Motto for IPI

[Sanjeev Sabhlok <sabhlok@almaak.usc.edu>]

Dear Friends,

While reading Prof. Roy's booklet, "Pricing, Planning and Politics,"
(1984) I found that he has stolen most of my current ideas. I am deeply
concerned at his unabashed plagiarism of my ideas. (!)

One of my ideas that I keep working upon and propagating is the
competition of ideas, which is what IPI is designed to be: the real-life
competition of ideas. Over here, only the best ideas are supposed to
win, and even the best ideas are not sacrosant. They can be overturned
upon receipt of better reasons.

I did not know that this term has been used earlier in the literature,
in fact, by Prof. Roy himself.

The following sentence best captures what I had in mind when I proposed
to some young friends (the organizers of this list) that we debate ideas
publicly, many months ago. It is so well-phrased that I propose that we
adopt it as our motto.

Motto of IPI
-----------

"It is much more dangerous for a monopoly of ideas to be claimed about
where the political good of a country lies than for there to be free and
open competition among such ideas at the bar of reason."

(Subroto Roy, 1984, p.22 of Pricing, Planning and Policies, Occasional
Paper 69, Institute of Economic Affairs, London).

I have already put this up on IPI's main page. If you disagree with this
motto, please contest it with a better motto.

Thanks,

Sincerely,

Sanjeev


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