Start at the Beginning; R. LeFevre

Robert LeFevre START AT THE BEGINNING WERE I called upon today to teach a course in basic economics, I would begin at the beginning. It is my observation that this procedure is rarely followed these days. It has been my lot for a number of years to deal with management trainees for several companies, in cluding one large corporation. Most of these trainees have come from some of our finest colleges and uni versities. Perhaps as many as twenty per cent have studied adMr. leFevre founded and for years presided over the Freedom SChool In Colorado and has lectured and written extensively in behalf of freedom and the market. His latest book, just off the press, Raising Children for Fun and Profit, Is comprised of the Freedom School home study course of the same name. The book I. available at $10.00, from P. K. Slocum, 7333 Corey Street, Downey, California 90242. vanced economics, and a few hold degrees in the discipline. Probably as many as fifty per cent have re ceived advanced degrees in one or another field. These young men and women are far above average. All are talented, a few gifted, and here and there an undoubted genius.

I work with eight hundred to a thousand people of this caliber every year. Perhaps one in a thousand can relate the myriad bits of data learned in school to the realities of human existence in this world. Most arrive for my seminars with two economic assumptions of direful foreboding: (1) The large corpora tions represent a constant danger and must be controlled by the government; (2) Without antitrust laws, the Environmental Protection 195 196 THE FREEMAN April Agency and other bureaucratic interventions, private businessmen, large and small, would walk roughshod over the entire popula tion of this country. The reason? Free enterprise leads inevitably to monopoly. These seminar attendees did not invent these anxieties. They learned them at the feet of their professors, many of them professors in econom ics. It Is Futile to Argue I have learned from experience that any attempt to dispute these conclusions by direct debate is largely futile. As the early rhyme sters had it, ((a man convinced against his will, is of the same opin ion, still."