Two Years In Memoriam: Steve Horwitz

People matter, first and foremost

I don’t know what’s left on the clock, but whatever’s left on the clock, all of the things that have happened in my life… No, I won’t say all of them, but many of them, most of them, have been awesome and have been great and I’ve been able to do things that humans just haven’t been able to do before, and so let’s look at it that way. I’d like more. I would love to live to 90 or 100 or whatever it might be, but if not, okay. - SH

It’s been two years this week since my friend, mentor and one-time co-author Steve Horwitz passed away. I’ve thought about him a lot over these past two years and the number of times I’ve thought “I should ask Steve…” only to realize I can’t, in fact, ask him anything, are too many to count. Because he died as we were finishing a piece on maternity care regulations (you can read it here), I spent the next year (more or less) thinking about him at least a few times every day, as I worked on op-eds and attended midwifery Hill days and just generally wished he were here and not, in fact, gone.

That he left us far too young and after a long and public battle with cancer that we were somehow all mesmerized by his optimism into thinking he couldn’t possibly lose hurts deeply, but it also reminds us why he was such a great guy in the first place. He lived his life with a joy and an optimism and a deep gratitude that was so integrally a part of him that he probably couldn’t have been anything else. But he also knew and made clear to others, that being grateful and being joyful is a choice. As is caring about the people around you and tuning into what matters the most. And that’s ultimately what I’ll remember him for more than anything else. He was a great economist and a great teacher and a great communicator, but even more than all that he was also the model of a good human being.

But let’s move on, because I’m getting weepy.

Ahem. At any rate, I was re-reading some of his posts from Bleeding Heart Libertarians and realized again how many radically moderate lessons Steve lived in his own life. I don’t think he would have considered himself a moderate on most counts, but I do think he would recognize the overlap with my own definition of radical moderation.

And whatever he would think of the title he’s stuck with it for the purposes of this blog post, so are just a few of the radically moderate lessons we can learn from reading and knowing Steve.

Radically Moderate Life Lessons from Steve:

1. If you care more about your ideology than other people, you’re doing it wrong.

2. If you care more about scoring points off other than people than debating ideas, you’re doing it wrong.

3. If your ideological commitments are preventing real reform that can help real people, you’re also doing it wrong.

4. If you’re reading this blog and not profoundly grateful to be alive in 2023 rather than almost any other time, you’re probably doing it wrong too.

5. Some things matter more than others, and the thing that matters most of all is people.

Louder for Everyone in the Back

There’s a theme here, in case you’ve missed it. Steve cared deeply about ideas and even more so about people. It’s people that make the ideas matter and he cared so much about other people as a teacher, as a mentor, as an economist, and as a father, husband, and friend.

He was uncompromising in his principles, but he was also compassionate about people’s mistakes. He had very little patience with people whose fears of the unknown or whose innate conservatism prevented markets and technology from unleashing all the benefits that he knew were coming. He was profoundly optimistic about the power of markets, including the power of innovation to - eventually - win against the disease that ultimately took his life. His optimism wasn’t misplaced, I don’t think. We just weren’t quite there yet. Which still hurts.

I emailed him shortly after his diagnosis to let him know how much his mentorship had meant to me and many other younger academics. He responded that mentoring and keeping an entrepreneurial eye out for opportunities for younger academics meant a lot to him, partly because his long tenure at the small liberal arts college St. Lawrence University meant that he didn’t have the legacy of graduate students that many others from his cohort did. Helping young academics and scholars and thinkers make their way in the world was his contribution to a better future. His care and attention created a strong network of thinkers who also care deeply both about ideas and about other people. That’s a powerful legacy in and of itself and one I take seriously as I think about my own career.

“Life is Awesome”

Since this is getting long and rambly and a more than a bit weepy, I’ll close out this post with a great quote from a podcast interview that Steve did a couple years after his diagnosis. It’s worth listening to the podcast in full, but this is my favorite snippet (FYI I’ve lightly edited the transcript for readability):

"...part of that 'life is awesome' stuff is gratitude. And even before I was sick, approaching the world with a attitude of gratitude, as the kids say, I always thought was a good thing, recognizing how lucky you are to live when you live, recognizing all the great things that I’ve been able to do in my personal life, my career, all these good kind of things and seeing that gratitude in the bigger picture. I had a conversation a month or two ago with my good friend Don Boudreaux about this, and Don shares this sort of view of the world. And as Don pointed out to me, he said, “You know, if you’d been born 100 years ago, you might not have made it this far, right? Or might not have made it past one.” And your life as you know, however many years you end up… I’m 55 right now. However long I end up living, you’ve got years of quality that human beings in the past have never been able to have and do things that humans haven’t been able to do, and there’s something maybe stoic about that. There’s something… It’s… I think maybe sometimes people might hear that as a kind of weird rationalization, but it’s genuine.

It’s like, “Okay, I don’t know what’s left on the clock,” but whatever’s left on the clock, all of the things that have happened in my life… No, I won’t say all of them, but many of them, most of them, have been awesome and have been great and I’ve been able to do things that humans just haven’t been able to do before, and so let’s look at it that way. I’d like more. I would love to live to 90 or 100 or whatever it might be, but if not, okay."

If you have a wonderful memory of Steve or just like something he wrote, please share it in the comments: