Conservative Movement Profile: FEE
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
The Foundation For Economic Education (FEE) is one of the oldest free-market non-political, non-profit, tax-exempt educational foundations in America. Founded in 1946 By Leonard E. Read, FEE was one of the champions of the free market when the philosophies of socialism and communism were gaining force mid-century.
Based in New York, FEE is twenty miles north of Manhattan. Beautifully situated on 7 acre 19th-century estate, the headquarters of FEE serve as a valuable educational center with offices, library and
archives, classroom, a commercial kitchen, a formal dining room, a large reception lounge, and dormitory housing. It is here that FEE publishes and hosts lectures by some of the finest minds of the modern age, which have included Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, Walter Williams, George Stigler, John Chamberlain, and William F. Buckley Jr., among many others.
The Foundation is dedicated to the “first principles” of freedom: the sanctity of private property, individual liberty, the rule of law, the free market, and 
individual responsibility and choice. The Foundation champions these principles, noting that despite the defeat of communism many Americans do not value the principles America was founded on and turns too often to the government for interference or coercion. Believing very rightly that freedom is essential to human existence, and that it is “dangerous to move toward any form of collectivism,” FEE is dedicated to educating students on liberty.
To do this The Foundation publishes in-depth periodicals, The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, Notes from FEE, and In Brief all of which are focused on furthering human liberty. The publications deliver tothousands in America and around the world valuable insights into the foundations of free enterprise and a constitutionally limited government and present a case against collectivism.
The Foundation also hosts an annual Summer Seminars which are open to students over the age of 18 as well as adults, parents, teachers, and anyone else who is interested. Each different seminar has a different focus, and have included “Austrian Economics,” “Freedom 101,” “History and Liberty,” and the “Young Scholars Colloquium.”