Economist Lawrence Reed to Deliver ‘Character’ Message to Students at VALS
Lawrence Reed has spent his life as an economist, but he doesn’t look to the Dow or to fiscal policies to fix America. Ultimately, only character will cure the country. “If we allow character to erode, we will not be the type of people who will thrive in a free society,” Reed says. “If character slips, it means you’ve lost integrity, self discipline, humility, patience and a respect for the lives and property of others.”
Character, liberty and a free society − that’s the message Reed will deliver to students and business leaders at CCU’s 7th annual Values-Aligned Leadership Summit (VALS) on Wednesday, April 22.
Reed is head of the Foundation for Economic Education, and the author of Great Myths of the Great Depression. He is one of five speakers, all known for their contributions to business and free enterprise, who will address an audience of Colorado business leaders acting as mentors that day to hundreds of CCU undergrads and MBA students. The all-day symposium will be held at the Westin Tabor Center downtown. (For a schedule of speakers and details on how to attend, please visit the VALS Web site).
The speakers will stress the importance of free enterprise in preserving liberty. An equally important message is that countless American businesses are being run with integrity and character, contrary to the negative messages coming out of Washington.
Other speakers include: Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, Inc., a company which practices an ethics-first business model; Robert Woodson, founder of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, which uses free-enterprise solutions to tackle poverty problems; Joseph “Bud” Ahearn, a retired senior executive with CH2M HILL, the employee-owned company which Fortune ranked among “the 100 best companies to work for.”
The opening address will be delivered by CCU president Bill Armstrong, who served as U.S. senator from Colorado (1979 to 1991) and is a former executive in the real estate and financial services industries.
The students will be paired at tables with Colorado business men and women to exchange ideas and absorb lessons from one of the worst economic meltdowns in U.S. history. Reed will tell the audience that the answer to this economic crisis isn’t slathering on crushing taxpayer debt and more government entanglements.
“At the moment, America is in a crisis of character that’s showing up not just in crime rates but also in very shortsighted government policies,” he says. Instead of standing aside to let people solve their own problems, the current Washington strategy is to convince Americans to be more dependent – “vote themselves a living and let the government provide.”
Reed wants the VALS audience to understand that when people give up self reliance and personal integrity, liberty itself is at stake. “You may have heard the saying – ‘If you will not govern yourself, you will be governed.’ You can’t expect government to be any more moral than the people it represents,” Reed says. “Right now, we’re wasting on a grand scale and eating away at people’s liberties – we’re going to be in hock up to our eyeballs and they’ll be telling us how to run our lives.” It’s a dark picture, but Reed says he will also deliver a message of hope. “I do think Americans are waking up. People are raising the alarm about excessive government spending and debt and the collapse of personal character. I realize these are dark times, but that shouldn’t discourage us or make us retreat from battle.”
It’s a battle that Reed, 55, joined when he was unusually young. Although he grew up as a baby boomer during the tumultuous, left-wing clamor of the 1960s, his lifelong ideas about freedom took root in a deceptively simple movie classic, The Sound of Music.
As a kid growing up in the cozy safety of western Pennsylvania, what grabbed Reed wasn’t the music so much as the movie’s disturbing sub-theme. The main characters, the Von Trapp family, had to flee for their lives when the Nazis came to power. That got him thinking about personal liberty for the first time: “It struck me that this perfectly fine family wanted to be left alone and this rotten regime came in and wanted to take over.” So Reed became a ’60s countercultural protester, joining the Young Americans for Freedom and subscribing to magazines that furthered the causes of liberty and the idea that free markets and free minds are inextricably linked. Ironically, one of his first subscriptions as a kid was to The Freeman. The magazine is published by the foundation which Reed now heads.
As he addresses audiences across the country, he’s hopeful that many young people are beginning to understand what liberty requires to keep it alive. He likes to use a simple example to show people the consequences of character – and its lack – on a society. First, he asks students whether they’ve bought iPods and other expensive electronics. When they answer yes, he asks if they had a tough time getting the package open – and he gets knowing chuckles. The reason they have to fight to open a simple thing like a sealed package is that the manufacturers have had to make them virtually impregnable to deter thieves. “That’s called a “character premium,’” he tells his audiences. “If this was an honest society, manufacturers wouldn’t have to do that.” The message is getting through.
“There’s a growing concern among young people about what they will inherit in the not too distant future,” Reed says. “And when I throw in references to the collapse of character, I’m getting more nods.”
By: Jean Torkelson
