Foundation for Economic Education

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The dismal "science"

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The Foundation for Economic Education (or FEE) is the one of the oldest free market and libertarian think tanks in the United States. It was founded in 1946 by an American economist influenced by the Austrian school, Henry Hazlitt, Leonard Read of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and David Goodrich of B.F. Goodrich. Leonard Read headed FEE until his 1983 death. They are most known for their print and online magazines, The Freeman and The Freeman Online. Like most libertarian think tanks, they occasionally run interesting articles on civil liberties and influential libertarian thinkers and philosophers, but churn out the usual market fundamentalist tripe about anti-environmentalism (e.g., DDT is awesome, global warming is a vast scientific-environmentalist-socialist conspiracy[1][2]) and how we ought to be freed from the tyranny of regulatory agencies like the FDA.[3] Speaking of fundamentalism, FEE has also published works by proponents of Christian economics including R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North.

There also seems to be a somewhat incestuous relationship between FEE and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which should come as no surprise, although the Mises Institute is largely anarcho-capitalist while FEE has long taken a minimal-government position. Under Leonard Read's watch FEE was an early promoter of both Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, but he was taken aback by both Rand's atheism[4] and by the anarchism of Rothbard and others as early as the 1950s. His 1954 book Government - An Ideal Concept was a rebuttal against anarcho-capitalism. More recently FEE's invitation of Rudy Giuliani to be their keynote speaker at their annual 2002 banquet led to a revolt by FEE's trustees against then-president Mark Skousen who was asked to resign by trustees not pleased with the choice of Giuliani.

FEE is headquartered in a sizable mansion in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York and used to be known for sending free and low-cost books on request. Their most widely circulated books include an English translation of Frederic Bastiat's 1850 book The Law, Henry Weaver's 1947 The Mainspring of Human Progress, and Leonard Read's essay I, Pencil. The latter describes in great detail how the manufacture of the lowly pencil is the result of many different sources that can only work in synergy under a free market.

Contents

[edit] The Freeman

Some people who wrote for The Freeman or had work published in it.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Environmental Protection: The New Socialism
  2. Global Warming: Hot Problem or Hot Air
  3. Abolishing the FDA
  4. Read was a devout member of the Congregational Church, today the United Church of Christ, and many early FEE publications were of the 'free market outreach to mainline Protestants' sort
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