We think, therefore we evolve

You’d be amazed at the range of think tanks that now exist worldwide. Take just one example- the Albanian Liberal Institute. What does Albania conjure up in your minds? One image I have is the super highway from the airport as described by P.J. O’Rourke. I think it was eight lanes. What a highway. Trouble was, it only went for 300 metres.

Albanians neither wish to be the butt of jokes nor the poor relation on the continent any longer. A think tank is an important part of the new world for them. The Institute there has a staff of three and a budget of $50,000. The three main principles that it promotes are individual rights, the market economy, and the open society. Sound familiar? It should, and it’s exciting. That story, or something like it is being told in almost every country on the globe.

That, in a nutshell is our story at the CIS. We have held steadfast to these three core principles for 30 years and it drives us ever forward. I happen to believe those values are the engine of all genuine human progress.

As champions of innovative, provocative thinking we do not expect to be universally liked. You won’t always be popular when you set out to challenge people and their ideas, especially those who argue a vested interest against the public interest in public policy. Our task is to think the unthinkable and to explain why this should now be thought about.

When we first started, just about everything we put forward could have been classed as unthinkable, at least politically. Much of what we said then is conventional wisdom today.

When I say that we think the unthinkable, I should perhaps qualify that. A lot of what we say strikes a chord with the way many members of the public think (although it sometimes irritates established elites).

Most Australians believe in the virtues of self-reliance, the importance of free choice, and the principle of personal responsibility. These are the values that underpin our work. When we argue for these things, we are working with the grain of public opinion, not against it.

Take schooling, as just one example. There are countless others. Most parents want high educational standards, and many would welcome the opportunity to exercise more choice about the kind of schools their children attend. We have argued, primarily through the work of Jennifer Buckingham, that education vouchers or education tax credits could deliver the higher standards and greater choice that parents want. But these ideas provoke controversy. Teacher unions oppose them; so do many professional educationalists. Our job is to explain the proposal and to win support for it by appealing to the values which most members of the public share.

That’s what think tanks can do and that’s what this particular think tank has been doing. I look forward to more active competition in this ideas market, as we will all gain from it.

Greg Lindsay is chief executive of The Centre for Independent Studies. This is an extract from a speech to the CIS 30 th anniversary dinner on May 4.