The ASI and the Overton Window

The Adam Smith Institute saw another big policy win this week. In 2017 we published a paper by the ASI President, Dr Madsen Pirie, entitled ‘The Fifth Way.’

It proposed the radical idea that local governments should be empowered to buy farmland, give it planning permission for housebuilding, and share the proceeds with the community. The government has just announced that it will implement this.

It is another case of the ASI stretching the Overton Window so that ideas thought outlandish can be brought into the range of what it is possible to consider. Way back in the 1980s Madsen was quoted as saying, "We propose things which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy." If we had a penny for every time that has been quoted, the ASI would be rich. We are not rich, alas, because we never received those pennies.

It does, nonetheless, indicate one of the ASI’s greatest strengths. We seem to come up with ideas that seem way beyond what is considered reasonable, and then market them in such a way that they become worthy of consideration. This has happened many, many times, and ‘The Fifth Way’ is only the latest.

Madsen has been working on a paper that proposes radical solutions to ongoing problems in most areas of government ranging through health, education, student loans and overseas development. It’s Overton window stuff and is guaranteed to blow your socks off when we publish it next month. Watch this space.