Leonard Read | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1898-09-26)September 26, 1898 |
| Died | May 14, 1983(1983-05-14) (aged 84) |
| Academic background | |
| Influences | Frédéric Bastiat Murray Rothbard Milton Friedman F. A. Hayek Henry Hazlitt Ludwig von Mises Albert Jay Nock Ayn Rand |
| Academic work | |
| School or tradition | Austrian School |
| Institutions | Foundation for Economic Education (founder) |
Leonard Edward Read (September 26, 1898 – May 14, 1983) was the founder of theFoundation for Economic Education (FEE), one of the first free market think tanks in the United States. He wrote 29 books and numerous essays, including "I, Pencil" (1958).
After a stint in theUnited States Army Air Service duringWorld War I, Read started a grocery wholesale business inAnn Arbor, Michigan, which was initially successful but eventually went out of business. He moved toCalifornia where he started a new career in the tinyBurlingameChamber of Commerce nearSan Francisco. Read gradually moved up the hierarchy of theUnited States Chamber of Commerce, finally becoming general manager of theLos Angeles branch, the U.S.'s largest, in 1939.
During this period his views became progressively morelibertarian. Apparently, it was in 1933, during a meeting withWilliam C. Mullendore, the executive vice president ofSouthern California Edison, that Read was finally convinced that theNew Deal was completely inefficient andmorally bankrupt. Read was also profoundly influenced by hisreligious beliefs. Hispastor, ReverendJames W. Fifield Jr., was minister of the 4,000-memberFirst Congregational Church of Los Angeles, of which Read was also a board member. Fifield ran a "resistance movement" against the "social gospel" of the New Deal, trying to convince ministers across the country to adopt libertarian "spiritual ideals". During the period when he worked for the Chamber of Commerce, Read was also deeply influenced by more secular figures, such asAlbert Jay Nock, and later byAyn Rand and the economistsLudwig von Mises andHenry Hazlitt.
In 1945,Virgil Jordan, the President of theNational Industrial Conference Board (NICB) in New York, invited Read to become its executive vice president. Read realized he would have to leave the NICB to pursue full-time the promotion of free market, limited government principles. He resigned as a result.[1][2]
One donor from his short time at NICB, David M. Goodrich, encouraged Read to start his own organization. With Goodrich's aid, as well as financial aid from theWilliam Volker Fund and fromHarold Luhnow, Read and Hazlitt founded the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, which, in turn, helped to inspireFriedrich Hayek to form theMont Pelerin Society the following year. For a period in the 1940s, Rand was an important adviser, or "ghost", as they called it, to Read.[3]
In 1950, Read joined the board of directors for the newly founded periodicalThe Freeman, a free market magazine that was a forerunner of the conservativeNational Review, to which Read was also a contributor. In 1954, Read arranged for the struggling magazine to be transferred to a for-profit company owned by FEE. In 1956, FEE assumed direct control of the magazine, turning it into a non-profit outreach tool for the foundation.[4][5]
Read received an Honorary Doctoral Degree atUniversidad Francisco Marroquín in 1976. He continued to work with FEE until his death in 1983.
Read authored 29 books, some of which are still in print and sold by FEE.
Read kept private journals from 1949 to 1978, all of which are available in archive form from FEE.
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