The FEE, founded in 1946 by Leonard Read, the charismatic former president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, sought to revive "freedom philosophy," sending polemical newsletters to its mailing list of over 28,000 subscribers and reissuing classic works of market philosophy like Frédéric Bastiat's The Law and the writings of William Graham Sumner. Although Read admired Hayek tremendously and adopted his vision wholeheartedly, Hayek and others in the MPS had long been wary about the FEE and about its strength in the American free-market intellectual scene, viewing the FEE as an overly strident, simplistic organization that alienated as many people as it persuaded. Karl Brandt, for example, wrote that the FEE was "radical" and issued "cheap propaganda." Crane, on the other hand, considered the FEE "Number One in the institutions for the maintenance of freedom."

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1467