He educated himself out of poverty, served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War, and converted from radical Marxism to become a free market apologist. Milton Friedman even mentored him.
Thomas Sowell, the well-known economist, deserves to be Hillsdale College’s next graduation speaker. As a prominent and decorated conservative writer, he would fit flawlessly into a long line of notable speakers.
Sowell meets the most significant criteria for a Hillsdale College commencement speaker: he holds conservative political values and respects the education to which class of 2014 has devoted so much time.
Sowell has written over forty well-known books, including “A Conflict of Visions” and his current best-seller “Basic Economics.” Although his high-quality books prove his knowledge of subjects from economics to race, his writings for leading publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Forbes have truly distinguished him as a prominent intellectual.
Sowell has a remarkable ability to synthesize his knowledge of economics into a straightforward, cohesive argument. Sowell could speak to the relationship between current events and public policy, especially concerning the U.S. economic crisis, Sowell has taught at many prestigious schools, including Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, and UCLA, and he is currently a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Hillsdale College would receive his focus on economics well.
But economics is simply Sowell’s area of concentration. He also writes about effects of social policy on ethnic groups, education, decision-making, Marxist thought, and race. This diverse background positions Sowell perfectly as Hillsdale’s commencement speaker.
Thomas Sowell’s fiery passion for economic reform, moreover, is more notable than his achievements and causes him to stand out amongst many other options. Sowell will most likely be remembered the most for his commentary on President Obama. In a 2010 editorial for Investor’s Business Daily titled “Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?”, Thomas Sowell compared Obama to tyrants such as Hitler and Lenin.
This article garnered much attention, particularly for its passionate advocacy for limited government: “If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in constitutional government. And, without constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a ‘crisis’ — which, as the president’s chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to ‘go to waste’ as an opportunity to expand the government’s power.” The audience will absorb and love this passion for a just government in Sowell’s speech.
Thomas Sowell should be Hillsdale College’s next graduation speaker because of his academic prowess in the field of economics and his many accomplishments for the conservative intellectual movement. The width and breadth of Sowell’s knowledge would most certainly mean an outstanding, memorable speech that students would remember for years to come.