FreedomTrust High School Program
in Philosophy and Economics
The FreedomTrust high school program is designed to give honors-level high school students a taste of
college-level economics and philosophy. The program, designed for between 40 and 150 students, is
composed of four one-hour sections of lectures, economic experiments, and discussion.
The first lecture, The Knowledge Problem, explores the limits of human knowledge. The lecture begins
with Leonard Read’s classic essay “I, Pencil,” which illustrates that although no one person has the
knowledge to build even a single pencil from scratch, pencils are made and brought to the market every
day. How? What does the answer to that question tell us about other things humans build? This lecture
gets students thinking about centralized versus decentralized approaches to solving complex problems.
The second lecture takes a practical look at the knowledge problem through a series of experiments in
which students attempt to allocate a society’s resources in order to make themselves better off. Students
examine data collected from the experiments in light of the knowledge problem and property rights. The
students then examine government data to compare what they observed in the experiments to what
economists observe in the real world.
In the third lecture, students explore how rights provide guidance for limitations on both markets and
government. A strong reliance on markets does not mean that all markets are legitimate, nor does a strong
reliance on government mean that all government action is legitimate. The contours of this question are
addressed here, largely through the lens of rights as they are understood in the United States, both during
the time of the Founding and thereafter.
The final lecture applies what economists understand about human behavior to humans working in the
public and private sectors. The lecture presents a series of thought experiments and real world examples
intended to highlight the difference between outcomes that are attained when government and markets
work perfectly versus when they are run by real people with human failings and self-interest.
Each of these segments, including time for Q&A, is roughly one hour long. We conclude the program
with an open Q&A session.
By prior arrangement and for audiences of college-bound students, we can present an hour long
presentation/Q&A session on the value of college majors and what students can expect in and how they
can best prepare for college.
James R. Harrigan is CEO of FreedomTrust, Director of Academic
Programs at Strata, in Logan Utah, and is a Senior Fellow of the Institute of
Political Economy at Utah State University. Dr. Harrigan taught at the
collegiate level for a number of years, became Dean of the American
University of Iraq-Sulaimani, and later served as Director of Academic
Programs at the Institute for Humane Studies. He has written extensively
for the popular press, with articles appearing in the Wall Street Journal,
U.S. News and World Report, Forbes, Investor's Business Daily, Atlanta
Journal Constitution, and a host of other outlets. His current work focuses
on political economy, public policy, and political philosophy.
Antony Davies is Chief Academic Officer at FreedomTrust, and associate
professor of economics at Duquesne University. Dr. Davies has authored more
than 200 op-eds in, among others, the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times,
New York Daily News, and Philadelphia Inquirer. He has produced more than
200 educational videos on economics, public policy, and statistics, and is a
frequent lecturer at congressional policy conferences. In addition to teaching at
the undergraduate and graduate levels, Dr. Davies was Associate Producer at the
Moving Pictures Institute, Chief Financial Officer at Parabon Computation,
President and co-founder of Paragon Software, and co-founder and Chief
Analytics Officer at Repliqa, Inc.
For information and bookings please contact [email protected]