In 2016  the CEC voted to become a branch of the Bastiat Society, a group that was founded in 2004. As of August 2017, the Bastiat Society became a program of AIER.

The Bastiat Society was formed to bring business people together, defend their right to the moral high ground, and arm them with the ideas necessary to advance peaceful trade and human flourishing; all are ideas and concepts also supported by the CEC.