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FOUR DECADES OF ADVOCACY
The Free Market Foundation (FMF) was founded in August 1975 to promote freedom of enterprise in South Africa. This occurred in response to what was evidently, at the time, a government with little interest in allowing South Africans to make decisions about their own economic affairs.
Since South Africa’s infamous system of racial segregation came to an end in 1994, the FMF has responded with new zeal to a democratic government that has signalled its intention to curb the very entrepreneurial freedom necessary to undo the country’s seemingly endemic poverty.
“But what to the politicians are fixed limits of practicability imposed by public opinion must not be similar limits to us. Public opinion on these matters is the work of men like ourselves, the economists and political philosophers of the past few generations, who have created the political climate in which the politicians of our time must move.
It is from this long-run point of view that we must look at our task. It is the beliefs which must spread, if a free society is to be preserved, or restored, not what is practicable at the moment, which must be our concern.”
FA von Hayek, 1947
WHAT MOTIVATES US?
The FMF stands for the right of all individuals to freely pursue their own aspirations without unwanted interference. This foundational motivation animates all of our work, and gives rise to our core principles.
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to promote and defend the principles of individual liberty, private property, free enterprise, and limited government in southern Africa.
WHERE IS SOUTH AFRICA GOING?
South Africa is facing an existential crisis.
This crisis is being driven by various factors, like a low-to-no growth environment, insecure private property, record unemployment and violent crime rates, and daily political interferences in the economic freedom of ordinary South Africans.
With the benefit of international and historical experience, the FMF believes these problems are eminently solvable, through the application of our core principles.
OUR CORE PRINCIPLES
The FMF’s solutions to South Africa’s most pressing problems