Saturday
On March 18th, it will be two years since the untimely death from cancer of Chris Tame, founder of the Libertarian Alliance, bibiophile, and sceptic about many things, including the time spent (wasted?) on party politics. There is a plan to commemorate the academic approach which Chris always thought was a key to winning the battle of ideas against collectivism of all shades, with the Inaugural Chris R. Tame Memorial Lecture, at the National Liberal Club, in London on Tuesday at 6.30pm.
The speaker is Professor David Myddelton, from Cranfield University. The title of the lecture is: "How to Cure Government Obesity," which sounds like the sort of obesity we really ought to panic about.
Admission is free BUT ONLY if you contact Tim Evans, the LA's president, by email: tim [at] libertarian [dot] co [dot] uk. Numbers are limited and there are some drinks afterwards. I expect a recording will be made and linked to on either the LA blog or website. I shall certainly be there.
I especially miss the wicked sense of humour and the fact that my office is above an Amnesty International second-hand bookshop. It's the sort of place Chris would have spent five minutes scanning ALL the shelves - even sport, in case a Tae-Kwondo manual showed up! Then he would have chatted for an hour with the Socialist or Liberal volunteers in the shop, discussing what he termed "the rape of the libraries" and (sincerely) pushing against climate change on progressive humanist grounds.
With government spending now at least 45% of G.D.P. (not counting the government's efforts to cook the books) in Britain, government certainly needs to be put on a diet.
And, of course, what is left of Civil Society is dominated by an ever growing weight of regulations (80% of which are now a response to E.U. demands). There is also the credit-money bubble to which not just the financial industry but many of the large nonfinancial industry corporations are now addicted.
Sadly the late Dr Tame's predictions have proved to be accurate. And those who thought that politicians had learned by past mistakes have been shown to be wrong.
"But at least they do not nationalize things any more" - when they fall apart they do. Even when the collapse is due to their own regulations, as it was with Railtrack. Or the Federal Reserve and Bank of England credit-money bubble - as it was with Northern Rock.
There seems to be no way to stop the decline of civilization. No way to transform economic knowledge into a way of limiting government.
Perhaps the lecture will show such a way.
Posted by Paul Marks at March 15, 2008 04:37 PM
Chris's real legacy is that we can now read dozens of British websites (with new ones appearing all the time) that are written and commented upon by libertarians, almost none of whom would have been known to us oldsters a few years ago.
Chris lives on.
Posted by David Farrer at March 15, 2008 04:50 PM
I shall be there. As an old friend and intellectual mentor, Chris's spirit remains. Almost every time I write about an issue, I often think, what would Chris have made of it?
Two years on and the sadness of his death has not gone away. He still leaves a big gap.
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at March 15, 2008 06:34 PM
