Reed retires after 10 years as FEE president

Giving Thanks for Ten Years of Growth and Progress at FEE - Foundation for Economic Education - Lawrence W. Reed:

November 21, 2018 - "The holidays and final weeks of the year are upon us. It’s a time to count blessings.... I’m thankful for more than anybody has time to read about, but right now I am spending a lot of time appreciating the wonderful opportunity I’ve had to lead FEE for more than ten years as its president. Last June, I announced that when our board of trustees chooses a successor, I will step into an active president emeritus role. That will hopefully allow me more time to write and lecture. The search process is on track and will likely culminate with the announcement of a new president sometime in the first half of 2019....

"My 10+ years represent by far the longest and most consequential of any FEE presidency since that of our founder, Leonard Read. For the benefit of our readers and especially our thousands of financial supporters, I’d like to recap some of our accomplishments since 2008.

"Big and tough decisions were made. One was to move from ... Irvington, New York to Atlanta, Georgia. Many of us felt a deep and long-held attachment to the old mansion on the Hudson.... But the numbers made the case for moving. We chose Atlanta, cut our operating costs in half, avoided a small fortune in future upkeep of a 140-year-old building, and now have an office that fits our needs and mission perfectly. Good stewardship of donor dollars demands their most efficient and effective use in everything an organization does....

"Another big, tough decision was to re-focus and re-staff the editorial/content team. The wisdom of that decision was proven quickly. Our readership had been flat or declining for 15 years but it’s risen dramatically every year since that decision.

"Reflecting where our targeted audience goes to read content, we ended the costly print edition of our venerable monthly magazine, The Freeman. We now publish online every three days the equivalent of an entire issue of The Freeman. And instead of a readership in the thousands, we approach a million unique visitors to FEE.org most months of the year.

"We also do a lot less preaching to the choir these days.... FEE is now focused, laser-like, on young newcomers to liberty of high school and college age....

"Overall revenues, at $6 million last year, are three times what they were in 2008. Moreover, the million-dollar deficit we faced at that time was erased within two years. Every year for the past eight, our bottom line has been in the black and big. We’ve rebuilt our reserves and put FEE on its soundest financial footing in decades. Our auditors give us the highest marks and Charity Navigator ranks us in its top category for nonprofit soundness and management....

"FEE’s many accomplishments would not be possible without our generous supporters. As we continue to advance the ideas and principles of free markets and individual liberty among the rising generation, I ask that you please consider supporting FEE in this endeavor.... Thank you, FEE supporters, for all that you’ve done for us to make FEE the vibrant and productive organization it is today!"

Read more: https://fee.org/resources/giving-thanks-for-ten-years-of-growth-and-progress-at-fee/

'via Blog this'

20th-century libertarian beginnings traced by anti-libertarian group

from "Against the Libertarian Party" | Jacobin - Branko Marcetic:

November 4, 2016 - "The modern libertarian movement has its roots in the 1930s, when a host of business leaders, terrified by Roosevelt’s New Deal, set up a series of overlapping organizations to oppose what they saw as a government incursion.

"One such group was the American Liberty League, founded in 1934 by executives from General Motors, US Steel, and other corporations, as well as three members of the du Pont family (who owned the DuPont Chemical Company).

"Another was the Volker Fund, a charitable trust set up in 1932 by Kansas City businessman William Volker (who put his nephew Harold Luhnow in charge). The fund sponsored various right-wing initiatives, such as the Mont Pelerin Society, an annual summit of pro-market scholars, journalists, and businessmen. It also helped subsidize the careers of various free-market intellectuals, such as Ludwig von Mises (“the fountainhead of modern libertarianism”) and, even more importantly, Friedrich von Hayek (whose 1947 book Road to Serfdom is widely viewed as kickstarting the free-market right’s intellectual resurgence).

"Two of the nascent movement’s most important backers were also drawn from the ranks of corporate America: J. Howard Pew, president of Sun Oil, and Jasper Crane, the former executive vice president of DuPont Chemical.

"Both had helped lead the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a vehemently anti-union business organization. Pew went on to bankroll the Liberty League, as well as conferences, advocacy groups, and the conservative Christian organization Spiritual Mobilization, which put out the Christian libertarian magazine Faith and Freedom in the 1950s. Crane helped organize, and used his business connections to fund, the Mont Pelerin Society and a whole host of other initiatives. He, along with the du Pont family, would go on to donate to Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964.

"Perhaps the most important libertarian cause Pew and Crane were involved in was the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), an organization that sought to teach the public about libertarian ideas.

"Both acted as trustees, joined by an array of corporate executives: Donaldson Brown, a former executive of both DuPont and General Motors; Erle P. Halliburton, the founder of Halliburton; A.C. Mattei, the president of Honolulu Oil Corporation; Hughston McBain, president and chairman of Marshall Field & Company; W.C. Mullendore, executive vice president of the Southern California Edison Company; Charles White, president of Republic Steel; and B.E. Hutchinson, chairman of Chrysler’s finance committee. (The Volcker Fund’s Harold Luhnow was also a trustee.)

"Pew and Crane’s participation in the libertarian movement and its corporate circles didn’t end there. The pair sat on the board of the Freeman, the movement’s flagship magazine, alongside a smattering of businessmen.

"Major firms bankrolled the Freeman through advertising that doubled as ideological propaganda. Instead of touting their products, major firms like Chrysler, DuPont, Republic Steel, Marshall Field, General Motors, and Sun Oil — whose executives, past and present, were involved in the FEE and older anti-New Deal groups — took out ads promoting the virtues of business and the free market. (During the 1950s and 1960s, General Electric — also a frequent Freeman advertiser and a member of NAM — featured the publication on its anti-union reading list for managers and supervisors as part of its effort to delegitimize labor leaders.)"

Read more: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/libertarian-party-gary-johnson-ron-paul-president/  "
'via Blog this'

The Freeman ends print edition after 62 years

Passing the Torch: From the Freeman to FEE.org | Foundation for Economic Education - Wayne Olson:

September 1, 2016  - "FEE has concluded that it is time to retire the Freeman as a printed periodical and to double down on the digital distribution of ideas on liberty.

"While this is a significant step away from the way we have traditionally communicated the principles of the free society, it will have no adverse impact on our mission in today’s marketplace. To the contrary, by re-directing vital resources in more powerful directions, it will greatly expand our outreach to young people....

"At its height in the 1980s, monthly circulation of the Freeman was 50,000. In 2016, our online readership has exploded to where we frequently have 50,000 readers on FEE.org in a single day.

"FEE.org is on track to host 8 million unique visitors this year, as compared with 4 million in 2015 and slightly over 2 million the year before. About half of these visitors are Millennials.

"This spirited online growth contrasts starkly with the tepid response that has greeted our initiatives to redesign the printed Freeman and promote it to the rising generation. The silence from that audience has been deafening.... Even our most strongly committed advocates on campus are skeptical about the value of the printed Freeman as a vehicle to spread ideas on liberty among their fellow students.

"Our donor community has also commented that the printed periodical contains only a small fraction of what’s already available to them on FEE.org, and many actively question whether their donations couldn’t be better spent on programs with a higher return on investment.

"Every week at our current rate of content production, FEE.org now publishes the equivalent of several new issues of the Freeman, in a form that’s easily searchable, retrievable, and shareable. And of course, the entire archive of the Freeman remains available, in searchable form, at FEE.org/Magazine.

"By focusing on digital audiences, we are able to use 'big data' techniques to gain insight into the interests, motivations and responses of our readers, from which we expect to learn how best to attract an even larger following. Our recently-announced youth messaging project, with major funding from the John Templeton Foundation, will take advantage of this opportunity to acquire in-depth knowledge of our online audience and thereby broaden our reach even further.

The final physical issue this fall will be a special edition — an anthology of classic works from the 62 years that FEE has published the Freeman — that we hope you’ll find to be a treasured keepsake."

Read more: https://fee.org/resources/passing-the-torch-from-the-freeman-to-feeorg/
'via Blog this'