This book has four themes.

Theme 1: Hayek and neo-liberalism

• 1 The western ideology (2009)

• 2 Neo-liberalism and the tax state (2013)

• 3 Ideas and interests in British economic policy (1989)

• 4 Hayek on knowledge, economics and society (2006)

Theme 2: Socialism and social democracy

• 5 Marxism after communism (1999)

• 6 G.D.H. Cole and the history of socialist thought (2002)

• 7 Social democracy in a global world (2009)

• 8 The quest for a Great Labour Party (2018)

Theme 3: Oakeshott and conservatism

• 9 Oakeshott's ideological politics (2012)

• 10 Oakeshott and totalitarianism (2016)

Theme 4: Politics and fate

• 11 The drifter's escape (2004)

Theme 1: Hayek and neo-liberalism

This theme looks at economic liberalism and its growing importance in shaping policy from the 1970s onwards. ‘The western ideology’ (Chapter 1) was delivered as the Leonard Schapiro Lecture just at the moment that the financial crash was beginning to unfold in early 2008, although the most dramatic events were not to take place until September and October. Economic liberalism in varied forms has been central to the dominant interpretation of the western ideology and liberal modernity. The western ideology is defined as the doctrines which have legitimated and promoted the institutions of liberal modernity in the last two hundred years. This essay explores political conditions, such as the hegemony exercised for long periods by first Britain and then the United States, which made this possible. It examines the different strands which make up economic liberalism, focusing on the emergence of neo-liberalism as the dominant form of economic liberalism from the 1980s onwards, and particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 which removed a major ideological and political competitor. It asks whether these political conditions can be sustained.

‘Neoliberalism and the tax state’ (Chapter 2) was written after the financial crash for a collection edited by Vivien Schmidt and Mark Thatcher, and took shape in meetings in Boston and Paris. The theme of that book was why economic liberalism in general and neoliberalism in particular had proved so resilient since the 2008 financial crash after so many of its ideas and policies had been discredited.