Some Thoughts from Warren Samuels

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Warren Samuels was a co-founder of the Institutional Law and Economics School of Thought from the Economics Department of Michigan State University. Occasionally, we will explore some key quotes or thoughts from Samuels across his long career to see how this school of thought formed and evolved over time.

Writing in the Journal of Law and Economics in 1971, Samuels articulated that, "legal impact upon the private economic sphere and the economic use of government have not been the exception; rather then have been the regular and fundamental, perhaps daily pattern.  Both the market mechanism and the legal system, as well as the system of moral rules, are modes of social control and social change." Here we say that the analyst must consider how the two or three spheres of influence, economic, government and moral, are all part of the nature of social control.  Each sphere has its characteristics and ways of working and none of them should be privileged above the other.  This article:

Samuels, Warren J. “Interrelations between Legal and Economic Processes.” The Journal of Law & Economics, vol. 14, no. 2, 1971, pp. 435–450. 

 is really important to understanding Warrens way of thinking and his co-founder Al Schmid as well.  This article become the start of a famous debate between Samuels and James Buchanan in the journal over this way of think and ultimately involved others as well. In particular, we need to consider ethos the economy impacts law and how the law impacts the economy.  The analyst will have to consider which perspective to take in different situations.  More details to come on this article and many others.

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