Warren Samuels (1933-2011)

|Peter Boettke|

I heard the sad news yesterday that Warren Samuels, the great champion of the history of economic thought, and of modern institutionalist political economy, and law and economics, had passed away at his home.  Warren was not only a great scholar and mentor to those who pursued a scholarly approach, as opposed to the more fashionable scientistic approach, to the study of political economy, he was a genuinely kind and great man.  He was completely devoid of the typical academic "puffery", and instead was just an intellectually curious and engaging man.  When you spoke, he listened to you before challenging you, when he spoke, you realized that every word he uttered had years of study and thought behind it.

I first met Warren when I was just starting graduate school at GMU.  I wrote a paper the summer before dealing with Galbraith and Hayek on the "dependence effect".  At GCC, Sennholz had us read Marx, Keynes and Galbraith in the original, so when I started graduate school in 1984 I didn't really know about contemporary economists such as Stiglitz (and imperfect information) or Lucas (and New Classical Economics), but I did know about Galbraith.  In fact, I owned every book of Galbraith's and had read them all at that time.  So when I started thinking about writing professionally (a task that Don Lavoie encouraged), I could read the Journal of Economic Issues, but not really the American Economic Review or Journal of Political Economy.  So I read JEI -- Warren was editor from 1971-1981.  I read J. R. Stanfield's reassessment of The Affluent Society, where he has a sort of caricature of Hayek.  I wrote originally a short comment, which then evolved into a more developed paper.  Lavoie read it, and suggested I write to Warren Samuels, who had recently written a similar paper on the commonalities and differences between the Austrians and the Institutionalists.  This started a correspondence and friendship.  That friendship grew deeper after we met at the History of Economic Society Meetings, and then when I took my first teaching job in Michigan at Oakland University, about an hour from Michigan State University, where I would make the weekly drive up to participate in Warren's seminar in history of thought and methodology.

Warren eventually published a version of that paper in his new editing venture, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 6 (1989) along with his paper and invited comments from leading scholars in history of thought, institutionalism, and Austrianism.

It was always a highlight for me to see Warren either at the HES meetings, or the Duke HOPE meetings, or when he agreed to come and present a paper either at Oakland, NYU, and GMU.  I always enjoyed his letters and then emails asking me about my understanding of the Coase theorem, the invisible hand, the cost/benefits of schools of thought, etc.  And, I especially enjoyed seeing him encouraging and mentoring young people interested in scholarship in political economy.  When I think of HES, I think of Warren and his encouragement of young scholars entering the field.

Prior to meeting Warren, I think it would be accurate to say that I divided the world neatly into those who are (a) stupid, (b) evil, and (c) those who obviously are smart and good who agree with me.  I disagreed with many people both in college and outside of the academic setting.  But I thought the root cause of the disagreement was in 90% of the cases was a consequence of them being misinformed because of their lack of exposure to the ideas of Mises and Rothbard.  Once they would have read Mises and Rothbard, their world view would change appropriately.  Unless, of course, they were in the 10% of people who are evil.  Warren destroyed that simple intellectual picture of the world.  Here was a man who was as sharp as anyone I have ever met, who had read more and in fact forgotten more than I would ever read, and who was genuinely interested in the truth with no hidden agenda, and yet his disagreed; he questioned; he probed; he thought about the choice of words; he simply expressed the joy in figuring things out.  In the process, Warren didn't overturn my intellectual commitments to the Austrian school and the Virginia Political Economy tradition in which I was being educated, but he made more self-critical and less self-satisfied, and hopefully a better scholar, teacher, and a more sophisticated representative of the Austrian school and Virginia Political Economy.  

I think he did this to everyone who was close to him, I think especially of John Davis, Steve Medema, Jeff Biddle, and Ross Emmett.  Whatever your perspective, Warren's probing mind made you more self-reflective and ultimately a better scholar, a better economist, a better teacher, than you otherwise would have been.

Besides his role as a mentor to generations of scholars in political economy, Warren was also just an amazing scholar and economic thinker.  He set a standard for professional work ethic that I think is rivaled only by his debate partner in political economy --- James M. Buchanan.  Everyone should just look at his CV and see what it takes to build a professional career as a scholar.  He spent his career as an engaged editor of scholarly journals, of book series that kept the classic works in print, as well as encouraging contemporary work, and he was an author of journal articles as well as books.  He just worked day in and day out as a scholar of political economy.  His natural curiosity took him from Wisconsin style institutionalism, to Classical economics, to Chicago economics, to public choice, to Austrian economics, to Coasean law and economics, etc.  The overarching theme of his work is the role of government in political economy, and he kept thinking seriously about that question throughout his career.

His forthcoming book, Erasing the Invisible Hand (Cambridge, 2011) is described by the publisher as follows:

This book examines the use, principally in economics, of the concept of the invisible hand, centering on Adam Smith. It interprets the concept as ideology, knowledge and a linguistic phenomenon. It shows how the principal Chicago School interpretation misperceives and distorts what Smith believed on the economic role of government. The essays further show how Smith was silent as to his intended meaning, using the term to set minds at rest; how the claim that the invisible hand is the foundational concept of economics is repudiated by numerous leading economic theorists; that several dozen identities given the invisible hand renders the term ambiguous and inconclusive; that no such thing as an invisible hand exists; and that calling something an invisible hand adds nothing to knowledge. Finally, the essays show that the leading doctrines purporting to claim an invisible hand for the case for capitalism cannot invoke the term but that other non-normative invisible hand processes are still useful tools.

I cannot wait to read the book and hear Warren's voice challenge me once again, while also inviting me to join him in this inquiry; to listen and learn, but also to push back and probe deeper into our interpretative differences.

Warren Samuels was a scholar's scholar, and a teacher's teacher.  He was also a great friend.  I will miss him dearly.  As with my thesis advisor, Don Lavoie (who tragically died way too early), Warren's voice will always ring in my ear to check myself, and spur me on to do better than I otherwise would as a scholar, teacher and mentor.

Warren was a role model for all of us working in the field of political economy.  I want to thank him for his work and his example, and to celebrate and honor him today and everyday.

 

Comments

[Roger Koppl]

Warren was kind and helpful to me in my early career. He engaged me in a long correspondence and a few phone calls on an article that eventually became “Invisible-Hand Explanations and Neoclassical Economics: Toward a Post Marginalist Economics.” He challenged me, certainly, but never by simply contradicting my basic perspective or disparaging the invisible hand. I don’t think I could have gotten the argument into a presentable shape without him, certainly not at that time. Later, he and I were on a panel Pete organized to celebrate the memory of Ludwig Lachmann. It was a stimulating panel and his comments were brilliant. Shortly afterward, he approached me and Gary Mongiovi to edit a memorial volume on Lachmann, which we published with Routledge under the title “Subjectivism and Economic Analysis: Essays in Memory of Ludwig Lachmann.” Amazingly, it still sells enough to generate royalty checks. Warren Samuels was a true scholar. He believed in the community of inquiry, and he was right. May he rest in peace.

[Peter Boettke]

Ross Emmett has a fitting tribute to Warren from the SHOE list here: http://pl842.pairlitesite.com/2011/08/18/rip-warren-j-samuels-1933-2011/

And by Eric Schliesser here: http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/08/rip-warren-j-samuels-1933-2011.html

Please post others as you come upon them.

[Barkley Rosser]

Warren was one of those of whom it can be said without any qualification that he was a gentleman and a scholar. My only regret is that I failed to complete on time an assignment that he had given me that still sits on my desk...:-(.

[Mario Rizzo]

I never really knew him but I know of his influence on many people. It is a bad thing that despite all of his scholarship, I doubt that many graduate students have ever heard of him.

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Warren eventually published a version of that paper in his new editing venture, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 6 (1989) along with his paper and invited comments from leading scholars in history of thought, institutionalism, and Austrianism.

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R.I.P. Warren Samuels was a powerful thinker and influence in the economics literature. I hope that students continue to read him in the many years to come.

[Peter Boettke]

Also see ... http://ineteconomics.org/blog/playground/warren-samuels-1933-2011

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