Aaron Director, R.I.P.

Southern Appeal noticed this, but it got past us. One of the key figures in the Chicago School, dead at 102. Here’s the official word from the U of C. It contains this interesting fact:

When The Road to Serfdom by future Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek could not find a publisher in the U.S. because of its then-unfashionable classical liberal ideas, it was Director who interceded, persuading his friends at the University of Chicago and its Press to publish the book in a first run of 2,000 copies. It went on to sell 100 times that number.

To be honest, I assumed Prof. Director died a long time ago. Director didn’t publish all that much, as I recall, but he had a huge influence as a teacher and mentor. George Stigler wrote the article which articulated “Director’s Law of Public Income Redistribution”, which is that the middle class uses the government to extract benefits at the expense of the rich and the poor. The paper is not available on the Net. You have to buy it. I found it one of the most influential things I have ever read.

Rest in peace.