The Consequences of Antony Fisher's Ideas

Antony Fisher Champion of Liberty by Gerald Frost

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book should be summed up thus: "Ideas have consequences".

Quite apart from the very interesting life that Antony Fisher led, it is significant that his most important creation is the think tank known as the Institute of Economic Affairs based in London. The book is not lengthy and speaks for itself both about the author and the big idea that led to the establishment of think tanks.

Needless to mention here was a Cambridge University trained engineer, WWII pilot, a poultry rearing businessman and the originator of the idea of the Think Tank. Later, Antony Fisher tried to rear turtles for food and lost a substantial part of his fortune but still did not fail to support transplantation of new think tanks in Europe and the north of America. Granted that the book is written by a real admirer, one does not get the impression that its subject is turned into an icon nor the details of his intellectual or business life exaggerated.

But most important is the manner in which as an entrepreneur of ideas, he made the IEA a success to the surprise of Frederich Von Hayek, who considered that such an idea would not be successful. the reasons for Von Hayek's skepticism are as important as the fact that Antony Fisher defied him. This coverage of the life of Antony Fisher is a far better illustration of the "entrepreneur as a super-hero" (sorry Libertarians) and to my mind, in a more convincing way that Ayn Rand's interesting books which tend to overstate the same facts. Truly, Ideas have consequences.