An important aspect of politics and of the study of politics is how agendas are set and issues framed. What seems vitally important at one particular time can be of no interest at another. Politics and the study of politics are both subject to fashion, both in the issues that seem important and in the languages and conceptual frameworks we use to discuss them. We spend most of our lives immersed in our own times and it is very hard to stand outside them and look at them objectively, very hard to understand which of all the trends are likely to be the decisive ones, which of the many forks in the road will be the one taken. One of the features of the human condition which Hayek described so well is the limited knowledge we possess.

As students of politics we need a little humility to acknowledge our own blind spots, and the necessary incompleteness of our understanding. A good dose of scepticism is also necessary in studying politics and in engaging in politics, but as Oakeshott reminds us scepticism itself is not enough. Without faith, without the passion for certainty, there would be few human achievements. But the pursuit of projects of faith carries great dangers. The modern world is littered with their debris. The pluralism and diversity which have made possible the richest human experiences have arisen whether by luck or design in societies able to create institutions which restrain the constant drive to uniformity and ideological certainty. When those checks fail or are never put in place the consequences can be dire.

The debate on neo-liberalism is a central theme of this book and one I have been engaged with since the 1970s. Although I accept the term neo-liberalism is here to stay I have never liked using it for a number of reasons, first because it is mostly used by those who are not neo-liberals themselves but critics of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberals generally prefer other terms to identify themselves – economic libertarians, economic liberals, classical liberals, or free market liberals are just some of them.