One of the most inspiring individuals of the post-war free-market movement is Sir Antony Fisher. He was one of the most influential background figures in the global rise of libertarian think tanks after World War II. In 1945 after flying in the Royal Air Force during the war, Fisher read The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek. He met Hayek in 1947 and was inclined to enter politics to defend individual liberty against creeping socialism, but Hayek proposed another idea. Instead of directly entering the political system, Hayek believed changing the climate of ideas would be the only way to make real change possible.
The video below is the first of two parts explaining Sir Antony Fisher’s role in the free-market movement.
In 1952, Sir Antony Fisher came to America, where he visited the new Foundation for Economic Education (which had, as it were, influence F. A. Hayek to form the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947). Three years later in 1955, Fisher founded the hugely influential Institute of Economic Affairs which describes itself as the UK’s pre-eminent free-market think-tank. By 1981, he had helped establish several think tanks and decided to found the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Through Atlas, Fisher helped found over 150 other think-tanks worldwide. Atlas continues to start new think-tanks through the use of local “intellectual entrpreneurs” and strengthen a network of over 250 think-tanks. Atlas keeps a database of over 600 think tanks in its Freedom Directory.
Sir Antony Fisher saw creeping socialism start to replace individual liberty in his home country and around the world. To defend liberty, Fisher dedicated his life to spreading the truth about free-market economics and the ills of socialism and the planned economy. The first several decades of his fight, there were no tangible victories but he persisted and helped keep the message of freedom alive for us today.
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