U of Chicago's Intellectual Divide

While browsing the Internet this morning during my Ethics class - as I can usually be found doing (sorry Gillers, but I get it already, ... a conflict is a conflict ... get informed consent) - I came across an article in Forbes penned by my old Contracts professor Richard Epstein.  He was a visiting professor from Chicago last year, and I think he stayed on for this year too.  As you may already know, potential president Obama was a professor at UC Law; which made him acquaintances with Tricky Dick.

Epstein broke with the normal Hyde Park ideology and expressed his concerns about Obama's possible election to the White House.  His general unease with an Obama presidency stemmed from Obama's lack of forthrightness with his possible future plans.  Forbes reports:

"I know him through our association at the University of Chicago Law School and through mutual friends in the neighborhood.  We have had one or two serious substantive discussions, and when I sent him e-mails from time to time in the early days of his Senate term, he always answered in a sensible and thoughtful fashion. And yet, for assessing the course of his likely presidency, I don't know him at all ...

The dominant trope is that he will be a pragmatic president who will move in small increments toward the center, not in bold steps toward the left.

But is it all true? The short answer is that nobody knows. Virtually everyone who knows him recognizes that he plays his cards close to the vest, so that you can make your case to him without knowing whether it has registered. At this point, my fear is that the change in office will not lead to a change in his liberal voting record, as reinforced by a hyperactive Democratic platform. My great fear is that a landslide victory will give him solid majorities in both Houses of Congress, so that no stalling tactics by Republicans can slow down his legislative victory procession. At that point his innate pragmatism will line up with his strong left-of-center beliefs on issues that have thus far been muted during the campaign.

... at heart he is an unreconstructed New Dealer who can see, and articulate, both sides on every question - but only as a prelude to championing the old corporatist agenda with a vengeance."

I'm not really sure what he is talking about with the "corporatist agenda" ... but whatever.

Epstein is my hero for several reasons. First, he is the only avowedly libertarian professor I have had since my tenure at NYU Law. My general benevolence to his ideas are a sharp contrast to the basic hostility I level at all the other liberal professors who try to convince me that ends justify means at this school. Second, the man is more genuine than a turkey leg at a renaissance festival. He stood up in front of an NYU Law class and graphed on the board how the value of women decreases over time, while the value of men increases over time, in an attempt to explain the economic justifications of prenuptial agreements. The look on the students' faces was worth the $100,000 plus I've spent on this "education."  He just doesn't care what people think of him or his ideas.

This lack of care has led to a bit of embarrassment however - as in the three times he lectured our two hour class with his fly wide open. Genuineness comes with the sting of a few snickers I suppose.