ZadekpediaAtlas Network is a nonprofit organization that serves a worldwide network of think tanks. It is discussed on The Bob Zadek Show in three episodes, twice through Tom Palmer and once through Matt Warner.
Described by Tom Palmer
In the 2012 episode on the morality of capitalism, Palmer recommends AtlasNetwork.org/morality as the place to download or order a free copy of his book The Morality of Capitalism The Morality of Capitalism (2012).
In the 2017 episode on self-control versus state control, Bob Zadek introduces Palmer as Executive Vice President for International Programs at Atlas Network. Palmer describes what the organization does: it is primarily a service organization for a network of 458 organizations around the world in 98 different countries that promote limited government, peace, personal freedom and responsibility, toleration, free trade, and market economy — the classical liberal values, now called libertarian in America. He directs listeners to atlasnetwork.org/selfcontrol to obtain a printed or downloaded copy of his book Self-Control or State-Control? Dr. Tom Palmer on Self Control vs. State Control (2017).
Described by Matt Warner
In the 2020 episode on leveraging resources within the liberty movement, Bob Zadek introduces Matt Warner as President of the Atlas Network and describes the organization as one he has supported over the years, having had many of Warner’s colleagues on the show. Zadek tells Warner that both words in the two-word name are important How to leverage resources within the liberty movement (2020).
Warner explains the difficulty of describing an organization that serves think tanks, and gives a quick history: in the ’50s, the founder established a think tank in London that Margaret Thatcher later credited with being the intellectual foundation of her reforms. He says the number of think tanks around the world that fit that mold is around 500 and in more than 90 countries. Atlas Network, he says, looks at locally led think tanks that are independent of government and independent from Atlas Network itself as the key answer to achieving economic and individual freedom reforms. Its model is to provide grant-making, financial support for think tank projects; training on think tank excellence and on policy reform ideas; and most importantly a network, so that think tank leaders have peers around the world to learn from.
Zadek characterizes the model as global federalism, comparing it to the premise that states are better at solving their problems than Washington and cities better than states, and invoking Justice Brandeis’s description of states as laboratories of innovation. Warner agrees that while the problems causing poverty have commonality, the cures vary from locale to locale.
Warner describes the alternative to local think tanks as foreign aid. He says the United States spends close to $50 billion a year in foreign aid, by far the largest donor in absolute dollars, while the UN has established a suggested target that all donor countries give 0.7% of GDP; mostly Scandinavians cross that threshold, but in absolute dollars it is less than 10% compared to the US. Most US aid goes through USAID, the State Department and the Defense Department. He says the aid community has become introspective about its efficacy, with broad criticisms over the last 20 years about how to measure results and how often aid does more harm than good. He calls this the outsider’s dilemma: how do we know our ideas are the answer for someone else? As an example, he describes $300,000 spent in Uganda to help a village of 7,000 farmers switch from banana crops to corn crops on the advice of Columbia University researchers; the yield increased, but there was no one to sell the extra crop to and nowhere to store it, and it attracted an infestation of rats, while the village lost the banana crop it understood.
Across episodes
The topic is touched in the 2012 episode, the 2017 episode and the 2020 episode. Between the earlier and later treatments, the description shifts from Palmer’s account of a service organization for 458 organizations in 98 countries to Warner’s account of grant-making, training and networking for roughly 500 think tanks in more than 90 countries, and the framing expands from promoting classical liberal values to an explicit alternative to foreign aid. Palmer supplies the earlier account; Warner supplies the later one.