Madsen Pirie

My series of YouTube videos entitled “Economics is Fun” aims to put across the principles of economics in a fairly user-friendly way.  They are all very short, 2-3 minutes in length, and I really enjoyed making them.  The Adam Smith Institute has been promoting them on the Guido Fawkes website (www.order-order.com), which is widely read by those involved in politics, the media and business, and I’ve had great fun seeing my own face appear alongside Guido’s commentaries!

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Posters advertising my book “Think Tank” (by Biteback Publications) have gone up at Tube stations across London.  This is a first for me, and I’m having great fun looking at them…

The book is on sale at Amazon.

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On Thursday I debated in the Oxford Union, opposing the motion “that Capitalism has failed the poor.”  On the contrary, I said, it was the best thing that had ever happened to the poor, having lifted billions out of subsistence, starvation, poverty and disease.  Capitalism has created the wealth that gives so many opportunities to the modern world.  We didn’t manage to defeat the motion, but we came close!  There were great receptions before and afterwards, and a pre-debate dinner with the speakers and the Union officers.  All in all, it was quite a fun evening.

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Wednesday saw the launch by Biiteback Publications of “Think Tank – the Story of the Adam Smith Institute.”  The party was held in the crypt of St John’s, Smith Square, with about 90 people enjoying prosecco and canapes.  Lord Forsyth made a short speech.  It was a great location, good food and wine, and the publishers reported many sales of the book.

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Today sees the publication of “Think Tank – the Story of the Adam Smith Institute.”  It was great fun writing this book because every day spent writing it was a walk down Memory Lane.  The name on the book is precisely what you get, because it is above all a story.  It’s a first person narrative of what it was like to return to Britain from the US and set up a new type of think tank without any resources or backing.  We had to grow the Adam Smith Institute from nothing, and the story is an account of how it happened.  From scavenging materials from builders’ skips to doing cover artwork with press-on lettering, it is (I hope) a light-hearted account of how we coped.  I still shudder when I read about how we narrowly outwitted bailiffs and avoided the debtor’s prison that so coloured the life of Charles Dickens.

I tried to write an engaging and unpretentious account of what it was actually like to build up something that became a national institution, and I wanted to put across some of the excitement and struggle that it involved.  Above all, I wanted to convey in its pages some of the fun and mischief that accompanied it.

The UK turned its back on state collectivism and socialism, and instead embraced markets, incentives and opportunities.  The Adam Smith Institute was part of that story, and played an honourable role in helping to bring that about.  “Think Tank” tells that story, and tries to do it in a readable and absorbing way.

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There is a growing list of short videos on YouTube for your entertainment and edification. Please click here for the full list: Economics is Fun with Madsen Pirie or watch the first video below:

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