RealClear American Civics: “Teaching the Moral Foundations of Capitalism, One Student at a Time”
By Mike Sabo
In recent months, Mike Sabo at RealClear Public Affairs has been highlighting civic institutions that are working to instill a solid understanding of American civics among students and teachers, including the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University. The Civic Institutions Series features several programs that have partnered in some way with the Jack Miller Center in these pursuits – at the Clemson Institute, JMC supports the Lyceum Scholars Program.
Professor C. Bradley Thompson of Clemson University works each day to rebut the still-popular teachings of Karl Marx. “America’s cultural elite harbors an anti-capitalist bias” due to Marx’s rhetorical success, Thompson says, but capitalism remains the most just economic system ever devised by man.
Thompson founded the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism to teach undergraduate students the moral and political foundations of capitalism, its importance in maintaining a free society, and how it has improved the lives of billions of people around the globe. CISC offers 40 student scholarships, over 30 classes taught by affiliated professors, and 12 lectures and conferences annually…
The keystone of CISC is its Lyceum Scholars Program, a highly competitive scholarship program open to Clemson freshmen and aimed at cultivating “a new generation of citizen leaders and public intellectuals who will promote the virtues of a free society.” Named after the Lyceum school that Aristotle founded in ancient Athens, the program provides its scholars with a Great Books education that explores the relationship between capitalism, liberty, the American Founding, and moral character…
Click here to read the entire piece at RealClear >>
Mike Sabo is the Editor at Real Clear Public Affairs’s American Civics portal. He is a graduate of the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College.
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