The video, introduced by David Theroux, provides a concise history and overview of the Independent Institute (II). It begins with a brief archival clip describing the Institute’s 25‑year origins in a Northern California basement, emphasizing its libertarian foundation of freedom, individual liberty, and independent scholarship. Theroux explains that the Institute was bootstrapped to conduct serious, long‑term analysis of government policies while staying outside Washington’s immediate influence. The narrative highlights early challenges, noting the mistaken belief after the Reagan era that the fight against expanding government was won. In 1987, research director Robert Higgs authored Crisis and Leviathan, arguing that governments exploit real or imagined emergencies to expand power. The Institute moved to Oakland in 1989, gaining national attention; a 1990 Success Magazine feature called it the “Empire of Ideas,” citing its entrepreneurial approach and a vastly larger audience than traditional Washington think tanks. Throughout the 1990s the Institute produced peer‑reviewed research, notably influencing the defeat of the 1994 Clinton Health Plan via a widely signed open letter, and launched the quarterly journal Independent Review in 1996, edited by Higgs. Post‑9/11, Theroux recounts the Institute’s warning that the terrorist attacks would be used to grow government, advocating for letters of marque and criticizing the ensuing 50 % rise in federal spending and massive debt accumulation. The presentation also introduces MyGovCost.org, a tool that translates federal program costs into personal financial terms. The video concludes by noting the 2011 25th‑anniversary video and the upcoming 30th anniversary, underscoring the Institute’s continued commitment to first‑principles, limited‑government analysis.
Chapters
Before I start talking about the series, I'd like to run a short video which will give a little background on the Institute. And can that be—
Yes.
25 years ago, with no money and little more than a big idea, an entrepreneur's dream began in a basement in Northern California. But unlike some others in the area at that time, this entrepreneur's big idea didn't revolve around tiny microchips. It revolved around some of the oldest principles in history: freedom, individual liberty, and the highest standards of independent academic inquiry.
The Institute is an organization that was essentially bootstrapped based on a particular approach we wanted to take The approach was to do serious work on serious issues, but to step back and get a better handle on what the effects of government policies might be and how best to solve these issues.
Well, one of the things that David set out to do with the Institute was to keep it outside of Washington, for starters, so as not to be affected by just what's going on every 5 minutes in Washington. To think about really serious issues, to think about them in a deep way, in a long-run way, and to do academic-quality work.
We call it the first garage think tank because it was literally not in his garage but in his basement and just working 20 hours a day.
From the outset, the fledgling independent institute faced an obstacle that in retrospect seems quaintly naive: the thought that with the Reagan Revolution in full swing and the Soviet Empire crumbling, The intellectual battle against socialism, oppression, and ever-expanding government had been won.
In hindsight, we now know that that was a fallacy. We know that the very cultural roots of the view that government is the solution to every problem were still there.
David and the Institute forged ahead, confident that despite the Reagan Revolution and crumbling of the Soviet Empire, the battle for liberty was nowhere close to being over. In 1987, the Institute's future research director, Robert Higgs, wrote what would become a landmark and prescient book, Crisis and Leviathan, which showed how governments use national emergencies, both real and imagined, to expand their own powers and limit individual freedom.
Professor Higgs has shown that government grows not in terms of these usual views of social benevolence, But it grows in terms of crises that are announced and claimed. They create enormous fear, they create enormous anxiety, and they create the ability of political powers to assume new powers they didn't have before.
By 1989, the Institute was growing, and it moved from San Francisco to a new and larger space in Oakland, with administrative research, conference, and warehouse facilities. In a 1990 feature article, Success Magazine termed the Independent Institute the Empire of Ideas, acclaiming its uniquely entrepreneurial approach to policy research and education in producing an effective audience of over 70 million, as compared to the 5,000 to 10,000 audience of traditional Washington policy organizations with annual budgets averaging up to $30 million. Throughout the 1990s, the Institute remained at the vanguard of groundbreaking peer-reviewed research. In 1994, the Institute was critically influential in defeating the Clinton Health Plan as a result of its open letter to President Clinton critiquing his proposed use of health price controls and signed by 565 economists and 76 other scholars. In 1996, the Institute began publishing the Independent Review, a quarterly scholarly journal that has been edited since its inception by Robert Higgs.
Even though I'm an economist by training and an economic historian in most of my writing, I have interests in law and philosophy and the other social sciences and in things that touch on these areas. So a lot of ground is covered in the independent review.
We just had planes crash into Alpha 4 of the World Trade Center. Transmit a second alarm and start relocating companies into the area.
A compelling difference in the Independent Institutes Program is our awareness that crises are used to grow government. And this awareness led us in the aftermath of 9/11 to warn that the terrorist attacks may well be used to grow government in ways having little or nothing to do with security. In addition, and based on our studies, we advised the use of the constitutional provision of letters of marque and reprisal be used to target, apprehend, and bring to justice those individuals responsible for the attacks. Unfortunately, neither message was heeded as a new era of federal spending and power was launched, with spending increasing by 50% until 2008, trillions of dollars of new debt added since, and no end in sight. Our warnings have come true, and most Americans have today come to be receptive to the kind of analysis the Institute is known for. in calling for a return to first principles in the ordering of society, just as the Founders had intended.
Uh, this is a, a theme that I think is particularly important today because There's a debate going on in many countries about what the best way to encourage entrepreneurship in developing countries is. And there are wide-ranging views about this. Many of them, I suggest, are misguided. And I think it was a good time to respond to some of these wrong ideas.
Welcome to MyGovCost.org. Every day we hear news about federal spending programs passed in Congress, annual budget deficits, and the ballooning national debt. But few of us can relate to the billion and trillion dollar figures thrown around in Washington. Have you ever wondered how much the war in Iraq, the recent bailouts, or Social Security are costing you personally? Here at MyGovCost.org, we'll show you the price tag of these programs. And more importantly, you can see what the value of those dollars would be worth if you could otherwise invest them in the stock market.
That video, by the way, was done in 2011 at the time of our 25th anniversary, as you may have noticed. We're coming up to our 30th anniversary next year.
