The prestigious political theorist Jeffrey Friedman gave up the ghost unexpectedly on December 2, on the far-too-early age of 63. Jeff was once best-known for his paintings on democracy, political wisdom, and libertarianism, and for his position because the editor of Crucial Overview, the extremely a success interdisciplinary educational magazine he based in 1987, and edited from then till his loss of life. Jeff additionally taught at a number of universities across the nation, together with Barnard, Boston College, Dartmouth, the College of Texas, and Harvard (the place, on the time of his passing, he was once a visiting student on the Committee on Social Research).
The most efficient creation to Jeff’s multifaceted and complicated paintings is his underrated 2019 ebook Energy With out Wisdom: A Critique of Technocracy (Oxford College Press). He additionally authored or edited essential books on the 2008 monetary disaster and rational selection concept (of which he was once a forceful critic).
Whilst Jeff was once in most cases thought to be a libertarian, or no less than libertarian-adjacent, he in large part rejected typical libertarian political concept. He was once similarly skeptical of same old approaches to democratic concept. Like libertarian (and a few non-libertarian) critics of contemporary democratic executive, Jeff argued that in style voter lack of expertise was once a significant risk. However, not like them, he claimed that almost all such lack of expertise was once inadvertent “radical” lack of expertise, fairly in my opinion rational habits (as believed by means of maximum economists and different social scientists). He additionally argued that equivalent radical lack of expertise bothered knowledgeable decision-making on public coverage, and traditional social medical research. He thus concluded that markets in most cases produce higher effects than executive, no longer on account of awesome incentives, however as a result of they provide higher alternatives for trial-and-error studying.
The above is a extremely oversimplified abstract that does not truly do justice to Jeff’s extremely refined and nuanced writings. Few different students of our time may equivalent Jeff’s intensity and breadth of data of an infinite vary of problems reducing throughout disciplinary limitations. In case you truly wish to perceive his paintings, there is not any change for studying it!
Whilst Jeff and I wrote on one of the similar problems, and regularly reached equivalent fairly libertarian conclusions, we differed on many issues. In contrast to Jeff, I imagine that almost all political lack of expertise is in reality rational, and I believe social science regularly generates extra tough insights than he gave it credit score for. For a abstract of our variations about democracy and public lack of expertise, see this 2013 symposium about my ebook Democracy and Political Lack of understanding, a piece that unquestionably benefited from Jeff’s affect, even supposing it makes many issues he strongly disagreed with.
In spite of our variations—a few of them on problems the place he had very sturdy perspectives—Jeff was once a useful pal and mentor to me, over a few years. The similar was once true of a lot of different more youthful students. Long ago in 1998, when I used to be a tender graduate pupil, I printed my first actual article on political lack of expertise in Crucial Overview—at Jeff’s advice. It stays one among my 4 or 5 maximum cited works to at the moment—a standing it wouldn’t have accomplished with out Jeff’s precious tips and his criticisms of my many rookie errors.
Lately, we had fairly little touch, as my time was once taken up by means of different private {and professional} commitments. That overlook is no less than partially my fault, and unquestionably is my loss. It didn’t happen to me that so full of life an individual as Jeff may go away us so quickly.
In what’s now a long educational occupation spanning a couple of universities, international locations, and continents, I’ve hardly, if ever, met any individual who epitomized what it approach to be a gentleman and a student greater than Jeffrey Friedman. His passing is a horrible loss. I prolong my condolences to his circle of relatives, buddies, and co-workers.