The LSE and Chicago economics departments formed a prewar axis of free-market allies

Evidence

During the 1930s the leading economists at the LSE saw their counterparts at the University of Chicago as their closest intellectual and ideological allies outside Vienna. … The strongest of these connections was between Lionel Robbins and Jacob Viner, who recounted their fi rst meeting in 1927 in terms more often used for romance than for discussions of theory. … Friedrich Hayek had fi rst met Frank Knight before moving to London, and wrote in 1936 that despite their occasional differences he could fi nd “no other author with whom I feel myself so much in agreement.” Robbins, too, expressed par tic u lar admiration for Knight’s work, assigning his treatise Risk, Uncertainty and Profi t as an introductory textbook in economic theory and assisting with the publication of his collection of essays, The Ethics of Competition. In 1937 Robbins told Viner that he was convinced that the economics faculty in Chicago was “easily the most important group in the world.” — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 87

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider Mont Pèlerin network formation story — the LSE-Chicago-Vienna triangle that later produced the MPS itself. — connects to: Chicago and LSE market advocates were rarely united and often opposed — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 45; Robbins recruited Hayek to the LSE as an ally against interventionist economics — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 68; Fabian commitment to openness let a reactionary economics take root at the LSE — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 52 (+2 more)
• SHARE: The Robbins-Viner first meeting described in romantic terms — a starlit walk among Oxford spires until 1:30am — is exactly the kind of detail an economic-history friend would enjoy.