Aaron Director
| Aaron Director | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 21, 1901 Staryi Chortoryisk, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | September 11, 2004 (aged 102) Los Altos Hills, California, U.S. |
| Institution | Portland Labor College University of Chicago Law School Hoover Institution |
| Field | Law and Economics |
| School or tradition |
Chicago school of economics |
| Alma mater |
Lincoln High School Yale University |
| Influences | Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase |
Aaron Director (September 21, 1901 – September 11, 2004), a celebrated professor at the University of Chicago Law School, played a central role in the development of the Chicago school of economics. Together with his better known brother-in-law, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, Director influenced a generation of jurists, including Robert Bork, Richard Posner, Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Director was born in Staryi Chortoryisk, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) on September 21, 1901. In 1913, he and his family immigrated to the United States, and settled in Portland, Oregon. In Portland, Director attended Lincoln High School where he served as the yearbook editor. He then moved east to attend Yale University in Connecticut, where his friend, artist Mark Rothko also attended. He graduated in 1924 after three years of study. In 1926, he returned to Portland where he was hired to run and teach at the Portland Labor College. As a radical, his invitations to Communists and Wobblies created friction with the AFL craft unions which sponsored the College. After two years, he left for Chicago, where his radicalism was exchanged for a lifelong conservative ideology. His sister, the economist Rose Director Friedman (1911–2009), married Milton Friedman (1912–2006) in 1938. During World War II, he held positions in the War Department and the Department of Commerce.
Political theorist and economist Friedrich Hayek, who was in another department at Chicago and was not in the "Chicago School," was close to Director. They met in England and Director convinced the University of Chicago Press to publish Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Hayek actively promoted Director in helping to fund and establish the Law and Society program in the Law School. Hayek convinced the Volker Fund, a foundation in Kansas City, to provide the funding.
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