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The Austrian school of thought that packs a massive political punch (Wilson da Silva, Sydney Morning Herald, 8/13/2003)

They are unelected, privately funded and their meetings are by invitation only....

If there was a global godfather of this neo-conservative movement, it would be Friedrich von Hayek. The Austrian economist and social theorist was a rival of British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes' interventionist ideas came to dominate policy after World War II, while Hayek's drifted into the back rooms of history.

But he didn't give up: in 1947, he set up the Mont Pelerin Society, a secretive group that met annually to map out a neo-conservative counterattack against the growing socialist character of postwar economies....

In Australia, as elsewhere, they ply their trade by publishing "independent research" from a network of like-minded scholars whose reports invariably end up backing the neo-conservative world view. Staff and friendly scholars are paid to write newspaper articles which are submitted - usually free - to opinion pages.

By publishing reports that confirm their arguments, neo-conservative think tanks seek to mould public debate. But they also peddle influence, holding closed seminars and lectures ...

Hayek ... died in 1992, but not before Thatcher rewarded him with a visit to Buckingham Palace, where he was bestowed with a Companion of Honour - a tribute to the most successful, if unheralded, political puppet-master of the past century.

Wow, I didn't know Hayek was such a revolutionary. Holding private meetings, publishing research, writing articles, giving seminars and lectures -- and all in the back rooms of history. I wonder how he was able to run the puppet strings into the front rooms? But at least we don't have to hear what went on in the bedrooms! Posted by Paul Jaminet at August 13, 2003 11:36 AM