McMaster Symposium 2017

The Question of Individual Liberties as Critical to Improving the Human Condition
April 5 - 6, 2017

McMaster Symposium Program CoverThe 2017 McMaster Symposium committee invites presenters to contribute to the Defiance College community's development of a global perspective especially as it relates to complex issues that impact the human condition; exploration of the role individual liberties play in improving of the human condition; understanding of impact that disciplinary and professional scholarship has on the real world issues that face humanity.


Keynote Speaker

Dr. Terry Anderson
Unlocking the Wealth of Indian Nations

/mcmaster/mcmaster/symposium/index.pcf ImageSince Justice John Marshall declared tribes to be “domestic dependent nations” and described their relation to the United States as “that of a ward to his guardian” in 1831, Native Americans have been held hostage to institutions that lock them into poverty. In this lecture, Dr. Anderson will present a new paradigm for self-determination—the new indigenous economics. This way of thinking builds on Native Americans’ rich pre-European history of institutions that fostered sustainable societies. New indigenous economics breaks from more than a century of dependence on the federal government and promotes sovereignty based on well-defined tribal jurisdictions, the rule of law, and secure property rights.

Terry Anderson is the William A. Dunn Distinguished Senior Fellow and former President and Executive Director of PERC as well as the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He believes that market approaches can be both economically sound and environmentally sensitive. His research helped launch the idea of free market environmentalism and has prompted public debate over the proper role of government in managing natural resources. He is the co-chair of Hoover's Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force.

Anderson is the author or editor of thirty-seven books. Among these, Free Market Environmentalism, co-authored with Donald Leal, received the 1992 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award. A revised edition was published in 2001. 

Terry and Donald Leal’s book, Free Market Environmentalism for the Next Generation, was published in 2015. His other publications are Environmental Markets a Property Rights Approach (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and  Tapping Water Markets (RFF Press, 2012). Other books include Greener Than Thou: Are You Really an Environmentalist? (Hoover Institution Press, 2008) and Property Rights: A Practical Guide to Freedom and Prosperity (Hoover Institution Press, 2003), both co-authored with Laura Huggins. His book, with Peter J. Hill, The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier (Stanford University Press), was awarded the 2005 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award.

Anderson’s research, which has also focused on Native American economies, recently resulted in a co-edited volume, Self-Determination: The Other Path for Native Americans (Stanford University Press, 2006). He has published widely in the popular press and professional journals, including the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, Fly Fisherman, Journal of Law and Economics, and Economic Inquiry. During his career at Montana State University, Anderson received several outstanding teaching awards and is now professor emeritus of economics. He received his B.S. from the University of Montana and earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington. In March 2011, Anderson received the Liberalni Institute Annual Award in Prague, Czech Republic, for his "Contribution to the Proliferation of Liberal Thinking, and Making Ideas of Liberty, Private Property, Competition, and the Rule of Law Come True." Previous recipients include Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Vernon Smith.