Chris Tame
Encyclopedia
Dr Chris Ronald Tame was a British
libertarian
political activist. He is best known as the founder and Director of the Libertarian Alliance
, a free market
and civil liberties
think tank
.
as an escort to Montgomery
and had been mentioned in dispatches. He later became a process engraver and shop steward, and he and Tame's mother Elsie Florence, a nurse, had met and married just after the end of the Second World War. Tame was an only child, who grew up in post-war Britain.
He was brought up in Godalming in Surrey, where his family had moved. He attended a local Church of England
primary school, and then grammar school. In 1971, he graduated from Hull University with a degree in American Studies.
was dominated by a "corporate elite" wedded to a "corrupt state capitalism". He announced his departure from the rostrum at an annual Federation of Conservative Students
conference in the early 1970s.
In 1967, Tame founded the Libertarian Alliance as an informal discussion group, drawing ideas from Ayn Rand
, among others. The organisation was formalised in 1979, with a structure of Tame as its President, and the Alliance was based in the Alternative Bookshop which Tame had opened in Covent Garden
in London a year earlier.
After university, Tame settled in London, where he worked mainly for the Institute of Economic Affairs
and the National Association for Freedom (now the Freedom Association).
In 1978, Tame set up the Alternative Bookshop and was its manager. The shop became a "mecca" of classic liberals, anarchists
, and free-marketers, and was once target of a Molotov cocktail
and of Socialist workers
. The bookshop closed its doors in 1985 due to an unaffordable rent increase.
Tame was equally opposed to censorship
. During the Thatcher
years, he exposed the contradictions of Conservatives who claimed to support free market economics yet demanded that "obscene" publications be censored. At the Conservative Party conference in 1990, Tame disrupted a rally organised by censorship advocate Mary Whitehouse
by masterminding an invasion by scantily clad models claiming to be "Conservatives against sex censorship."
at the Department of Trade and Industry to prepare a reading list to wean civil servants off the interventionist mindset in favour of genuine free market
s and privatisation.
Being a monetarist, Tame was influential in convincing Margaret Thatcher
, Geoffrey Howe
and Joseph that inflation was due to problems of controlling the money supply
, debunking the conventional Tory wisdom that it was due to greedy trade unions, speculators, oil sheikhs or other "phantoms."
's Diverse Reports, a series which looked at topical issues with libertarian and socialist perspectives.
In 1983, while researching for an article on how easy it was to acquire guns, grenade
s and other military items with a credit card
by mail order from the United States, Tame duly did so and carried his acquired collection of light armaments in his knapsack to work further in the library at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London
. He was arrested, charged and subsequently acquitted.
from 1988 to 1995. He saw off three Directors of ASH
and forced ASH to refocus the debate away from the paternalistic desire to preserve the health of the smoker or would-be smoker to the harm of passive smoking
to non-smokers. In 1992, he won libel damages after successfully suing LBC Radio
, which accused him of "introducing young children to cigarettes and assisting in killing 110,000 people a year." In 1995, FOREST removed Tame as director, as its tobacco industry
sponsors believed Tame's approach had become too confrontational and abstract.
, where he had been working on a seven-volume Bibliography of Freedom.
Tame was an avid collector of economic and philosophical books, and had amassed a collection of some 40,000 works, including a number of rare classical liberal documents, some of which were donated to the Foundation for Economic Education
in New York.
Tame died on 20 March 2006 from an aggressive bone cancer, diagnosed a year before. He was twice married.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
political activist. He is best known as the founder and Director of the Libertarian Alliance
Libertarian Alliance
The Libertarian Alliance comprises two libertarian think tanks in Great Britain that promote free-market economics and civil liberties...
, a free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
and civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
.
Early years
Tame was born on 20 December 1949 in Enfield, Middlesex. His father, Ronald Ernest Tame, was a printer who had spent the war in the Eighth ArmyEighth Army (United Kingdom)
The Eighth Army was one of the best-known formations of the British Army during World War II, fighting in the North African and Italian campaigns....
as an escort to Montgomery
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC , nicknamed "Monty" and the "Spartan General" was a British Army officer. He saw action in the First World War, when he was seriously wounded, and during the Second World War he commanded the 8th Army from...
and had been mentioned in dispatches. He later became a process engraver and shop steward, and he and Tame's mother Elsie Florence, a nurse, had met and married just after the end of the Second World War. Tame was an only child, who grew up in post-war Britain.
He was brought up in Godalming in Surrey, where his family had moved. He attended a local Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
primary school, and then grammar school. In 1971, he graduated from Hull University with a degree in American Studies.
Setup of Libertarian Alliance
Tame joined the Conservative students' organisation at Hull, and became active in the organisation. Disillusioned by the interventionist and authoritarian mindset, he left and never went back. He had felt that the Conservative PartyConservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
was dominated by a "corporate elite" wedded to a "corrupt state capitalism". He announced his departure from the rostrum at an annual Federation of Conservative Students
Federation of Conservative Students
The Federation of Conservative Students was the student organisation of the British Conservative Party from the late 1940s to 1986. It was created to act as a bridge between the student movement and the Conservative Party....
conference in the early 1970s.
In 1967, Tame founded the Libertarian Alliance as an informal discussion group, drawing ideas from Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
, among others. The organisation was formalised in 1979, with a structure of Tame as its President, and the Alliance was based in the Alternative Bookshop which Tame had opened in Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
in London a year earlier.
After university, Tame settled in London, where he worked mainly for the Institute of Economic Affairs
Institute of Economic Affairs
The Institute of Economic Affairs , founded in 1955, styles itself the UK's pre-eminent free-market think-tank. Its mission is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social...
and the National Association for Freedom (now the Freedom Association).
In 1978, Tame set up the Alternative Bookshop and was its manager. The shop became a "mecca" of classic liberals, anarchists
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
, and free-marketers, and was once target of a Molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
and of Socialist workers
Socialist Workers Party (Britain)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far left party in Britain founded by Tony Cliff. The SWP's student section has groups at a number of universities...
. The bookshop closed its doors in 1985 due to an unaffordable rent increase.
Political beliefs
Tame did not believe in seeking political power nor propagandising the masses, but saw the importance of influencing the intellectual debate. Under the umbrella of the Libertarian Alliance, he published prolifically. One such work published in 1979 bore the title "Taxation is Theft". In addition to writing, he enjoyed engaging in debate with visitors to his shop.Tame was equally opposed to censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. During the Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
years, he exposed the contradictions of Conservatives who claimed to support free market economics yet demanded that "obscene" publications be censored. At the Conservative Party conference in 1990, Tame disrupted a rally organised by censorship advocate Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse, CBE was a British campaigner against the permissive society particularly as the media portrayed and reflected it...
by masterminding an invasion by scantily clad models claiming to be "Conservatives against sex censorship."
Influence on Tories
In the early 1980s, Tame was recruited by Sir Keith JosephKeith Joseph
Keith St John Joseph, Baron Joseph, Bt, CH, PC , was a British barrister and politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet under three Prime Ministers , and is widely regarded to have been the "power behind the throne" in the creation of what came to be known as...
at the Department of Trade and Industry to prepare a reading list to wean civil servants off the interventionist mindset in favour of genuine free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
s and privatisation.
Being a monetarist, Tame was influential in convincing Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, Geoffrey Howe
Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, CH, QC, PC is a former British Conservative politician. He was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, and finally Leader of the House of Commons...
and Joseph that inflation was due to problems of controlling the money supply
Money supply
In economics, the money supply or money stock, is the total amount of money available in an economy at a specific time. There are several ways to define "money," but standard measures usually include currency in circulation and demand deposits .Money supply data are recorded and published, usually...
, debunking the conventional Tory wisdom that it was due to greedy trade unions, speculators, oil sheikhs or other "phantoms."
Journalism
In the mid-1980s, Tame was a producer on Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's Diverse Reports, a series which looked at topical issues with libertarian and socialist perspectives.
In 1983, while researching for an article on how easy it was to acquire guns, grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
s and other military items with a credit card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
by mail order from the United States, Tame duly did so and carried his acquired collection of light armaments in his knapsack to work further in the library at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London
Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the exclusive Mayfair district of London, England. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from their surname, "Grosvenor".-History:...
. He was arrested, charged and subsequently acquitted.
Work with pro-smoking organisations
He was a non-smoker and keep-fit enthusiast, but he philosophically regarded that smokers' bodies were their own and that a person's liberty must extend to the freedom to make foolish decisions in this regard. He defended the rights of tobacco smokers as Director of pressure group FORESTFOREST
FOREST is a United Kingdom political pressure group that campaigns from a pro-smoking perspective, opposing measures to reduce tobacco consumption on the grounds of defending a perceived right to smoke tobacco...
from 1988 to 1995. He saw off three Directors of ASH
Action on Smoking and Health
Action on Smoking and Health is the name of a number of autonomous pressure groups/charities throughout the world which seek to publicize the risks associated with tobacco smoking and campaigns for greater restrictions on cigarette and tobacco sales....
and forced ASH to refocus the debate away from the paternalistic desire to preserve the health of the smoker or would-be smoker to the harm of passive smoking
Passive smoking
Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke , from tobacco products used by others. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes...
to non-smokers. In 1992, he won libel damages after successfully suing LBC Radio
LBC
LBC Radio operates two London-based radio stations, with news and talk formats. LBC was Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, providing a service of news and information to London. It began broadcasting on 8 October 1973, a week ahead of Capital Radio...
, which accused him of "introducing young children to cigarettes and assisting in killing 110,000 people a year." In 1995, FOREST removed Tame as director, as its tobacco industry
Tobacco industry
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any warm, moist environment, which means it can be farmed on all...
sponsors believed Tame's approach had become too confrontational and abstract.
Later years
In the later part of his life, Tame moved to RamsgateRamsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
, where he had been working on a seven-volume Bibliography of Freedom.
Tame was an avid collector of economic and philosophical books, and had amassed a collection of some 40,000 works, including a number of rare classical liberal documents, some of which were donated to the Foundation for Economic Education
Foundation for Economic Education
The Foundation for Economic Education is one of the oldest free-market organizations established in the United States to study and advance the freedom philosophy. Murray Rothbard recognizes FEE for creating a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement...
in New York.
Tame died on 20 March 2006 from an aggressive bone cancer, diagnosed a year before. He was twice married.