Oliver Smithies lecture – Dr William Coleman
14 February, 5pm Lecture room XXIII, Balliol CollegeDr. William Coleman will present at talk on 'The Strange Birth of Neoliberalism'.
This lecture will analyse the fluctuations in the fortunes of classical liberalism over the past two centuries. It will attribute the low point of classical liberalism, in the mid-twentieth century, to ambiguities in the concepts of freedom and reason, as originally formulated by Locke, Smith and Mill. It will then argue that during the post-war period it was the doctrinal reformulations associated with the neoliberalism of Friedman and Hayek, and others, accompanied by the revival of capitalism’s success, that re-established the potency of ideas about the importance of free markets and of limited government.
William Coleman is a Reader in the School of Economics at the Australian National University, and is a Visiting Fellow at Balliol College during Hilary and Trinity Terms of 2012. His main research interests are in macroeconomic theory, in monetary economics and in the history of economics. His books include Rationalism and Anti-Rationalism in the Origins of Economics and Economics and Its Enemies.