Menard Family Distinguished Speaker Series

February 10 | Deirdre McCloskey

"How Growth (Actually) Happened"

Event Location: Oceti Sakowin Ballroom, Memorial Union, 5:30-7:00 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey is Senior Fellow and holds the Isaiah Berlin Chair of Liberal Thought at the Cato Institute in Washington DC. From 2015 at the University of Illinois at Chicago she has been Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, and Professor Emerita of English and of Communication. Trained at Harvard in the 1960s as an economist, she has written twenty-five books and some five hundred academic and popular articles on economic theory, economic history, philosophy, rhetoric, statistics, feminism, ethics, law, and liberalism.

She taught for twelve years at the University of Chicago in the Economics Department during its glory days, but now describes herself as a “literary, quantitative, postmodern, free-market, progressive-Episcopalian, ex-Marxist, Midwestern woman from Boston who was once a man. Not ‘conservative’! I’m a Christian classical liberal, practicing humanomics.”

Her most recent popular books are Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All (2019) and with Art Carden Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich: The Bourgeois Deal (2020). Also in 2019 the University of Chicago Press issued a 20^th-anniversary re-issue of Crossing: A Transgender Memoir, with a new Afterword. But she’s technical and quantitative, too. For example, with Stephen Ziliak in 2008 she wrote The Cult of Statistical Significance, widely noted, which shows that null hypothesis tests of “significance” are, in the absence of a substantive loss function, meaningless.

Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (2016) was the final volume of the Bourgeois Era trilogy. It argues for an “ideational” explanation of the Great Enrichment of 2,500 percent after 1776 in places like Britain and Japan and Finland, and now China and India. The accidents of Reformation and Revolt in northwestern Europe 1517–1789 led to a new liberty and dignity for commoners—ideas called “liberalism” in the proper sense, an equality of permission. Liberalism led to an explosion of commercially tested betterment, “having a go.” The second book in the trilogy, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World (2010), had shown that materialist explanations such as saving or exploitation or legal change, don’t have enough economic oomph or historical particularity to explain the Enrichment. The alleged explanations are merely ancillary to the powerful new ideology of “innovism”—McCloskey’s name for the ill-named “capitalism.” And the Enrichment did not corrupt our immortal souls—the inaugural book in the trilogy, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (2006), had established contrary to the clerisy anti-bourgeois clamor since 1848 the bourgeoisie is pretty good ethically speaking, and that commercially tested betterment is by no means the worst of ethical schools. The trilogy and her subsequent writing looks forward to a world of universal dignity and prosperity created by liberal innovism.

April 21 | Jason Riley

"The Affirmative Action Myth"

Event Location: Louise S. Barry Ballroom in Richard H. Barry Hall, 5:30-7:00 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 7:00-8:00 p.m.

Jason Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and a commentator for Fox News. Riley’s new book, The Affirmative Action Myth: Why Blacks Don’t Need Racial Preferences to Succeed, is available now. After joining the Journal in 1994, he was named a senior editorial writer in 2000 and a member of the editorial board in 2005. Riley writes opinion pieces on politics, economics, education, immigration, and race. He’s also a frequent public speaker and provides commentary for television and radio news outlets.

Riley is the author of several other books, including Let Them In (2008), which argues for more legal immigration; Please Stop Helping Us (2014), which discusses the track record of government efforts to lift the black underclass; False Black Power? (2017), an assessment of why black political success has not translated into more economic advancement; Maverick, a biography of the economist Thomas Sowell (2021); and The Black Boom (2022), an analysis of black economic progress prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also narrated the 2021 documentary film, Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World.

Riley is a recipient of the 2018 Bradley Prize. He previously worked for USA Today and the Buffalo News and holds a B.A. in English from SUNY-Buffalo.

October 23 | Steve Forbes

"Prosperity Through Economic Freedom"

Event Location: Oceti Sakowin Ballroom, Memorial Union, 5:30-7:00 p.m., hors d'oeuvres will follow from 7:00-8:00 p.m. This event is co-sponsored with the Young America's Foundation.

A renowned American publishing executive and public policy leader, Steve Forbes serves as the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media.

Mr. Forbes’ newest project is the podcast “What’s Ahead,” where he engages the world’s top newsmakers, politicians, and pioneers in business and economics in honest conversations meant to challenge traditional conventions as well as featuring his signature views on the intersection of society, economics, and policy.

Mr. Forbes helped create the recently released and highly acclaimed public television documentary, In Money We Trust?, which was produced under the auspices of Maryland Public television. The film was inspired by the book he co-authored, Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy – and What We Can Do About It.

His latest book, Inflation: What it Is, Why it’s Bad, and How to Fix it, takes on one of today’s most pressing issues. In it, Mr. Forbes explains what’s behind the worst inflationary storm in more than forty years, answering key questions in an engaging and compelling discussion.

Mr. Forbes also writes editorials for each issue of Forbes under the heading of “Fact and Comment.” A widely respected economic prognosticator, he is the only writer to have won the highly prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times. The prize was formerly given by U.S. Steel Corporation to the financial journalist whose economic forecasts for the coming year proved most accurate.

In both 1996 and 2000, Mr. Forbes campaigned vigorously for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. Key to his platform were a flat tax, medical savings accounts, a new Social Security system for working Americans, parental choice of schools for their children, term limits, and a strong national defense. He continues to energetically promote this agenda.

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September 16 | Daryl Davis

"From Discord to Harmony: Transforming Conflict into Collaboration - An Evening of Learning and Music"

Special Event Location and Time: Fargo Theater, 6:30-8:00 p.m., featuring a music collaboration with the NDSU Jazz Combo.

Dr. Daryl Davis is an international recording artist who has performed and toured all 50 States and around the world. He has performed extensively with Chuck Berry, The Legendary Blues Band (formerly The Muddy Waters Blues Band), Elvis Presley’s Jordanaires, and many others.

As an actor Daryl received rave reviews for his stage role in The Time Of Your Life, and has done film and television roles including HBO’s acclaimed series The Wire.

As a race relations expert Dr. Daryl Davis has received numerous awards and high acclaim for his book Klan-Destine Relationships and his award-winning film documentary Accidental Courtesy. He is the first Black author to write a book on the Ku Klux Klan based upon in-person interviews and personal encounters.

His ability to get racists to renounce their ideology has sent Daryl to travel all over the United States and the world to share his methodology.