Study
Adam Smith’s guide to life, loveliness, and the modern economy
Introduction: Going strong at 300 Ryan Young This essay collection celebrates Adam Smith’s 300th birthday. He is best known for being the first modern economist,…
News Release
CEI Celebrates Fred L. Smith, Jr.’s 80th Birthday with Anthology of His Writing
Fred L. Smith, Jr. celebrated his 80th birthday just before the New Year, and his friends and colleagues at the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Study
Labor of Love: A Fred Smith Story
View Full Book as PDF Edited by Kent Lassman, Amanda France, and Ivan Osorio INTRODUCTION View Introduction as PDF Everyone…
Occupational Health & Safety
DOT Forms In-Flight Sexual Misconduct Task Force
Occupational Health & Safety cited CEI’s Adjunct Fellow Frances Smith’s new position as ACPAC consumer representative. The first meeting of DOT’s Aviation Consumer Protection…
Blog
How to Articulate a Free-Market Vision for the Future
The Competitive Enterprise Institute views most market failure rationales for government intervention as wrong, overstated, or unproven (or all of the above). The Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Canada Live News
Ottawa Risks An Endless Loop Of Canadian Farmer Payouts From Trade Deals
Canada Live News cited CEI on new NAFTA agreement. “Trade deals are better than no trade deals, generally speaking. But bad trade deals…
Reflections On The Evolution Of Trade Policy
Reflections On The Evolution Of Trade Policy
Forbes has published an article by Fred Smith detailing the effects of renegotiation and its effects on the North American economy as well as the…
Forbes
Does a Market Economy Encourage Altruism?
Are markets inherently altruistic? I thought of that question after attending a recent conference, co-sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)…
Forbes
Reflections on the Evolution of Trade Policy
The Trump administration’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) could launch a trade war with our major trading partners,…
The Wall Street Journal
Oil and Spectrum Rights Models Offer a Clue
Thomas W. Hazlett’s “How Politics Stalls Wireless Innovation” (op-ed, Oct. 2) outlines the irrationality of the current political mismanagement of the electromagnetic spectrum and…
Main Street Radio Network
AUDIO: Fred Smith Discusses Capitalism on the Alan Nathan
Founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and President of the Center for Advancing Capitalism, Fred L. Smith, Jr., discusses capitalism on the Alan Nathan Show…
The Regulatory Review
Constructively Improving Railroad Regulations
Edward R. Hamberger, President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, mentions a piece by Fred Smith and Marc Scribner regarding regulations of the…
News Release
CEI Continues to Support President Trump’s Paris Climate Accord Decision
Forbes
International Freedom Fighters Organize in Miami
Fans of free markets and limited government have a new place to seek allies. Recently Conservatives International, a new global advocacy organization, was launched…
Forbes
Happy Birthday, Adam Smith!
June 16, 1723, is the birth date of Adam Smith, a Scottish intellectual greatly admired for clarifying the virtuous, self-organizing nature of free markets. Smith…
Blog
Remembering Aaron Wildavsky
Aaron Wildavsky, born on this day in 1930, died tragically and all too young in 1993, but left behind an incredible legacy in the public policy…
The Conservative Online
Market Institutions Never Evolved For The Environment; And That’s Why It Can’t Be Properly Protected
As Joseph Schumpeter noted, free markets had a good first century (the 1750s to 1850s). A market economy produced massive improvements in the quality of…
Blog
Response to Mercatus Center’s Dan Griswold on Trade Policy
Fred Smith and Marc Scribner respond to the Mercatus Center's Dan Griswold on the free market approach to trade policy.
Blog
Companies Make a Play for Hearts and Minds with Super Bowl Ads
Corporations are in trouble – people see more bad than good in corporate America, even though they may like and enjoy their products.
Fox Business
A Trade Policy to Boost American Competitiveness
President Donald Trump’s early actions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, North American Free Trade Agreement, and the nomination of avowed protectionists to key roles have shaken…
Forbes
Trump Must Take On The Cronyism Challenge
For President-elect Donald Trump to deliver on his “make American great again,” promise, economic growth must again exceed today’s anemic rate. Reforming tax policy, reducing…
Blog
Some Advice for Trump Appointees
Your role in the new administration is to propose ways of restoring limited government – by privatization, deregulation, extending property rights, and taking on the…
The Claremont Review of Books
Bullying Culture
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel has written an insightful, important book on the Left’s efforts to drive market-friendly voices from the public square. A…
The Claremont Review of Books
The Progressive Era’s Derailment of Classical Liberal Evolution
It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals…
Forbes
Lessons From A Decade Of “Conscious Capitalism”
What can 220 CEOs learn at a “Conscious Capitalism” conference? Perhaps valuable insights into the purpose and value of their businesses. Perhaps also, ways to…
Blog
Free Market Opportunities for the Trump Administration
This election has given us one more demonstration that knowledge is dispersed and “trusting the experts” to know the future is foolish. The unexpected success…
Washington Post
Was 2016 a missed opportunity for Libertarians?
The Washington Post discusses why the Liberterian Party struggled to reach people with Fred Smith. Fred Smith, the founder of the libertarian Competitive…
Forbes
Is Capitalism Worth Defending?
In an election season poised to set new records for voter fatigue, we’ve seen a lot of negativity about major American institutions, including…
Daily Caller
Another Shot At Free Market Advocacy
Study
The Morality and Virtues of Capitalism and the Firm
View Full Document as PDF The case for the morality of capitalism lies in its voluntary nature and its synthesis of self-interest…
Forbes
Classical Liberalism Alive And Well In Miami
It’s difficult to wage a war without allies, and the War of Ideas is no different. Yet, capitalist defenders—free market intellectuals and wealth-creating business leaders—rarely…
Forbes
Brexit Planners Should Look To The U.S. For Inspiration
In June, British voters voted to leave the European Union, whose bureaucracy had imposed alien laws and regulations on them for decades. The EU system…
Forbes
Capitalism and the Candidates
As a longtime advocate for capitalism, I’ve been considering the prospects for free market ideas in a White House presided over by either of the…
Blog
Happy Birthday to Economist Bruce Yandle
Bruce Yandle – a great economic scholar at Clemson University for many years and recipient of the 2016 Julian Simon Award – reaches his 83rd…
Reason
“The Alternative To Innovation Is Not Stability. It’s Stagnation.”
Reason discusses capitalism and innovation with CEI's found Fred Smith. "The alternative to innovation is not stability," says Fred L. Smith, who founded…
Forbes
New Hostility To High Finance Has Ancient Roots
Recently, the Republicans assembled in Cleveland approved a platform that includes some praiseworthy planks on government reform, but one provision stood out as a jarring…
Forbes
Manage Water Like Oil To Increase Supply
Some of the natural resources we use every day are traded freely in the market economy, while others are heavily regulated and controlled by government…
Blog
Religious and Economic Liberty Are Intertwined
The massacre in Orlando was a tragic reminder that we’re at war—against hate, against extremism, and against intolerance. Although there are many contributing factors…
Wall Street Journal
Amnesia? We Remember the Lack of a Cushion
As longtime critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who warned early on that they could destabilize the financial system, we were shocked by Douglas…
Study
Toward a Thinker/Doer Alliance: A Grand Strategy for Liberty Advocates
By Fred L. Smith, Jr. Director, Center for Advancing Capitalism Speech delivered at Hillsdale College Hillsdale, Michigan…
Forbes
What CEOs Should Be Saying About Inequality
Despite living at a time of unprecedented decreases in poverty around the world, we’re witnessing a seemingly unprecedented increase in worry about income…
Forbes
When Anything Could Be The ‘Next Tobacco’
When political operators win big with a clever legal strategy, you can be sure it’ll be used again. One strategy that paid off handsomely for…
Blog
Trade Is Good, Using Trade to Weaken Foreign Investment Is Not
Free traders have long promoted an expansion of the rights of the citizens of one nation to buy and sell to one another. The old…
Forbes
Three Decades On, The Fight For Economic Freedom Continues
Americans want honorable, thoughtful government but are no longer sure that result is possible. Government has now grown so gigantic, arrogant, powerful, and pervasive that…
Forbes
Super Bowl Ads Need To Reach Both Citizens And Consumers
As an observer of corporate advertising, I found the quality and style of the Super Bowl 50 ads disappointing. Once again, there were plenty of…
Forbes
The Chipotle Effect: When Companies Believe Their Own Hype
Earlier this week the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally closed the books on the investigation of the E. coli outbreaks at multiple…
The Washington Examiner
What the Near-Death of the Railroad Industry Can Teach American Business Leaders
Business executives deal with the spiraling cost of complying with government regulation every day. This burden has become so large and pervasive that many have…
Forbes
How Cars Saved The Montgomery Bus Boycott
December 5, 1955, was a key date in the struggle to eliminate racial segregation laws in the United States. On that date, the African American…
Forbes
Congress Is A Terrible Business Partner
We are beginning to see the unraveling of the Faustian bargain that private health insurance companies made with the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress…
Blog
Thanksgiving: Massachusetts Discovers Property Rights
Thanksgiving is a day layered in tradition and myth. The standard story makes much of the creative efforts of our ancestors, the assistance provided by…