Liberty Fund

Liberty Fund, Inc. is an American nonprofit foundation headquartered in Carmel, Indiana, that promotes the libertarian views of its founder, Pierre F. Goodrich, through publishing, conferences, and educational resources. The operating mandate of the Liberty Fund was set forth in an unpublished memo written by Goodrich "to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals".

Liberty Fund was founded by entrepreneur Pierre F. Goodrich in 1960. Goodrich, "one of the richest men in Indiana", was involved with coal mines, corn production, telecommunications, and securities. Goodrich was a member of the neoliberal or classically liberal Mont Pelerin Society, an international organization of academics, intellectuals, and business leaders who advocated free market economic policies. Goodrich was also an acolyte of Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Historian Donald T. Critchlow notes that Liberty Fund was one of the endowed conservative foundations that laid the way for the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In 1997, the fund received an $80 million donation from Goodrich's wife, Enid, increasing its assets to over $300 million. In November 2015, the fund announced the construction of a $22 million headquarters in Carmel, Indiana.

The foundation has published several books covering history, politics, philosophy, law, education, and economics. These include:

Since its inception, Liberty Fund has hosted more than 6,000 small, Socratic conferences, holding these conferences primarily in North America, Europe, and Latin America. It has also held a small number of conferences in other regions of the world, including Asia, Australia, and North Africa. Conferences are organized primarily by scholars who work with Liberty Fund staff to establish a theme and select readings that explore certain aspects of liberty. Conference subject areas have included economics, history, philosophy, religion, literature, law, and, most recently, genomics and artificial intelligence.

Individual conferences cover a broad range of topics and themes, including political theory and history, economics, literature, fine arts, science and technology, and law. Authors and thinkers discussed include William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Fredrick Douglass, and economists Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan. Past conference titles include "Freedom and Rebellion in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov", "Wisdom, Knowledge and the Good Life", "Hobbes, Liberty, and the Rule of Law", "Liberty and Power in the Mexican Revolution", and "Civil Society in the Plague Year".

Major contributions to specific intellectual disciplines have been a series of conferences led by economists James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Geoffrey Brennan on Public Choice Theory. Professor Henry Manne spearheaded conferences from the late 1970s to the early 2000s that made a considerable contribution to the field of Law and Economics. Scholars William B. Allen, Forrest McDonald, Lance Banning, Gordon S. Wood, and Jack P. Green have served as either directors or discussion leaders of dozens of conferences on the early history of the American Republic.

Liberty Fund's publishing program began in 1971 with the publication of Education in a Free Society, coauthored by Goodrich and Wabash College professor Benjamin A. Rogge, a founding director of Liberty Fund. Since then, Liberty Fund has published more than 400 books exploring the idea of liberty across many disciplines, including economics, political thought, American history, law, and education. As part of Liberty Fund's commitment to the exchange of ideas, Liberty Fund keeps in print many titles that would otherwise be unavailable.