Koch Center for Leadership and Ethics at Emporia State University Koch Center for Leadership and Ethics

As American journalism shifts and contracts in response to economic and technological forces, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that there is still a lot of great journalism taking place. There's also a lot of not-so-great journalism. Let's look at the ethics behind the best and the worst and then explore whether we have enough journalism to keep democracy safe.

Popular discussions about income inequality often make politically appealing yet empirically weak claims. Those on the left emphasize the impact of deregulation, tax cuts, and globalization on inequality. Yet these policies have a weak empirical relationship with income inequality. Those on the right tend to dismiss concerns about inequality and refocus attention on income mobility. They also confuse genuine concern about the consequences of inequality with envy; they downplay the effect rising inequality has on social polarization. This lecture will explain where the left and right went wrong and offer an alternative explanation focused on the evolution of legal and political institutions.

Kansas and North Carolina have each garnered attention for their tax reforms earlier this decade. Kansas became the example of tax cuts gone wrong, with deficits and budget crises resulting in policy reversals. The lesson from North Carolina is the opposite: a strategy of tax reform and spending restraint that, coupled with strong and focused leadership, has resulted in economic growth and more money in the pockets of working North Carolinians. The state has reduced tax rates in four of the last six years while building its savings for a Rainy Day to $2 billion this summer. What are the institutional, policy, and economic factors that contributed to these divergent outcomes? What can Kansans learn from this successful model? Can North Carolina sustain its success? Joe Coletti will provide perspective.

Primitive socialism was a concept put forward by Marx and Engels who argued that the basal condition of humanity in foraging communities was that of a socialist utopia. The narrative of a long history of egalitarian, altruistic hunter-gatherers is incredibly attractive to aspirational socialists. Dr. Dozier argue that this portrayal of human prehistory is romanticized and unsupported by archaeological and anthropological evidence. The myth of primitive socialism, however, has continued past Marx and Engles, due to its simple and attractive narrative consistent with the Noble Savage myth.

Dr. Livingston speaks about what it means to be an honorable entrepreneur and how the practice of honorable entrepreneurship promotes freedom and fosters general human flourishing.

Pride and Profit: The Intersection of Jane Austen and Adam Smith explores the ways in which Austen’s novels reflect Smith’s ideas. More than this, the novels provide colorful illustrations of Smith’s ideas on self-command, prudence, benevolence, justice, impartiality as well as vanity, pride and greed. Jane Austen channels Adam Smith in her stories and characters, and more importantly, embellishes, refines and explains Smith. Our understanding of Smith is improved and expanded by reading Jane Austen because she brings his insights to life and adds insights of her own.