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Deliberately designed to stimulate inquiry and purposeful open discussion, the program here described is bringing home to the participants in its study groups an understanding of the elementary facts and the fundamental principles that determine the shape of their economic environment.

BEGINNING September 14, and continuing for ten weeks, some 1,500 men and women in and around New York, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee, will meet for two hours a week to discuss basic economics. Among the subjects into which they will inquire will be the duration of our present near-boom conditions; the effect of federal spending on economic growth; our ability to avoid inflation; the economic effects of automation, reduced defense spending, and the gold drain. The discussion groups are the outgrowth of an activity that got under way thirty years ago. It was while the nation was in the deepest throes of its worst depression that what is now the Institute for Economic Inquiry was established. All of society was engaged in a monumental struggle with economic adversity, and there had begun to appear ominous signs that bureaucratic decree would in due course supplant economic law as a determining factor in shaping the course of our economy, and our institutions in general.

Since there was an obviously urgent need for a better understanding of the principles that make a free economy work, the Institute sought to make clear to all participants just how these principles might be applied to the solution of the problems confronted by all components of our economy, including capital, management, and labor, as well as the part that government might properly play in maintaining an environment that is conducive to economic progress within a framework of freedom.

As the Institute's director, John Lawrence Monroe, puts it, "Our first objective is to free the subject of economics from its misconceptions and jargon by considering objectively what proper solutions may be applied to man's problems to the end that he may achieve the highest satisfaction of his wants. The Institute seeks to motivate inquiry into the possibility that there are demonstrable fundamental economic laws, and that any failure to observe them lessens by just that much the maximum satisfaction of man's wants. This clarification and discovery should tend ultimately to bring public policy on economic questions into harmony with both natural law and moral law.

Inquiry Produces Understanding

"Each exploration into the realm of economics undertaken by a round-table group in any one of the ten sessions of the twelve courses is aimed at these objectives. The program is based on the premise that understanding is inherent in the nature of the mind, the one singular attribute of the human condition; that education is the process of acquiring understand ing; and that there is no substitute for the discipline of self-education through personally directed inquiry."

An IEI study project has its inception in a decision by one or more groups in a certain industry or community to participate in a course. As the project gets under way, each group chooses a conference leader from among those enrolled. These conference leaders then meet once each week with a coach who is supplied by the Institute, and at these meetings they engage in a roundtable discussion of the material they will later present to their respective groups.

The function of the coach is to prepare the leaders to conduct the roundtable in ways that are calculated to draw out for discussion and criticism the participants' ideas and conclusions regarding the various problems of economics under examination. Conference leaders are provided with visual aids and work sheets, the content of which is deliberately designed to stimulate interrogation, as is every other phase and aspect of the program.

The conference leadership seminar coaching system thus places its principal reliance on the thinking process that is generated in the course of purposeful open discussion, and not on the presumably irreproachable printed word. The necessity for facts and sound logic becomes imperative, and axioms must be clearly stated. If he is to perform successfully, each conference leader must be prepared to enlist as his best allies and make the utmost use of those age-old tools of inquiry, what, how, and why.

The Institute's course requires neither the reading of textbooks nor written examinations. The method of study is based on the Socratic assumption that learning is accomplished by the necessity of questioning in open forum any assertion as to what is or is not the truth. The discussion method puts to immediate test any proposition advanced by any one of the members. The goal is not to win a debate, but to force the participants to engage in self-questioning that is stimulated by others, thus generating a drive to discover what are in reality the facts regarding man's struggle to satisfy his wants, which, in the last analysis, is the subject matter of economics.

Inquiring Mind the Basic Need

The qualifications of the conference leader are simple enough: he must 1) want to make the study for his own benefit; 2) be interested in the thinking of others; and 3) be willing to give time to a briefing session each week in which he is coached to lead his own group. He needs neither a background in economics nor leadership experience; his basic need is simply, but paramountly, an inquiring mind.

Two thousand study groups with 20,000 participants representing 250 companies in 16 cities have provided the proving ground for a coaching and discussion method which needs only to be used in order to fully meet the rising demand for economic understanding throughout the nation. The following items comprise the kit used by the conference leader in each session:

• An easy-to-follow outline detailing the economics problems and case studies the conference leaders present to their groups.
• A 30-minute LP record on which the IEI director of conference leadership coaches each conference leader point by point through the session outline.
• For each study group member, a study supplement emphasizing the relevance of the particular session's fundamental subject matter to the current issues and trends, and a be-fore-and-after work sheet on which he tallies the progress of this thinking.
• Charts and other visual aids.

The Institute for Economic Inquiry offers its courses as a public service without tuition or other charges of any kind. In building funds with which to accomplish its aims, it looks to graduates and other friends for annual, life, and corporate memberships at fixed fees. Then, for additional funds, it depends on individuals, companies, and foundations with no floor or ceiling on the amounts. During its 30 years of formative growth, it has been sustained by nine foundations, 70 companies, and 3,400 individual contributors.

In addition to a small staff managed by Director Monroe at 236 North Clark Street, Chicago, there are the National Council, a Board of Trustees, and Consultants on Research and Course Development, each playing a vital role in the Institute's development (see list).

Participants Express Approval

The 20,000 individuals who have participated in study groups to date have met on their own time in company conference rooms, community centers, churches, and business offices. A close watch has been kept on their reactions, their views of the value of what they have learned, and how it compares with any instruction in economics they may have received in college. Here are the comments of a few graduates:

Rollie B. Merrick, Lane Technical High School: "The first couple of sessions I was lost, but as time went on all the pieces seemed to fit. Before I enrolled, I used to skip over the business pages because I didn't care what business was doing. …Now I read the business pages avidly; feel this knowledge will help me later on when I become an engineer. IEI has given me a better understanding of everything. …These discussions help me to understand free enterprise and the world threat of communism."

Benjamin J. Russell, Foreman Delco Radio Div., General Motors Corp.: "A sound, common sense, constructive study."

Edward W. Jochim, vice president and general manager, Personal Products Corp.: "There is, to my knowledge, no other course available that will do the vitally needed educational work that this course will do." Douglass Campbell, vice president, New York Central System: "This course provides information that enables an individual to draw reasonable conclusions from what he reads and hears."

Harry J. Hemingway, president, Sessions Engineering Company: "These well informed discussions lead to profitable management decisions."

Typical of the views expressed by leaders in the program are these observations by National Council Member Curtiss E. Frank: "I believe that a basic understanding of sound economic principles is of unparalleled importance in the preservation of a strong free enterprise system and a strong America. This understanding is important at all levels of commerce, industry, and the community. Therefore, businessmen and civic leaders should assist all well conceived efforts to promote such understanding. The Institute for Economic Inquiry is time-tested as such an effort."

Takes Program to People

While many other organizations have purposes and objectives similar to those of the Institute, the latter's contribution to economic education is distinctive in that it:

• brings the study of economics directly to people in plants and neighborhoods.
• reaches all conditions and sorts of people -- housewives, executives, high school students, factory workers.
• imposes no point of view. It provides the means of conducting an open but orderly inquiry into the basic principles of economics as related to problems of the individual, industry, and the nation.
• makes no charge for its materials and services. It depends solely on the voluntary memberships and contributions of individuals, companies, and foundations.
• seeks to maintain a continuing relationship with its study group members by supplying additional courses (twelve so far), sponsoring Commerce and industry luncheons (there have been 91), and by mailings of its reports and periodicals, as well as of book catalogs from leading publishers in the field of economics. The methods employed stimulate a desire for further study of economics.
• has faith in the common sense, the good judgment, the powers of observation and analysis, the sense of right, and the deep-rooted economic experience of every person. It is therefore less concerned with conclusions and judgments than it is with the means to motivate observation and study, and to spark the cross fire of open discussion. It seeks to so challenge interest, thought, and discussion that each two-hour session leaves little time for wandering afield.

Institute Ready to Help

To individuals and groups who desire to establish a program, the Institute offers its full cooperation. It stands ready to help them:

1. Extend the invitations;

2. Set up study groups of not more than 15 members each, plus a conference leader;

3. Schedule the time and place of meeting of each group;

4. Select each group's conference leader and coach him session by session;

5. Give press recognition to participants;

6. Honor the graduates and conference leaders at a joint commencement; issue certificates.

7. Prepare an evaluation of the program as the basis for a report to the National Council, Trustees, and Consultants on Course Development, as well as to donors to the Institute.

8. Set up advanced courses on the same basis for graduates of the basic course.

The effect of the Institute's program is to bring under the closest scrutiny the elementary facts and basic principles that give shape to our economic environment. It offers all participants an opportunity to figure out for themselves just what is right and what is wrong about the many viewpoints regarding the economic is sues of the day that they are being asked to consider. And the more light they are given, the less likely they will be to err in their judgments as recorded at the polls and in the market place.