Letter from
Mark Skousen, President, Foundation for Economic Education
July 9, 2002
Dear fellow Austrians,
Re J. H. Huebert's diatribe on FEE.
I
was told in no uncertain terms that the Austrian investment group was
strictly a forum for investing, not as a forum for personal attacks or
political vendetta. I resent very much this misguided insult to
the Foundation for Economic Education.
The fact is that nothing has changed in our FEE seminars or "Ideas
on Liberty." We are just as "no compromise" free
market as ever. Any one who has read my books or my columns in IOL
knows my staunch free-market views.
We continue to recommend heavily the works of Bastiat, Read, Hazlitt, Mises--and yes, Adam Smith (the latest "Wealth of Nations" published by Regnery has a favorable intro by Mises!) and even occasionally Milton Friedman (although I criticize Friedman in a recent IOL for promoting inflation in Japan), who was a friend of Leonard Read.
Mr.
Giuliani's appearance at the fall banquet (Oct 25) is nothing more than
an "outreach" program to tell our story to a larger audience
who would not normally know who FEE is. There is nothing new about
this, except that Giuliani is a bigger draw. We never have
advertised him as a libertarian, just as we never advertised Bill
O'Reilly, Paul Gigot, Ben Stein, or Margaret Thatcher (all previous
speakers at our fall and spring dinners) as libertarians.
Leonard Read and FEE always appealed to both conservatives and
libertarians--a broad umbrella.
If Mr. Huebert had bothered to call me, he could have avoided such
embarrassing falsehoods and misrepresentations. Why is it that so
many libertarians go half cockeyed with holy-than-thou attitudes and
engage in so much in-fighting? It's a sad commentary about our
freedom movement.
Last but not least, FEE is making a major comeback. We are
bringing back the glory days of FEE, building on the good works of Hans
Sennholz and Don Boudreaux after years of benign neglect.
AEIOU,
Mark
Skousen
President, FEE
© 2002 J. H. Huebert