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| Founded | 1960; 66 years ago (1960) |
|---|---|
| Founder | Pierre F. Goodrich |
| Purpose | Educational |
| Location |
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| Method | Publishing, conferences |
| Website | libertyfund |
Liberty Fund, Inc. is an American nonprofit foundation[2] headquartered inCarmel, Indiana, that promotes thelibertarian views of its founder,Pierre F. Goodrich, through publishing, conferences, and educational resources. The operating mandate of the Liberty Fund was set forth in an unpublished memo written by Goodrich "to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals".[3][4][5][2]
Liberty Fund was founded by entrepreneurPierre F. Goodrich in 1960. Goodrich, "one of the richest men in Indiana". was involved with coal mines, corn production, telecommunications, and securities.[6] Goodrich was a member of the neoliberal or classically liberalMont Pelerin Society, an international organization of academics, intellectuals, and business leaders who advocated free market economic policies. Goodrich was also an acolyte ofAustrian School economistLudwig von Mises.[7] HistorianDonald T. Critchlow notes that the Liberty Fund was one of the endowedconservative foundations that paved the way for the election of US PresidentRonald Reagan in 1980.[8]
In 1997, the fund received an $80 million donation from Goodrich's wife, Enid, increasing its assets to over $300 million.[5][9] In November 2015, the fund announced the construction of a $22 million headquarters inCarmel, Indiana.[6][10]
The foundation has published several books covering history, politics, philosophy, law, education, and economics. These include:
Since its inception, Liberty Fund has hosted more than 6,000 small, Socratic conferences, holding these conferences primarily in North America, Europe, and Latin America. It has also held a small number of conferences in other regions of the world, including Asia, Australia, and North Africa. Conferences are organized primarily by scholars who work with Liberty Fund staff to establish a theme and select readings that explore certain aspects of liberty. Conference subject areas have included economics, history, philosophy, religion, literature, law, and, most recently, genomics and artificial intelligence.
Individual conferences cover a broad range of topics and themes, including political theory and history, economics, literature, fine arts, science and technology, and law. Authors and thinkers discussed includeWilliam Shakespeare,Miguel de Cervantes,Jane Austen,Mary Shelley,Mary Wollstonecraft,Fredrick Douglass, and economistsFriedrich Hayek,Milton Friedman, andJames Buchanan. Past conference titles include "Freedom and Rebellion inDostoevsky'sThe Brothers Karamazov", "Wisdom, Knowledge and the Good Life", "Hobbes, Liberty, and the Rule of Law", "Liberty and Power in the Mexican Revolution", and "Civil Society in the Plague Year".
Major contributions to specific intellectual disciplines have been a series of conferences led by economists James Buchanan,Gordon Tullock, andGeoffrey Brennan onPublic Choice Theory. ProfessorHenry Manne spearheaded conferences from the late 1970s to the early 2000s that made a considerable contribution to the field ofLaw and Economics. ScholarsWilliam B. Allen,Forrest McDonald,Lance Banning,Gordon S. Wood, andJack P. Green have served as either directors or discussion leaders of dozens of conferences on the early history of the American Republic.[12]
Liberty Fund's publishing program began in 1971 with the publication ofEducation in a Free Society, coauthored by Goodrich andWabash College professorBenjamin A. Rogge, a founding director of Liberty Fund.[13] Since then, Liberty Fund has published more than 400 books exploring the idea of liberty across many disciplines, including economics, political thought, American history, law, and education.[14] As part of Liberty Fund's commitment to the exchange of ideas, Liberty Fund keeps in print many titles that would otherwise be unavailable.
Some of its most popular or influential publications include:
Besides its main website, the Liberty Fund hosts four websites, including:[15][16]
Liberty Fund's Intellectual Portrait Series contains in-depth conversations with more than thirty of the world's leading academics in economics, political thought, law, and other disciplines. Liberty Fund also makes available detailed educational documentaries on Adam Smith andFriedrich Hayek and features historical overviews of theIndustrial Revolution,Hong Kong, and theConstitution of the United States.[21]
After having participated to a study group onFrank Meyer's fusionism,National Review contributor andNational Review Online's founding editorJonah Goldberg said "The Liberty Fund is simply an amazing organization, dedicated to truth and study, good conversation and civil society and, of course, freedom".[22]
In his bookThe Assault on Reason, former US vice president andDemocratic presidential candidateAl Gore alleged that between 2002 and 2004, 97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges wereRepublican administration appointees. Gore claimed that such conferences and seminars are one of the reasons that judges who regularly attend such conferences "are generally responsible for writing the most radical pro-corporate, anti-environmental, and activist decisions". Referring to what he calls the "Big Three"—theFoundation for Research on Economics and the Environment,George Mason University's Law & Economics Center, and the Liberty Fund—Gore adds his accusations: "These groups are not providing unbiased judicial education. They are giving multithousand-dollar vacations to federal judges to promote theirradical right-wing agenda at the expense of the public interest."[23]
However, Gore based his assertions on reports made by theCommunity Rights Counsel; the CRC made two reports, one in 2000 and one in 2004.[24] Gore publishedThe Assault on Reason in 2007. In spite of the years in between, in his 2007 book Gore failed to mention and interact with any response to the CRC's criticism of the organizations at issue. For instance, in his 2007 book Gore failed to interact with the 2005 criticism made by Prof.Jonathan H. Adler towards the CRC's attacks on the abovementioned organizations. Adler argues for the biased nature of the CRC, as well as listing some bipartisan attendees and endorsees of the seminars and conferences condemned by Gore. Adler says: "Of course, it’s not just any privately funded seminars that attract CRC’s ire: They’ve been remarkably silent about other seminars sponsored by universities or organizations like theAspen Institute and theFord Foundation, leading some to suspect that CRC’s real objection is to exposing judges to views with which CRC disagrees."[25] Additionally, Gore's 2007 book failed to mention and interact with whatNobel Memorial Prize in Economic SciencesThomas Schelling said in 2005 in response to the CRC executive director, Douglas T. Kendall. Schelling separates the question of judicial conduct from the question of judgment about the organizations: "Whether judges should accept travel, room, and board to attend twenty-one hours of serious discussion over four days is for the Committee on Codes of Conduct to decide." Then, regarding FREE [Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment], Schelling says: "I have participated in 168 hours of lectures and discussion at FREE and have never witnessed anything that an observer could interpret as remotely corresponding to that characterization."[26] The 2017 edition ofThe Assault on Reason contains no correction to any of these shortcomings.[27]
Because the conferences are scattered across the globe and because they attract only elite thinkers, the fund attracts little attention in Indianapolis outside its Allison Pointe offices.
Liberty Fund
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