August 14, 2008
The Foundation for Economic Education, founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, was the world's first libertarian think tank.
I got my first full-time job there, as Director of Seminars, in 1971. I left in 1973 because I believed FEE was doomed by its geography: high-priced Westchester County. It was too expensive for young staff members. It would remain what it had becme: a well-paid president, with free housing, surrounded by low-wage minions who could not afford to buy a home. Nobody with any reasonable oppotunity elsewhere would stay.
My judgment was correct. FEE has had a new president every three years since 1983. The job has been a revolving door on a drifting, rudderless cruise ship.
In 1983, Read died. By then, FEE was forgotten. It had become a nursing home for one old man with 25 staffers. Its magazine, The Freeman, was still doing yeoman work in recruiting new people to the freedom philosophy. But its century-old headquarters, which was an old white elephant mansion when FEE bought it in 1946, was an even older white elephant in 1983.
At Read's death, the vacuum that had been building at FEE for a decade was publicly exposed. There was no successor. Read had wanted it that way.
One of the candidates to replace him was a very young Lawrence Reed. He did not get the job. Now, he has.
An example of his view on limited civil government is this 2005 essay on Grover Cleveland, a speech delivered at Grove City College. I like it.
His Mackinac Center for Public Policy has focused on education, especially high school education. This is exactly the focus FEE has needed for 35 years.
So, the game's afoot. If Reed moves FEE to Michigan, FEE may recover from the paralysis that gripped it three decades ago. If Reed moves to Irvington, New York, FEE's paralysis will likely continue.
If Reed is in charge, FEE will move. If Reed moves, FEE's board is in charge.
If Reed makes sure that all of the old issues of The Freeman are put online on FEE's website, he is in charge. If he doesn't, then the board is still in charge, blanking out the history of FEE when it was a crucial institution on the American Right.
Let's see what happens. I wish him well. That is because I wish FEE well.
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