Hillsdale College Holds Seminar on U.S. Economic Policy From the Great Society to the Present
The seminar explored shifts in American economic policy over the past 60 years.
HILLSDALE, Mich. — Hillsdale College hosted its second Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar of the 2025-2026 academic year Nov. 2-5. The seminar, titled “U.S. Economic Policy: Great Society to the Present,” explored shifts in American economic policy over the past 60 years.
“This is the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of civilization over the last 40 years. No country has ever seen anything like this, and it just keeps going up and up and up.”
Steven F. Hayward, author of “The Real Jimmy Carter,” spoke on “The Carter Years: Deregulation, Stagflation, and Malaise.”
“Carter was this transitional figure,” Hayward said. “He was a transitional figure trying to bring the party back a little bit — the way Bill Clinton did — a little bit to the center. And the problem was the Democratic party was moving very fast to the left, and they didn’t like it. And so he was bound to fail.”
Stephen Moore of Unleash Prosperity spoke on “Reaganomics.”
“The Dow is at 800 in 1982. Here we are in 2025, we have Dow 47,000,” Moore said. “I would say that Reagan really was the one who launched the economy. This is the greatest period of wealth creation in the history of civilization over the last 40 years. No country has ever seen anything like this, and it just keeps going up and up and up.”
James Rickards, editor of Strategic Intelligence spoke on “MAGA Economics.”
“It’s not uncertain. It’s not chaotic. The Trump economic program is actually very well thought out. You can think of it as two or three gears, say three gears in a machine. They’re well meshed, well oiled. They’re functioning. They complement each other. And there’s a reason for this, which is the Trump team knew in 2020 that they were going to win in 2024 because of the election fraud,” Rickards said. “They had four years to work on these programs.”
Amity Shlaes, author of “Great Society: A New History,” spoke on “The Goals and Failures of the Great Society;” Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation spoke on “Clinton, the Bushes, and the Rise of Globalism;” and Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago spoke on “The Economics of Obamacare.”
For photos from the CCA seminar, click here. For video recordings of the lectures, click here. For photos of Hillsdale College, click here. For a high-resolution copy of the Hillsdale College clocktower logo, click here.