The next Your Wealth public lecture at Northern Michigan University is titled “Capitalism and the Family.” It will focus on how markets improved families by liberating women and changing childhood for the better. Economist Steven Horwitz from St. Lawrence University will give the free presentation at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 26, in 1100 Jamrich hall.

Horowitz will provide a history of the family as a social institution that was profoundly changed with capitalism and classical liberalism. He argues that the wealth created by these systems was fundamental in transforming the family from an economic institution that wasn’t beneficial for women and children into the predominantly emotion/affection-based institution we have today. He will also include brief discussions of divorce and same-sex marriage.

Horwitz is a Charles A. Dana professor of economics and department chair at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.  He also serves as an affiliated senior scholar at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, as well as a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Your Wealth Lecture Series is a collaboration of NMU’s College of Arts and Sciences, Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship, Students for Liberty and Economics Student Association.