The Murray Sabrin Farewell Address

Murray Sabrin

Professor Murray Sabrin will retire in 2020 from his teaching position at Ramapo College of New Jersey. On October 30th, he delivered The 14th Annual Raciti Memorial Lecture: "AMERICA: The Next Seventy Years."

During the "Farewell Address," he talked about his 70 years in America and what he sees for the next 70 years for the United States.

The Sabrin Center for Free Enterprise notes:

On August 6, 1949 Murray Sabrin (Moses Schabrinski) arrived in America with his parents, who were the only members of their respective families to survive the Holocaust, and his older brother after a five-day voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Professor Sabrin’s parents had no more than $150 with them. They were met at a west side Manhattan pier by his mother’s aunt and uncle from Paterson, New Jersey, who thought he was a two-year-old girl because of his long, blond hair.

Murray Sabrin arrives in America

 The Sabrins settled in lower Manhattan and lived in a three-room railroad apartment sharing a hallway bathroom with neighbors; the kitchen had a bathtub below the porcelain counter. The rent was $26 per month. Soon after Professor Sabrin’s younger brother Max was born the family moved (August 1953) to a two-bedroom Bronx apartment (eventually moving downstairs to a three-bedroom apartment) where he lived until he married Florence in 1968. And in 1959, 60 years ago this past June, Murray raised his right hand at the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan and swore to support the U.S. Constitution, when he became a naturalized citizen.

America has changed dramatically since that hot August day seven decades ago. The good news–the standard of living has increased substantially for youngsters of the baby boom generation who became of age in the 1950s and 60’s. The bad news—the welfare-warfare state, which Professor Sabrin has been criticizing for more than four decades–is undermining our prosperity, and has been violating our fundamental American values of no entangling alliances and peaceful commerce with the rest of the world.

The events of the past seven decades (the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, the Kennedy Assassination, the Great Society programs, the Middle East Wars and the Boom-Bust Cycles)—and his family’s history–have shaped Professor Sabrin’s view of business, the economy, social issues and global affairs.

As this year’s Raciti Memorial Lecturer, his farewell address, Professor Sabrin gave his forecasts about the future of business, higher education, medical care and other major issues for the next seventy years.

Professor Sabrin's most recent book is Why the Federal Reserve Sucks.

He is currently working on a book on healthcare.

His speech in its entirety can be seen here (Note: There is only audio for the first 3 minutes then audio and video begins).

-RW