Kingmaker-38 - Big IF! (True)

Sad to hear about the passing of Judge Richard Posner. When I was a law student at the University of Chicago, I started something called the Law and Economics Society. I looked it up, and it apparently still exists and is holding events, which is a legacy of mine I had forgotten about until this moment. After I started the organization, I thought the coolest thing we could possibly do was have our inaugural event with Judge Posner, an intellectual hero of mine who happened to be the most cited legal scholar of all time. To my pleasant surprise, he said yes, and we went out to lunch afterward. I remember two friends and me trying to pretend like LES was a real, established organization instead of something I had just made up. I was struck by how someone with such bold opinions was at the same time so soft-spoken. At one point, I asked Judge Posner if he would abolish Social Security and Medicare after phasing them out. He scoffed, "I would get rid of them today." As someone who liked discussing policy questions and was used to law professors hedging in sharing their views, especially when it came to unpopular opinions, this was refreshing. He was a true libertarian. Judge Posner's boldness inspired me and probably played some part in what I ended up doing after leaving academia. He was constantly demanding that we apply reason and intellectual rigor to every area of life. This is what economics at its best is known for. I couldn't believe the things he got away with saying, everything from the idea that judges shouldn't care what the original intent of the Constitution was to making the case for allowing the sale of children for adoption. The law and economics movement was, in essence, about the simple idea that legal scholars should take economic ideas seriously. This view became so dominant that even figures who served in Democratic administrations, like Cass Sunstein, would work on applying cost-benefit analysis to government regulations. Law and economics created room for those skeptical of left-wing political ideals centered around redistribution and equality to have a language through which they could contribute to academia and influence policy. This played no small role in changes like the deregulation of the airline industry, placing certain limits on environmentalist policy, and revolutionizing antitrust law, which have contributed to maintaining American dynamism. When you see comparisons of US and European GDP, know that the difference is no accident, and that we have free market intellectuals to thank for this divergence in outcomes. Judge Posner showed that if you were brilliant enough, you could get away with almost anything. He probably could've been a Supreme Court justice if he'd been slightly more diplomatic and restrained in his opinions, but he had too much interest in truth for that, regularly scandalizing both the right and left. I particularly enjoyed his intellectual feud with Scalia. In addition to both sides of the political spectrum increasingly ignoring economic truths, there's been a steep decline in intellectual courage among professors and public figures. I find it sad to consider that I don't think that academia could produce a figure like Judge Posner today. May his legacy serve as a reminder of what we've lost, and an inspiration to those who want to create a world where ideas and personal integrity matter more than they do now.