelled on the IEA, that promote economic freedom and form part
of an international movement for continuing liberal market reforms.
Arthur Seldon is one of the great editors. During his time at
the IEA his time at the IEA, his publishing programme was much
more than a collection of papers on a variety of themes. It was
a grand programme of liberal market ideas and proposals for reform.
He was constantly seeking authors who would explain, in particular
fields, what the problems were and what policy changes would be
desirable. He invented a new form of paper, rigorous in its analysis
yet concise and, above all, firm and clear in its policy conclusions.
He insisted that authors waste no words and that they should be
lucid both in thought and expression. In particular, there must
be no doubt about what they were recommending. Authors were told
to pursue their ideas to their logical conclusions regardless of
whether or not they appeared, at the time, to be 'politically acceptable'.
Everyone - whether it was Friedrich Hayek or a newly-appointed
university lecturer- would receive back from Arthur a manuscript
peppered with comments and suggestions for changes which, on reflection,
they would realise would significantly improve their original thoughts.
They would also find that Arthur would write a preface to their
work that departed from the traditional summary: it would reveal
to readers how the paper fitted into the general corpus of classical
liberal thought.
The IEA's publishing programme, under Arthur's direction, might
seem accomplishment enough for
anyone. But he was, at the same time, a prolific author, as the
seven volumes of his Collected Works show. Since he began to publish
in 1937, when he was 21, he has written 28 books and about 230
articles. His body of work, covering a wide range of subjects,
free of technical jargon, genuinely accessible to interested people
with no formal training in economics and full of original ideas,
is a major contribution to classical liberal thought and policy
analysis. In particular, his analysis of the inherent deficiencies
of the welfare state and his proposals for market-based reform
made from the late 1950s onwards, are extremely perceptive and
far ahead of their time: they contain all the ingredients to deal
with the problems with which governments are still struggling decades
later as they cling to outdated ideas. Furthermore, he was one
of the first to perceive - before the detailed research of the
public choice theorists - the problem of over-government in representative
political systems. Government, he realised, had both the ability
and the inclination to expand its empire at the expense of the
private sector: it would go far beyond the supply of those goods
and services that might genuinely be regarded as 'public goods'.
Infrequent elections in a democracy are not in themselves sufficient
to keep in check the ambitions of politicians, civil servants and
the pressure groups that have strong incentives to gain favours
from government for their members.
The final volume, number 7, brings together a number of works
in which Arthur Seldon discusses the role of the IEA, in which
he spent most of his professional life, and his own role within
the IEA as he and Ralph (Lord) Harris divided their responsibilities
in a fruitful partnership that was of great significance in reviving
classical liberal scholarship. Seldon also explains the part played
by Friedrich Hayek in the establishment of the IEA and traces the
links between his own ideas - absorbed from Hayek, Robbins and
other classical liberals at the LSE in the 1930s - and his work
at the IEA from the late l950s onwards. Included in this volume
are many of the prefaces to IEA publications written by Seldon
which, as already explained, place each book within the context
of classical liberal ideas. In a revealing passage, Arthur Seldon
compares his role in selecting IEA authors with that of the manager
of a cricket team 'putting the best players in to "bat" against
the other side'.' In that he was certainly victorious. The formidable
publishing enterprise he established helped bring about an economic
and cultural revolution.
Conclusion
Summarising the contribution of Arthur Seldon to classical liberal
thought and to policy analysis is
difficult because of the great range of his work. But two of the
outstanding characteristics of his writings,
as demonstrated in these seven volumes, are how clearly and for
how long he has seen and understood
the principal economic problems of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. Because his work is based on
unchanging economic principles, the solutions he offers, particularly
for the problems caused by state
welfare, are still as relevant as when he first suggested them,
in some cases decades ago. His success in
analysis and policy prescription, without the need for complex
modelling, should be a great encouragement to young economists
unsure what their subject can contribute to economic and social
welfare.
As I have tried to summarise the secret of his success in the
General Introduction to The Collected
Works:
"Seldon's great gift, seen in his writings, was his ability to
absorb the literature of economics, synthesize it in his own mind,
and then distil it in his publications into a form that could be
understood by a wide audience, not just by technically trained
economists. From the beginning he detected the fallacies of socialism
and appreciated the benefits of capitalism. Despite the changing
fashions of economics, he expounded these truths relentlessly."
- Colin Robinson, Collected Works of Arthur Seldon, Volume 1,
page xvi.
Colin Robinson is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University
of Surrey. From 1992 to 2002 he was Editorial Director of the Institute
of Economic Affairs. He has edited The Collected Works of Arthur
Seldon, published by Liberty Fund, Indianapolis. Seven volumes,
2004-05.
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