The famous epitaph that adorns Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral – Si monumentum requiris, circumspice (“if you seek his monument, look around you”) – applies equally well to Henry Manne, who passed away on January 17. Wren left a living memorial to his work in St. Paul’s and the many other churches he designed in the City of London. Manne’s living memorial consists in the law and economics institutions which he created and nurtured during a long and productive career.
Manne is justly deemed one of the three founders of the law and economics movement, along with Guido Calabresi and the late Ronald Coase. Manne’s original work on the theory of the firm and the efficiency justifications for insider trading was brilliant and provocative. Of greatest lasting significance, however, was his seminal role in creating and overseeing institutions designed to propagate law and economics throughout the legal profession – such as the Law and Economics Institutes for Professors, Judges and Economists, and the Center for Law and Economics at Emory University (later moved to George Mason University). Furthermore, with the expansion of law and economics programs to include foreign participants, law and economics insights are influencing litigation, transactions, and regulatory analysis in many countries. Manne’s initiative and entrepreneurial spirit were a critical catalyst in helping trigger this transformation.
The one institution that is perhaps most intimately associated with Manne and his philosophy – Manne’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, if you will – is George Mason Law School in Arlington, Virginia. When Manne became George Mason’s Dean in 1986, he arrived at a fledgling school of no particular distinction, which was overshadowed by major long-established Washington D.C. law schools. Manne immediately went about overhauling the faculty, bringing in scholars with a strong law and economics orientation, and reinstituting the Center for Law and Economics at Mason. Within a few years Mason Law became a magnet for first rate young law and economics scholars of a free market bent who found a uniquely collegial atmosphere at Mason. Mason retained its law and economics orientation under subsequent deans. Today its faculty is not only a source of pathbreaking scholarship, it is a fount of wisdom that provides innovative (and highly needed) advice to help inform and improve Washington D.C. policy debates. This would not have been possible without Henry Manne’s academic leadership and foresight. (Full disclosure – I have been an adjunct professor at George Mason Law School since 1991.)
Finally, I should mention that those of us who write for Truth on the Market (TOTM), not to mention countless other websites that share TOTM’s philosophical orientation, are indebted to Henry Manne for his seminal role in the law and economics movement. I am sure that I speak for many in offering my heartfelt condolences to Henry’s son, Geoffrey Manne, the driving force behind TOTM. Geoff, like the visitors to Christopher Wren’s masterwork, we look around us and delight in your father’s accomplishments.