Speakers at FFF Events

• Fred L. Smith, Jr.
  
  

  Fred L. Smith, Jr. is the Founder and President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a public interest group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government active in a wide range of economic and environmental public policy issues. Based in Washington, D.C., CEI works to educate and inform policymakers, journalists, and other opinion leaders on market-based alternatives to regulatory initiatives, ranging from antitrust and insurance to energy and environmental protection, and engages in public interest litigation to protect property rights and economic liberty.

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• Joseph Sobran
  
  

  Joe Sobran received his B.A. in English from Eastern Michigan University and did graduate studies in English, specializing in Shakespeare. In 1972, he went to work for National Review Magazine, beginning what would be a 21-year stint, including 18 years as senior editor. From 1979 to 1991, Mr. Sobran was a regular commentator on CBS Radio’s “Spectrum” series. He has been a nationally syndicated columnist since 1979, first with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, then with the Universal Press Syndicate, and now with Griffin Internet Syndicate, for which he writes two columns per week, which are later posted on this site. He also writes the weekly column “Washington Watch148; for The Wanderer, a weekly Catholic newspaper.

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• Thomas S. Szasz
  
  

  Dr. Szasz is Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York, Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., author and lecturer.

  His classic The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) made him a figure of international fame and controversy. Many of his works — such as Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Ceremonial Chemistry, and Our Right to Drugs &$151; are regarded as among the most influential in the 20th century by leaders in medicine, law, and the social sciences.

  Born in Budapest in 1920, Thomas Szasz came to this country in 1938 from his native Hungary and within a few months was admitted to the University of Cincinnati. After graduating with honors in Physics in 1941, he entered the College of Medicine of the University of Cincinnati and won his M.D. degree in 1944. Later, Szasz took his psychoanalytic training at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and for the next five years was a member of its staff — taking twenty-four months out for active duty with the U.S. Navy. A Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Dr. Szasz has published frequently in leading medical, psychiatric, and psychoanalytic journals.

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• Gordon Tullock
  
  

  Gordon Tullock is University Professor of Law and Economics and Distinguished Research Fellow in the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University. He holds a joint teaching position in the Department of Economics and the School of Law.

  Professor Tullock received a J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1947. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Chicago in 1992. Following periods of employment as an attorney at law and in the US Department of State, Professor Tullock taught at the University of South Carolina, the University of Virginia, Rice University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, George Mason University and the University of Arizona.

  In 1966, Professor Tullock became the Founding Editor of the Journal of Non-Market Decision Making (later renamed Public Choice). He remained Senior Editor of Public Choice until May 1990. In 1968 (together with Charles Goetz) he established the Center for Studies in Public Choice (renamed the Center for Study of Public Choice in 1969 when James Buchanan joined Virginia Tech and became Director of the Center).

  Professor Tullock is author of twenty-three books and several hundred articles in economics, public choice, law and economics, bio-economics and foreign affairs. He is best known for such works as The Calculus of Consent, (with James M. Buchanan), The Logic of the Law, The Politics of Bureaucracy, The Social Dilemma, Autocracy, The Economics of Non-Human Societies, Rent Seeking and On Voting. Professor Tullock§s 1967 article entitled: “The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies and Theft” is a widely cited classic that has generated a major ongoing research program in the political economy of rent seeking. Professor Tullock has served as president of the Public Choice Society, the European Public Choice Society, the Southern Economic Association and the Western Economic Association. In 1998, Professor Tullock was honored as Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.

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• Karen Vaughn
  
  

  Karen I. Vaughn (B.A. Queens College, CUNY, 1966; M.A. and Ph.D Duke University, 1969 and 1971) is Professor of Economics at George Mason University, where she served as chair of the department from 1982-89. Her fields of interest include the history of economic thought, economic methodology, Austrian economics and political economy.

  A former editor of the History of Economics Society Bulletin (1978-94), she has served on the editorial boards of History of Political Economy, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and Advances in Austrian Economics. She has held the offices of Vice-President (1986-87) and President (1992-93) of the History of Economics Society, member of the Board of Trustees, Vice-President and President of the Southern Economics Association (1994-1995). She is also the first President and founding member of the newly organized Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.

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• Lawrence H. White
  
  

  Dr. White is F.A. Hayek Professor of Economic History at University of Missouri, St. Louis.

  
  
  
  
  
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• Ulrich Witt
  
  

  Dr. Witt is Director Evolutionary Economics Group and Professor for Economics, Department of Economics, University of Jena, Germany. Associate editor / editorial board member of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Journal of Economic Methodology, Journal of Bioeconomics, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, The Independent Review, Review of Austrian Economics, Advances in Austrian Economics, Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines, and Jahrbuch für Ökologische Ökonomik.

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• Leland B. Yeager
  
  

  Leland B. Yeager is former Ludwig von Mises Distinguished Professor of Economics at Auburn University and a leading monetary theorist.

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