An Interview with…

What appealed to you about a degree in Economics with Politics and International Relations, and why did you decide to study such a broad degree?

I have been very interested in politics since I was a child. I was one of those highly ambitious children who, from a very young age, knew that she wanted to change the world. I had learned throughout my education that politics and economics are extremely intertwined, and I thought that this particular course would best cater to my needs. I viewed it as a course that would offer me the necessary skills to build a clearer understanding of the world, to identify issues that exist in the world, and for me to then think about what the best approach would be to face those issues.

Part of my decision to choose the course came from my own interest, and part of it came from the people around me. It was a passion of my father to be engaged in politics, so it very much runs in the family, and I had conversations with him about politics from a very young age.

All in all, this course appealed to me because it offered the perfect balance of maths and essay writing. Being STEM-minded but having a deep curiosity for social sciences was ultimately what led me to choose this course.

International relations is a subject area that many of our readers won’t be familiar with: it is not taught in schools as a subject, nor is it something that is clearly put across by external sources like the media. Could you tell us a little about what International Relations actually is and what you are taught on an international relations course?

A very brief summary of international relations would be the study of the behaviour of the nation states, how those interact with each other in the international sphere and the role of the institutions that facilitate this process.

In the first year of my course I was introduced to the main IR theories: liberalism, realism, constructivism, and others like feminism, and marxism [explainers down below!]. So the first year operates as an introductory course to various IR theories and how they differ. In the second year I was taught about the power dynamics of the global north verses the global south, why the disparities are there, and how they can be resolved moving forward. And the third year had a broad focus on the United Nations, especially the Security Council and whether it can be reformed. We also looked at the veto powers of the P5 members, touched on ASEAN, and learned about South America, more specifically the NAFTA agreement.

However, most of the modules that I selected during my time at university were economics modules. This is because I went to the London campus of Northeastern University which has the American education structure, whereby my major was economics and my minor was politics and IR.

I did enjoy economics so much more because I felt that, with economics, I could be much more open about the values I hold and what I believe in. Whereas, I felt as though I could not do that as much with politics which is a little disappointing but also expected.

Could you tell us more about what these values were that you didn’t think were as celebrated in the politics and IR component of your course?

I’m a classical liberal. I suppose that, in economics, it's easier to speak about concepts like laissez-faire and capitalism. We did learn about Friedman (we were introducted to his Permanent Income Hypothesis when learned about the various consumption theories,) and were taught a bit about Riccardo, but we never studied Hayek. On the other hand, I cannot say my politics&IR module offered me the same "privilege". There was this particular case where I was delivering a presentation in which I had quoted Thomas Sowell, who is a very respectable thinker. My professor at the time really did not like that and I firmly believe that I was penalised for speaking my mind and for quoting someone great like Thomas Sowell.

I think all universities in the UK are facing an issue: university students, especially ones in the centre right, are not as open about their beliefs and have to engage in self-censorship. This is quite disappointing because universities should be a free market of ideas and only through exploring different perspectives can the best ideas come to prominence at the end. We should have the opportunity during our studies to engage in intellectual discussions, because the vast majority of the students nowadays are never offered the other side of the story in subjects like economics and politics.

No one has to believe in classical liberalism but they should definitely be taught about it because classical liberalist thinkers changed the world. It started with the Enlightenment , proceeded with the American Revolution and is still very much relevant today given the issues we are facing: the recklessness of the Bank of England in managing QE, or in mismanaging QE I should say, we always come back to Hayek’s ideas and his views on the denationalisation of money.

There may be people reading this who have not come across classical liberalism as a school of economic thought before. What resources would you point them towards to learn more?

I am responsible for running an internship program in classical liberalism at the University of Buckingham and I have noticed that it's very unlikely for students to have heard of classical liberalism. Given the lack of teaching on the subject, I really do not blame them! I suppose that starting with the key thinkers is best: Locke, Montesquieu, and Smith. One source that I always point people towards is Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. I think Smith developing the metaphor of the ‘impartial spectator’ has been an extremely useful way to explain to people why, as an individual, you are a rational being who will pursue their own self interest but also have the power within you to judge these decisions.

When young people hear the word ‘selfish’ being used, they define it in a way which is very different to what it originally meant. Being ‘selfish’ simply means pursuing one’s own self interest. It is important to realise however, that it does not mean to be isolated, or to cause harm to others while pursuing those selfish interests.

Another source I highly recommend is the Road to Serfdom, by Hayek. It is an excellent book and the IEA has actually published a Reader’s Digest version of this book. We have also published a Primer on Classical Liberalism, by Eamon Butler - a great introduction to applied classical liberal ideas and key classical liberal thinkers.

There is a broad range of topics within classical liberalism, but I would definitely recommend starting with the period of Enlightenment and then working your way forwards.

What was your route to working at the IEA?

I did the General Internship at the IEA for 3 months from August to November of last year. The General Internship is a very good opportunity because it really helps you identify and improve any skills that you want to improve, be that event management, writing policy briefs, or helping the research team with their research. It was not too long after I first joined that I also became Head Intern. I believe that made it easier for me to establish the relationship I established with the staff members, but it also did help that I had a huge interest in classical liberalism.

The IEA is a great place to be, despite the news trying to convince you of the contrary, because you have the opportunity engage in one-on-one conversations with staff members, all the way up to the executive director. As an intern I also got invited to the Beloff conference which is a two-and-a-half day program run by the IEA and the Vinson Centre for mostly postgraduate students, but also undergrads interested in classical liberalism. From then I started working closely with the education department which is where I work right now.

Is there someone you’ve had the opportunity to speak to who has made a particular impression on you?

There are quite a few people! Through my line of work I have met many interesting people and I was such a huge Kristian Niemietz fan, so getting to meet him in person was an incredible experience for me. I remember that I originally found out about the IEA through interacting with Niemietz on Twitter and exchanging a few replies after he had just published his book ‘Socialism: The Failed Idea that Never Dies’ which I was very keen on.

Important people walk through the doors of the IEA all the time. David Friedman was there for lunch and I had the chance to meet him too, which was excellent. Yesterday I also met a German professor who is an expert in Austrian economics, his name is Thorsten Polleit. He led a talk on Hayek's denationalisation of money and I had the chance to speak to him one-on-one. It truly does feel surreal sometimes that I have the chance to meet these great personalities that I used to look up to.

And I almost forgot the most important one: Dr Steve Davies, an economic historian and also the IEA’s Senior Education Fellow. He is the human version of history encyclopaedia; he knows everything about everything and he truly is fascinating!

Tell us about your work experience with the County Council; it seems at odds with your current work at the IEA!

I did a short work experience in the council as a policy analyst, simply because it was recommended by my college and, as you will know, having work experience can be highly valuable at that age. During that work experience I was working with the climate change team, and my task was to essentially produce a document in which I outlined all the policies that councils around the UK are implementing to achieve net 0 by 2030 (or at least it was 2030 back then but now they seem to keep postponing it!) I had to look at these policies and evaluate if they would work for the council that I was part of. Then, I also worked with care leavers and was the Vice Chair of the Care Leaver Advisory board as well as the representative for people seeking asylum. Before I moved to London I was living in Worthing so I had a few people reach out to me about these opportunities, and I have always been passionate about helping young people discover their potential and helping them get to where they want to be in life. I am someone who has always believed you can do anything you want as long as you put the work into it. This work experience allowed me to represent young people and advise the council on how to best support them. It was a very useful experience to have, but was quite emotionally challenging because people in care were experiencing all sorts of difficulties.

You mentioned that you’re interested in research - what areas would you like to learn more about?

I wrote my dissertation on the relation of trade liberalisation and political cooperation in the economic growth of the western Balkan region. I am from the region myself and so I take great interest in this topic. I will be conducting further research in this area and might change one or two variables in my model and see if the findings are interesting enough to be published. I have just sent over a copy of my dissertation to the director of the Vinson Centre, who also manages the journal Economic Affairs which is where I’d like to be published. My main focus for further research is classical liberal philosophy, trade liberalisation in developing countries, the gold standard and the rise of extremist ideologies. I do also deliver a presentation from time to time on the similarities between communism and fascism, because they share an incredible amount of similarities!

Do you think that social media is making the distinction between the views of young people, which tend to be more left-leaning, and the rest of the population even more pronounced?

There is a saying that goes “Young people start becoming more centre-right once they start paying taxes”. I definitely believe that a component of young people claiming to be socialist is (1) that they don’t understand what socialism is and (2) that they believe in the utopia that socialism promises to achieve. They have almost invariably not been exposed to the other side of the argument and so, yes, it is correct to say that social media promotes certain ideas and censors others. The increasing exposure to social media and reduction of independent study and reading, as well as receiving information from particular sources which are repeating what you want to hear, is incredibly problematic.

Niemietz has also written that it is disappointing that young people don’t seem to grow out of socialism any more and, in a survey conducted by the Fraser Institute, 2/3 of young people identify as socialists and believe that socialism is the best economic and political system.

I think that the centre-right lacks great communicators of ideas. We love to bring up Hayek and Mises and Friedman but the average citizen does not care about any of that; the average citizen has real problems that require real solutions. So what the centre-left does well is they get to the root of these problems, and they are very good at identifying what the problems are, but I would argue their diagnosis is not quite correct.

Do you think implementing a top-down approach, via finding effective centre-right communicators, or a bottom-up approach, via reforming the educational curriculum, is the best solution to increasing the diversity of economic thought that people are exposed to?

The realistic solution that we have is the top down approach: we can start having these conversations right now. I do not think that, for as long as the state is the major provider of education, we are going to have more diversity of thought in our curriculums. Teaching people about the Austrian school's view on government, which attacks the state and big government, seems counter to what the state would try to promote. The realistic solution is to just start having conversations with people around you and sharing ideas with them.

If you were given the opportunity to run the country and could enact new legislation, are there certain changes you’d be particularly passionate about making or certain areas you’d really like to reform?

Housing reform. We need to build more houses.

Currently NIMBYs have too much power in their hands. Houses are expensive and there is a shortage of housing supply because houses are simply not being built. There is clearly a great imbalance of power when it comes to NIMBYs vs YIMBYs. The housing crisis will prevail and us young people will never be able to own a house if more houses are not built.

Another reform that I would like to implement, which is slightly more controversial, is privatising the NHS. The arguments from the other side don’t make sense any more: there are clear problems within the NHS and yet people seem to think that allocating a larger portion of the budget to the NHS will solve these problems. You cannot keep putting more money into something that is clearly broken. The NHS is a blackhole for taxpayers' money.

Thanks for reading! See you in the next issue - Erin McGurk