A 12-Step Recovery Program for FEE
January 3, 2008
As a former senior staff member and a former Trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education, I have some thoughts on how the present Board can reverse FEE's obvious downward spiral, as manifested by a new president every three years, 1983-2008.
I have outlined FEE's problem before:
I provide this list for the Board of Trustees. It is modeled on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
1. Admit that you are powerless to control your problem by yourselves, and call for assistance from a Higher Power. (Hint: I don't mean the Heritage Foundation).
2. Decide which entry-level audience FEE may be able to serve in the future better than any other organization, i.e., an audience ignored by Cato, Reason, Mises, Heritage, and other foundations that have multiple print publications, academic staffs, and prominent web presence.
3. Decide who should become the new editor of The Freeman in terms of his or her ability to serve the preferences of this long-ignored audience. (Hint: Think of the one person on the staff who has been on the payroll for over 30 years.)
4. Decide if The Freeman should be converted to digital format and given away for free, just as it was from 1956 to 1997 (or thereabouts), meaning before the number of subscribers fell by 80%, with a print edition for paid subscribers, and with Notes from FEE becoming the only free Post Office-mailed communications/fund-raising device.
5. Decide where to move FEE's headquarters, so that young scholars can afford to buy a home and therefore might consider joining FEE's presently non-existent staff of academic economists and historians.
6. Decide which local Realtor to call to sell FEE's 110-year-old firetrap of a headquarters before the city or the state designates it as a historical landmark, forbids its demolition, and sticks the owner permanently with ever-rising maintenance costs, thereby officially making the structure the economic white elephant that it has been for five decades.
7. Decide on five goals for FEE to meet in the next ten years.
8. Decide what things the next president of FEE must not do in an attempt to meet these goals. (Hint: Don't change the name of The Freeman again.)
9. Decide which experienced fund-raising libertarian scholar-promoter-speaker-manager-motivator who is under age 50 is equipped to carry out this program.
10. Persuade him/her to take the assignment. (Hint: Offer a five-year contract, with objective performance criteria, with a five-year renewal clause if these criteria are met.)
11. Adopt this as the Board's guiding principle of action: "A camel is a horse designed by a committee."
12. Leave the new president alone for the next five years. Monitor only spending.
The problem is, word has gotten out. There are not a lot of people who will give up a secure position for a spin through a revolving door. This has something to do with rational self-interest. It has something to do with human action: exchanging one set of conditions for another. It has something to do with cost-benefit analysis, risk-reward analysis, and above all, career-enhancement analysis.
FEE is like Elizabeth Taylor. The number of suitors is limited. Factor this in when you make the offer.