“Rather than being a luxury that only rich countries can afford, individual rights are essential to obtaining the bounteous harvests that property-intensive and contract-intensive production can yield.”
— Mancur Olson, Power and Prosperity
Mancur Olson (1932-1998), the founder of the IRIS Center, was one
of the most influential political economists of the late twentieth
century. Mancur (pronounced MAN-SOOR) received his
master’s degree in Economics at Oxford University, where he was a
Rhodes Scholar. He went on to get his Doctorate from Harvard in 1963.
Mancur’s two best-known works, The Logic of Collective Action and The Rise and Decline of Nations, are seminal works in economics and political science. Each has been translated into ten languages.
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The Logic of Collective Action — examines the problem that broad-based groups, even when united by a common interest, are confronted by certain built-in difficulties as they try to accomplish desired ends. “The larger the group,” Mancur concluded, “the less it will further its common interests.”
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The Rise and Decline of Nations — analyzes the problem created for the economy as a whole, when successful (narrow) interest groups impose accumulating rigidities which distort resource allocation and slow economic growth.
The political dimension of Mancur’s thought emerged clearly in writings that contrasted the fiscal tendencies of democracies and autocracies, and emphasized the importance to economic development of secure individual rights (e.g., to property and enforceable contracts).
Mancur’s last book — Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships — was published posthumously. In it, he identifies the institutional structures that underpin a functioning market economy, and demonstrates that the accountability and effectiveness of such institutions can best be ensured by a democratic form of government.
Mancur Olson’s commitment to the project of supporting institutional reform led him to establish the IRIS Center, as a locus of theoretical and applied research and advisory assistance promoting economic development.
Colleagues and students were inspired not only by Mancur’s ideas, but also by the contagious enthusiasm he brought to discussion and debate. His passion for teaching was matched by his openness to the arguments of others and his resolute rejection of ideological categories and assumptions.
“If a word ends with ‘-ism,’” Mancur once said, “it is very likely to be used too loosely.”
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