Chillin'Competition

(by Pablo Ibañez Colomo)

The post Alfonso published last Monday made me think. It was controversial, but also a goldmine of follow-on topics. Call me oversensitive, but I could not help thinking he was targeting law teachers when he regretted the fact that fresh young graduates tend to be very critical of the case law without having always reached conclusions on their own. After a bit of back and forth, I thought I would write a post on what I think makes a great teacher, thereby mirroring Alfonso’s own recent post on what makes a great lawyer.

I will start by quoting some giants in our field, pretty much like Alfonso did. The intellectual ant that I am likes to learn from them and always bears their lessons in mind. To make it balanced (and thus to please Alfonso’s desire for neutrality), I will choose a lawyer and an economist, the first from Harvard and the second from Chicago.

In the Harvard Law Review issue dedicated to the memory of Phillip Areeda, Justice Stephen Breyer explained that the greatest antitrust lawyer of all time ‘did far more than simply teach antitrust law. [His casebook] showed the specialists how to blend economics with law (“economics informs the law”, Phil said), as it teaches both subjects together in plain and simple English. It showed the profession how law and lawyers can benefit from a knowledge of other disciplines. It tied this recondite specialty back to general legal principle. And it placed dramatically before the students’ eyes a clear demonstration of the necessary connections between intelligent analysis, law, and the more striking beneficial effects for society that law, when practiced properly, can help us all achieve’.

The Journal of Political Economy, one of the top economic reviews, and edited at Chicago, dedicated an issue to the memory of George Stigler. Thomas Sowell offered a student’s view on the Nobel Prize winner (and another one of my all-time favourites). When discussing the way in which Stigler approached the teaching of the economic side of our discipline, Sowell explained that ‘[f]ew, if any, areas of economics have as much confusion, circular reasoning, definitional traps, and fervent nonsense as industrial organization. It was the perfect place for Stigler to conduct a Demolition Derby. Nor was he hesitant about the task. Theories like “monopolistic competition” and “countervailing power”, which were treated reverently at Harvard (where they originated), were eviscerated by Stigler’. According to Sowell, ‘[w]hat Stigler really taught, whether the course was industrial organization or the history of economic thought, was intellectual integrity, analytical rigor, respect for evidence – and skepticism toward the fashions and enthusiasms that come and go’.

What do we get from these quotes? I would say the following:

• A great teacher knows the stuff inside out: It is true that not all great researchers are good teachers. But without being at the top of the discipline, it is impossible to be a great teacher.
• A great teacher necessarily conveys a view of the world: Somebody who has thought long and hard about a particular discipline necessarily comes up with strong views about it. It is inevitable that this (non-neutral) view of the discipline is conveyed when teaching students. There is nothing wrong about it. I would even say that this is what ideal university teaching is all about. Students are interested not only in the substance, but in how somebody, detached from commercial interests and focused only on seeking the truth, sees the discipline.
• A great teacher takes students very seriously: Students need to be stretched and learn to think for themselves, and this is in no way in contradiction with the above. I fully agree with Alfonso when he suggests that a teacher who indoctrinates students is an absolute failure. The challenge for a teacher is to make students discover and understand for themselves the logic underlying the discipline, the crucial transversal issues that cut across topics.
• A great teacher does not take her/himself too seriously: The teaching of a particular discipline should be put in perspective. For many, if not the majority of students, a particular subject may never be useful in practice. Therefore, teaching should be oriented towards contributing to a well-rounded education. And those of us teaching competition law are immensely fortunate: when taught properly, it has an awful lot to offer to students, even if they go on to do something completely different.
• A great teacher shows respect for ideas, not for institutions or authority: I would say this should be (and has been) the central contribution of universities to society. Truth is to be sought without prejudices and without respect for rank or authority. Nonsense is nonsense irrespective of whether it comes from a first year undergraduate or from the highest of courts. Law students in particular should learn that there is nothing mystical or sacred about our legal institutions, even if they are populated by very intelligent and experienced women and men (‘only a brilliant mind can make a brilliant mistake’, Stigler liked to say of past economists).

And now I leave you. I have to teach in an hour.

[Pictured above are two evil Chicagoans (Friedman and Stigler) after a discussion with a colleague].