All Posts Tagged With: "Leonard Read"
The Freeman: An Eyewitness View
The Freeman has a long and distinguished history
in the cause of liberty.
Reflections on The Freeman
“The Freeman has had a definitive influence in Guatemala, where a group of friends, inspired by FEE, founded in 1959 the Center for Social and Economic Studies, which in turn founded Francisco Marroquín University in 1971, dedicated to teaching the ethics, economics, and legal foundations of the free society. We are in debt to The [...]
1Jan2006 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedNeither Left Nor Right
“Why, you are neither left nor right!” This observation, following a speech of mine, showed rare discernment. It was rare because I have seldom heard it made. It was discerning because it was accurate. Most of us seem always to be reaching for word simplifications—handy generalizations—for they often aid speech. They take the place of [...]
1Jan2006 | Leonard E. Read | 2 comments | ContinuedNo Buts about Freedom
Back in the early 1970s, the late Leonard E. Read, founder and first president of FEE, wrote a short piece in The Freeman called Sinking in a Sea of Buts. He said it was not uncommon or someone to say to him,I agree with you in principle, but . . . The but invariably referred to some exception from the principle of freedom in the form of a desired government intervention. The problem, Read pointed out, is that when everyones exceptions to freedom are added up, well, freedom ends up being sunk by all the buts.
I’d Push the Button—To Establish Freedom Right Now
In April 1946, a month after the late Leonard E. Read established the Foundation for Economic Education, he gave a talk in Detroit called “I’d Push the Button.” He said that if there were a button on the podium that would immediately abolish all controls and regulations on the U.S. economy, he would push it. [...]
1Jun2005 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Mont Pelerin Society
I once had the good fortune to be present at a triangular conversation with Ludwig von Mises and Professor William Rappard of the Institute of High International Studies of Geneva. Dr. Rappard had just been appointed by the United Nations as a member of a commission to promote international intellectual cooperation and was poking light [...]
1Nov2004 | Henry Hazlitt | 2 comments | ContinuedFlight from Responsibility
Whenever I catch myself admiring a thinker, I find that he shares a trait with other thinkers I admire: an insistence on clear and honest language, a determination not to take metaphors literally. Apropos of this, September marks the 106th anniversary of the birth of FEE’s founding president, Leonard E. Read, a good time for [...]
1Sep2004 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedFree Markets, the Rule of Law, and Classical Liberalism
The history of liberty and prosperity is inseparable from the practice of free enterprise and respect for the rule of law. Both are products of the spirit of classical liberalism. But a correct understanding of free enterprise, the rule of law, and liberalism (rightly understood) is greatly lacking in the world today. Historically, liberalism is [...]
1May2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | ContinuedThere Is No Central Plan for Winning Liberty
People who become enthusiastic supporters of the freedom philosophy often ask how the case for individual liberty, free markets, and constitutionally limited government can be successfully spread across the land. How can it triumph over the prevailing system of governmental paternalism? In frustration and despair they point out that the interventionist-welfare state has its advocates [...]
1Jan2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Importance of FEE, Then and Now
When Leonard Read established the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, the United States had just passed through 12 years of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal interventionist policies, including four years of wartime controls. Read was deeply concerned that the American people were losing their understanding of and appreciation for individual liberty, free markets, the rule [...]
1Sep2003 | Richard M. Ebeling | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Open-Endedness of Knowledge
I intend to explore in this article some aspects of the uniqueness which is FEE, and to express my fervent hope and confidence that such uniqueness will continue to permeate every nook and cranny of FEE’s activities in the years to come. I will begin by noting two related but separate paradoxes that have over [...]
1Jun2003 | Israel M. Kirzner | 0 comments | ContinuedFree-Market Miracle: From Sri Lanka to Wal-Mart
Ralph Hood is a writer in Huntsville, Alabama. Having spent much of my adulthood in the aviation industry, I belong to the Greater Northern Alabama Lying Pilots’ Coffee Drinking and Tale Telling Society. We meet erratically and unreliably, solely for our own entertainment. One member, Don Langford, flies freight all over the world in huge [...]
1Jan2003 | Ralph Hood | 0 comments | ContinuedPeace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men Through Capitalism and Freedom!
“A great multitude of religious sects . . . might in time [become] free of every mixture of absurdity, imposture, of fanaticism.” —Adam Smith1 In this time of thanksgiving and holiday cheer, we here at the Foundation for Economic Education wish everyone peace, prosperity, and happiness. Leonard Read, our founder, wrote that freedom of choice [...]
1Dec2001 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedSimplistic Anwers
We’ve all been warned to beware of people who think that they have all the answers—who believe themselves to hold the key to Truth—who have a simplistic formula alleged to be the solution to all of the world’s problems. It’s wise to heed this warning, for regrettably, people with simplistic answers are not uncommon and [...]
1Oct2001 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedFEE’s Goal: From Candlestick to Lighthouse
“Those of us interested in an improved perception, awareness, consciousness of the freedom philosophy on the part of others have only to increase our own candle power.” — Leonard E. Read 1 Becoming the president of the Foundation for Economic Education fulfills a lifelong desire of mine to excise bad thinking from the public arena [...]
1Oct2001 | Mark Skousen | 1 comment | ContinuedI, Pepsi
One of Frédéric Bastiat’s great insights into understanding economics was to distinguish what is seen from what is not seen. Searching out the unseen is in many ways the essence of economics. A soda bottling plant may seem like a strange place to do economics, but come along with me and take a look at [...]
1Jun2001 | Russell Roberts | 0 comments | ContinuedHuman Creativity
Leonard Read’s most celebrated essay is his brilliant “I, Pencil.” Even Milton Friedman—no slouch at bringing economics to life—acknowledges a debt to Read for demonstrating so vividly the enormous amount of human cooperation routinely achieved by free markets. “I, Pencil” makes clear that the knowledge and cooperation of literally millions of people are necessary to [...]
1Mar2001 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | Continued-
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