Leonard Edward Read (September 26, 1898 – May 14, 1983) was the founder of the

Foundation for Economic Education The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is an American conservative, libertarian economic think tank. Founded in 1948 in New York City, FEE is now headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a member of the State Policy Network. FEE offers ...

(FEE), one of the first free market think tanks in the United States. He wrote 29 books and numerous essays, including the well-known "

I, Pencil ''I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read'', commonly known as ''I, Pencil'', is an essay by Leonard Read and it was first published in the December 1958 issue of ''The Freeman''. "I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the ...

" (1958).

Business career

After a stint in the

United States Army Air Service The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial war ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Read started a grocery wholesale business in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all ...

, which was initially successful but eventually went out of business. He moved to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

where he started a new career in the tiny Burlingame

Chamber of Commerce A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ...

near

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

. Read gradually moved up the hierarchy of the

United States Chamber of Commerce The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is the largest lobbying group in the United States, representing over three million businesses and organizations. The group was founded in April 1912 out of local chambers of commerce at the urgin ...

, finally becoming general manager of the Los Angeles branch, America's largest, in 1939.

Libertarian activism

During this period his views became progressively more

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's en ...

. Apparently, it was in 1933, during a meeting with William C. Mullendore, the executive vice president of

Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of ap ...

, that Read was finally convinced that the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

was completely inefficient and

morally bankrupt Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of con ...

. Read was also profoundly influenced by his

religious beliefs A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...

. His

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

, Reverend

James W. Fifield Jr. James William Fifield Jr. (June 5, 1899 – February 25, 1977) was an American Congregational minister who led the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles and was co-founder and president of the conservative free-market organization Spiritual M ...

, was minister of the 4,000-member

First Congregational Church of Los Angeles First Congregational Church of Los Angeles is located at 540 South Commonwealth Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States. It is a member of the United Church of Christ. Founded in 1867, the church is the city's oldest continuous Protestant ...

, of which Read was also a board member. Fifield ran a "resistance movement" against the "

social gospel The Social Gospel is a social movement within Protestantism that aims to apply Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean envir ...

" 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 as

Albert Jay Nock Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1870 – August 19, 1945) was an American libertarian author, editor first of ''The Freeman'' and then ''The Nation'', educational theorist, Georgist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century. He was an ...

, and later by

Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...

and the economists

Ludwig von Mises Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (; 29 September 1881 – 10 October 1973) was an Austrian School economist, historian, logician, and sociologist. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism. He is ...

and

Henry Hazlitt Henry Stuart Hazlitt (; November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Nation'', ''The American Mercury'', ''Newsweek'', and '' ...

. In 1945,

Virgil Jordan Virgil Jordan (1892–1965) was an economist and author. He was a past president of the ''National Industrial Conference Board'' and editor with BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American wee ...

, the President of the

National Industrial Conference Board The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research group organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries. The Conference Board c ...

(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. 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 the

William Volker Fund The William Volker Fund was a charitable foundation established in 1932 by Kansas City, Missouri, businessman and home-furnishings mogul William Volker. Volker founded the fund with the purposes of aiding the needy, reforming Kansas City's health ...

and from Harold Luhnow, Read and Hazlitt founded the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, which, in turn, helped to inspire

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek ...

to form the

Mont Pelerin Society The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) is an international organization composed of economists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals and business leaders.Michael Novak, 'The Moral Imperative of a Free Economy', in '' The 4% Solution: Unleashing the E ...

the following year. For a period in the 1940s, Rand was an important adviser, or "ghost", as they called it, to Read. In 1950, Read joined the board of directors for the newly founded periodical ''

The Freeman ''The Freeman'' (formerly published as ''The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'' or ''Ideas on Liberty'') was an American libertarian magazine, formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was founded in 1950 by John Chamberla ...

'', a free market magazine that was a forerunner of the conservative ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...

'', 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. Read received an Honorary Doctoral Degree at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in 1976. He continued to work with FEE until his death in 1983.

Works

Read authored 29 books, some of which are still in print and sold by FEE. * ''Romance of Reality'' (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., Inc., 1937

* ''I'd Push the Button'' (New York: Joseph D. McGuire, 1946

* ''Pattern for Revolt'' (1948

* ''Students of Liberty'' (FEE, 1950

* ''Outlook for Freedom'' (1951

* ''Government – an Ideal Concept'' (FEE, 1954; 2nd edition 1997)

* "I, Pencil" (FEE, 1958 & 2008

* ''Why Not Try Freedom?'' (FEE, 1958

* ''Elements of Libertarian Leadership'' (FEE, 1962

* ''Anything That's Peaceful: The Case for the Free Market'' (FEE, 1964; revised edition 1992; 2nd edition 1998)

* ''The Free Market and Its Enemy'' (FEE, 1965

* ''Deeper Than You Think'' (FEE, 1967

* ''Where Lies This Fault?'' (FEE, 1967

* ''Accent on the Right'' (FEE, 1968

* ''The Coming Aristocracy'' (FEE, 1969

* ''Let Freedom Reign'' (FEE, 1969

* ''Talking To Myself'' (FEE, 1970

* ''Then Truth Will Out'' (FEE, 1971

* ''To Free or Freeze, That is the Question'' (FEE, 1972

* ''Instead of Violence'' (FEE, 1973

* ''Who's Listening'' (FEE, 1973

* ''Free Man's Almanac'' (FEE, 1974) * ''Having My Way'' (FEE, 1974

* ''Castles in the Air'' (FEE, 1975)

* ''The Love of Liberty'' (FEE, 1975) * ''Comes the Dawn'' (FEE, 1976

* ''Awake for Freedom's Sake'' (FEE, 1977

* ''Vision'' (FEE, 1978

* ''Liberty: Legacy of Truth'' (FEE, 1978

* ''The Freedom Freeway'' (FEE, 1979

* ''Seeds of Progress'' (FEE, 1980

* ''Thoughts Rule the World'' (FEE, 1981

* ''How Do We Know'' (FEE, 1981

* ''The Path of Duty'' (FEE, 1982

* ''Clichés of Socialism'' (FEE, various)

Unpublished Work

Read kept private journals from 1949 to 1978, all of which are available in archive form from FEE. * ''Leonard E. Read Journal'' (FEE, various

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

Books by Leonard Read
at the

Mises Institute Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a libertarian nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, United States. It is named after the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). I ...

.
Foundation for Economic Education

Honoris Causa Doctaral degrees at University Francisco Marroquín
{{DEFAULTSORT:Read, Leonard 1898 births 1983 deaths Austrian School economists American libertarians American political philosophers American political writers Old Right (United States) American male essayists 20th-century American essayists People from Hubbardston, Michigan 20th-century American male writers Foundation for Economic Education