Fred Lee Smith, 1940-24

We at the ASI were saddened to hear of the death of our friend Fred Smith, founder and former President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington DC.

It was a joy to be in the presence of someone who enjoyed life to the full, and who was characterised by his cheerfulness, optimism, wit, energy and charm. He was invariably smiling, even when making serious arguments. He talked non-stop (as he was amusingly well aware of), but in a way that was always engaging, informative and entertaining, and never tedious. He exuded goodwill to all, including those he thought sorely mistaken politically — and even they could not help liking him. 

He enjoyed company and cigars, bourbon and beef, all of which made him a regular at Smith & Wollensky across the road from his office. (One week, they had special wine-tasting lunches. He took me on the Monday, saying ‘I’ve booked here from Monday to Thursday. If I’m still alive, I’ll come back on Friday, too!’)

But as well as loving life, he was dedicated and effective. Raised in Alabama, Fred took a degree in Mathematics and Political Science, earning the Dean’s Medal for excellence. He founded the CEI in 1984, saying that such an institution was needed to answer the economist Joseph Schumpeter’s question, ‘Can Capitalism Survive?’ Fred certainly thought that capitalism was being weighed down by excessive regulation, and much of the think tank’s work would be to focus on regulation, to catalogue and critique it, to show how large, established firms used it to keep out competition by lobbying their political cronies, and to propose market-based alternatives to top-down, and usually inept, bureaucratic dictates.

Fred’s larger-than-life personality was what gave CEI its freewheeling style and its razor-sharp edge. Incorrigibly outgoing, he knew everyone in Washington, and everyone new (and liked) him. Everybody who got the opportunity liked working for him, and he gave his team members the latitude to choose their own topics and contribute how, where and on what they thought would make the biggest difference to promoting the principle of personal and economic freedom that underpinned everything CEI did. He will be missed by so many who were touched by his life and his work. 

Photo: Fred Smith with his equally irrepressible wife Fran, who survives him.