Robber Governments

In choosing the Hoover Institution at Palo Alto, California as the site for its 1980 general meeting in September, the Mont Pelerin Society was right on the mark in several respects. To begin, the Hoover is Ronald Reagan’s own most specially prized think-tank. Its Nobel Prize-winning Milton Friedman, now permanently domiciled in the area, happens also to be a Mont Pelerin past president. Its Martin Anderson, also a Mont Pelerin member, has been a leader among Ronald Reagan’s “issues men.” If the country is really going back to its traditional voluntaristic ways, hearkening to the message of Milton and Rose Friedman’s most recent work, Free to Choose, it will be due in no small measure to the Hoover and to Mont Pelerin.

The surrounding atmosphere—or, better to say, the culture—of the Palo Alto region along the south arm of San Francisco Bay was also right for Mont Pelerin deliberations. To be sure, the academics of Leland Stanford University are not notably biased toward economic freedom. But it was the electrical engineering department and laboratories of Stanford that nurtured the physicists who produced the local miracle known as Silicon Valley.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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In choosing the Hoover Institution at Palo Alto, California as the site for its 1980 general meeting in September, the Mont Pelerin Society was right on the mark in several respects. To begin, the Hoover is Ronald Reagan’s own most specially prized think-tank. Its Nobel Prize-winning Milton Friedman, now permanently domiciled in the area, happens also to be a Mont Pelerin past president. Its Martin Anderson, also a Mont Pelerin member, has been a leader among Ronald Reagan’s “issues men.” If the country is really going back to its traditional voluntaristic ways, hearkening to the message of Milton and Rose Friedman’s most recent work, Free to Choose, it will be due in no small measure to the Hoover and to Mont Pelerin.

The surrounding atmosphere—or, better to say, the culture—of the Palo Alto region along the south arm of San Francisco Bay was also right for Mont Pelerin deliberations. To be sure, the academics of Leland Stanford University are not notably biased toward economic freedom. But it was the electrical engineering department and laboratories of Stanford that nurtured the physicists who produced the local miracle known as Silicon Valley.