The reality of this international academy of classical liberal scholars is rather different. It was founded in 1947 by thinkers including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Karl Popper.
It emerged as a desperate intellectual response to the twin catastrophes of fascism and totalitarianism that had just ravaged Europe. Its founders sought to preserve the ideals of liberalism (human dignity, free inquiry and the rule of law) in an age that seemed determined to extinguish them.
I have been a member for years, as has my Swedish colleague Nils Karlson. We met when he spent a sabbatical at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney in 2011, during my tenure there from 2008 to 2012.
I came to know Nils then as a passionate, highly philosophical thinker. Karlson founded and led the Ratio Institute, a Swedish think tank, for nearly two decades, and wrote much of this book as a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
But I also know him as a man whose worries about the state of the world have become graver over time. In recent years, I have come to share that concern entirely.
When the members of the society gather for our conferences, we do not discuss how to dismantle the state or grind the faces of the poor. In recent years, at meetings from Oslo to New Delhi, we have discussed the exact opposite: how to save the open society, democracy and the rule of law from their enemies.
It was at our meeting in New Delhi last year that I discussed Karlson’s latest book, Reviving Classical Liberalism Against Populism, with him.
It is a dense, rigorous text: a blueprint for governance rather than a political manifesto. It is also a testament to the urgency of his message that Karlson has published this work not for profit, but for impact. While it bears the imprint of a reputable academic publisher, he has released it as an open access title. Anyone with an internet connection can download it for free. He wants these ideas heard, not sold.
I admit that a philosophical treatise by a Swedish academic might not be the most obvious choice for a New Zealand summer break at the beach. We usually reserve that time for lighter fare. However, these are unusual times, and I suspect many on the political left would be surprised to find themselves agreeing with this book.
At a time when the West is fracturing and the values of the Enlightenment are under siege, Karlson argues that we cannot afford to let the populists win.
For years in these columns, I have defended the institutions of the West. I have argued for the moral necessity of supporting Ukraine, for the sanctity of the rule of law, for a free media and an independent judiciary.
To some, this makes me old-fashioned. But these values have come under attack not just from the political left but also, more worryingly to me, from the political right. Karlson provides the theoretical framework to understand why these defences are not conservative nostalgia, but the trenches in the war against authoritarianism.
We are living through a moment of profound institutional fragility. Across the Western world, the norms that sustain a free society are being eroded.
Karlson identifies populism not merely as a collection of policies we might dislike, but as a distinct method of political warfare. Whether it comes from the left or the right, populism relies on a “collectivistic identity politics” that divides society into two hostile camps: the “pure people” versus the “corrupt elite” (or the “threatening other”).
This “us-versus-them” logic is the poison in the veins of our democracy. It drives attacks on the judiciary when a court ruling is inconvenient. It fuels the disdain for objective truth and the rise of “alternative facts”. And it is the mechanism by which the “open society” (that great achievement of civilisation where we settle disputes by argument rather than force) is slowly converted into an “illiberal democracy”.
The populist promise is always the same: give us power and we will restore order. They offer a seductive simplicity.
But as Karlson meticulously details, their methods inevitably lead to “creeping autocratisation”. They do not always seize power in a sudden coup; they hollow out institutions from the inside. They politicise the civil service; they bully the media; they treat the constitution as a suggestion rather than a constraint.
The tragedy, as Karlson notes, is that liberals (in the classical sense) have often failed to offer a compelling alternative. We have relied too heavily on economic rationality. We have pointed to graphs of GDP growth and poverty reduction and expected gratitude.
We have neglected the human need for meaning, community and belonging. We have allowed the populists to monopolise the language of shared purpose.
This is where Karlson’s concept of “liberal statecraft” matters. My friends on the left might find their prejudices challenged. The classical liberal vision is not, and has never been, about a weak state that abandons its citizens. Karlson argues for a “strong, limited and decent state”.
A liberal society requires a state capable of enforcing the rules without fear or favour. It requires a state that ensures high-quality education for all, not just as an economic input, but as a moral imperative to promote social mobility and dismantle the populist narrative that the system is rigged against the ordinary person.
A state that cannot educate its children or keep its streets safe creates a vacuum for demagogues to fill.
Karlson also argues that we must revive the “Liberal Spirit”. This is not the caricature of “neoliberalism” that so many commentators rail against. It is an ethos that cherishes human flourishing, tolerance and the “bourgeois virtues” of integrity, honesty and civility.
True community, in this view, is built through civil society (clubs, churches, unions and families) rather than granted by a benevolent government.
Karlson’s most ambitious claim is also his most questionable: that liberalism can develop its own collective identity politics without abandoning the pluralism that defines it. Can attachment to constitutional principles genuinely compete with blood-and-soil nationalism? Can the celebration of diversity match the emotional pull of ‘we are taking our country back’?
The difficulty may simply be that liberalism offers choice rather than certainty, voluntary association rather than tribal solidarity. That makes the fight asymmetric.
This is why I write so persistently about the dangers of centralisation and the erosion of localism. When the state crowds out civil society, it destroys the very communities that give people a sense of purpose. It creates the atomised, lonely individuals who are prime recruits for the political fringes.
There is a deep irony in the fact that the members of the Mont Pelerin Society are gathered in conference rooms worrying about how to save the very democratic institutions that the left often accuses us of undermining.
Yet Karlson understands something that too many liberals forget: populism thrives on institutional failure. When schools fail to educate, hospitals have waiting lists that deny timely care and people feel economically insecure, no amount of constitutional theory will save liberal democracy. The liberal response must be about delivery as much as principle.
Karlson also writes that the defence of liberty is a “polycentric effort”. It cannot be carried by one party or one movement alone. It requires allies across the spectrum.
We currently face a geopolitical landscape where authoritarianism is on the march. When I write about the need for the West to stand firm in Ukraine, or the need to resist the erosion of Enlightenment values at home, I am arguing for the survival of the ecosystem that makes disagreement possible.
If the rule of law falls, it is not the wealthy who suffer most; they can always buy their own security. It is the vulnerable who suffer when the courts are no longer independent. If healthcare becomes unaffordable, it is not the wealthy who go without; they can always access the best doctors and medicines. It is ordinary families who face impossible choices. And when a free media is curtailed, it is not the powerful who lose their voice. They always have a megaphone. It is the dissenter and the minority who are silenced.
Karlson’s work is a reminder that the open society does not survive by default. It requires constant maintenance, a commitment to truth-seeking over tribalism and the willingness to view our political opponents not as enemies to be destroyed but as fellow citizens to be persuaded.
In these unusual and dangerous times, the defence of the open society cannot be a partisan project. Karlson is right that it requires looking past political divisions to recognise what is at stake. But it also requires liberal institutions that actually deliver for ordinary people.
The populist tragedy is that their solutions (protectionism, institutional capture, unserious economic policies) make the problems worse. Breaking this cycle demands both defending liberal institutions and ensuring they work well enough that people value them. That requires not just better narratives but better governance.
So, to those of you on the political left, here is my plea: We classical liberals are not the villains of your narrative. We are the fellow guardians of the institutions you fear are slipping away.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE.
I have been a member for years, as has my Swedish colleague Nils Karlson. We met when he spent a sabbatical at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney in 2011, during my tenure there from 2008 to 2012.
I came to know Nils then as a passionate, highly philosophical thinker. Karlson founded and led the Ratio Institute, a Swedish think tank, for nearly two decades, and wrote much of this book as a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
But I also know him as a man whose worries about the state of the world have become graver over time. In recent years, I have come to share that concern entirely.
When the members of the society gather for our conferences, we do not discuss how to dismantle the state or grind the faces of the poor. In recent years, at meetings from Oslo to New Delhi, we have discussed the exact opposite: how to save the open society, democracy and the rule of law from their enemies.
It was at our meeting in New Delhi last year that I discussed Karlson’s latest book, Reviving Classical Liberalism Against Populism, with him.
It is a dense, rigorous text: a blueprint for governance rather than a political manifesto. It is also a testament to the urgency of his message that Karlson has published this work not for profit, but for impact. While it bears the imprint of a reputable academic publisher, he has released it as an open access title. Anyone with an internet connection can download it for free. He wants these ideas heard, not sold.
I admit that a philosophical treatise by a Swedish academic might not be the most obvious choice for a New Zealand summer break at the beach. We usually reserve that time for lighter fare. However, these are unusual times, and I suspect many on the political left would be surprised to find themselves agreeing with this book.
At a time when the West is fracturing and the values of the Enlightenment are under siege, Karlson argues that we cannot afford to let the populists win.
For years in these columns, I have defended the institutions of the West. I have argued for the moral necessity of supporting Ukraine, for the sanctity of the rule of law, for a free media and an independent judiciary.
To some, this makes me old-fashioned. But these values have come under attack not just from the political left but also, more worryingly to me, from the political right. Karlson provides the theoretical framework to understand why these defences are not conservative nostalgia, but the trenches in the war against authoritarianism.
We are living through a moment of profound institutional fragility. Across the Western world, the norms that sustain a free society are being eroded.
Karlson identifies populism not merely as a collection of policies we might dislike, but as a distinct method of political warfare. Whether it comes from the left or the right, populism relies on a “collectivistic identity politics” that divides society into two hostile camps: the “pure people” versus the “corrupt elite” (or the “threatening other”).
This “us-versus-them” logic is the poison in the veins of our democracy. It drives attacks on the judiciary when a court ruling is inconvenient. It fuels the disdain for objective truth and the rise of “alternative facts”. And it is the mechanism by which the “open society” (that great achievement of civilisation where we settle disputes by argument rather than force) is slowly converted into an “illiberal democracy”.
The populist promise is always the same: give us power and we will restore order. They offer a seductive simplicity.
But as Karlson meticulously details, their methods inevitably lead to “creeping autocratisation”. They do not always seize power in a sudden coup; they hollow out institutions from the inside. They politicise the civil service; they bully the media; they treat the constitution as a suggestion rather than a constraint.
The tragedy, as Karlson notes, is that liberals (in the classical sense) have often failed to offer a compelling alternative. We have relied too heavily on economic rationality. We have pointed to graphs of GDP growth and poverty reduction and expected gratitude.
We have neglected the human need for meaning, community and belonging. We have allowed the populists to monopolise the language of shared purpose.
This is where Karlson’s concept of “liberal statecraft” matters. My friends on the left might find their prejudices challenged. The classical liberal vision is not, and has never been, about a weak state that abandons its citizens. Karlson argues for a “strong, limited and decent state”.
A liberal society requires a state capable of enforcing the rules without fear or favour. It requires a state that ensures high-quality education for all, not just as an economic input, but as a moral imperative to promote social mobility and dismantle the populist narrative that the system is rigged against the ordinary person.
A state that cannot educate its children or keep its streets safe creates a vacuum for demagogues to fill.
Karlson also argues that we must revive the “Liberal Spirit”. This is not the caricature of “neoliberalism” that so many commentators rail against. It is an ethos that cherishes human flourishing, tolerance and the “bourgeois virtues” of integrity, honesty and civility.
True community, in this view, is built through civil society (clubs, churches, unions and families) rather than granted by a benevolent government.
Karlson’s most ambitious claim is also his most questionable: that liberalism can develop its own collective identity politics without abandoning the pluralism that defines it. Can attachment to constitutional principles genuinely compete with blood-and-soil nationalism? Can the celebration of diversity match the emotional pull of ‘we are taking our country back’?
The difficulty may simply be that liberalism offers choice rather than certainty, voluntary association rather than tribal solidarity. That makes the fight asymmetric.
This is why I write so persistently about the dangers of centralisation and the erosion of localism. When the state crowds out civil society, it destroys the very communities that give people a sense of purpose. It creates the atomised, lonely individuals who are prime recruits for the political fringes.
There is a deep irony in the fact that the members of the Mont Pelerin Society are gathered in conference rooms worrying about how to save the very democratic institutions that the left often accuses us of undermining.
Yet Karlson understands something that too many liberals forget: populism thrives on institutional failure. When schools fail to educate, hospitals have waiting lists that deny timely care and people feel economically insecure, no amount of constitutional theory will save liberal democracy. The liberal response must be about delivery as much as principle.
Karlson also writes that the defence of liberty is a “polycentric effort”. It cannot be carried by one party or one movement alone. It requires allies across the spectrum.
We currently face a geopolitical landscape where authoritarianism is on the march. When I write about the need for the West to stand firm in Ukraine, or the need to resist the erosion of Enlightenment values at home, I am arguing for the survival of the ecosystem that makes disagreement possible.
If the rule of law falls, it is not the wealthy who suffer most; they can always buy their own security. It is the vulnerable who suffer when the courts are no longer independent. If healthcare becomes unaffordable, it is not the wealthy who go without; they can always access the best doctors and medicines. It is ordinary families who face impossible choices. And when a free media is curtailed, it is not the powerful who lose their voice. They always have a megaphone. It is the dissenter and the minority who are silenced.
Karlson’s work is a reminder that the open society does not survive by default. It requires constant maintenance, a commitment to truth-seeking over tribalism and the willingness to view our political opponents not as enemies to be destroyed but as fellow citizens to be persuaded.
In these unusual and dangerous times, the defence of the open society cannot be a partisan project. Karlson is right that it requires looking past political divisions to recognise what is at stake. But it also requires liberal institutions that actually deliver for ordinary people.
The populist tragedy is that their solutions (protectionism, institutional capture, unserious economic policies) make the problems worse. Breaking this cycle demands both defending liberal institutions and ensuring they work well enough that people value them. That requires not just better narratives but better governance.
So, to those of you on the political left, here is my plea: We classical liberals are not the villains of your narrative. We are the fellow guardians of the institutions you fear are slipping away.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE.
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