My article on Henry Simons has finally been published

My article on Henry Simons, which I presented at a Florida State University Law Review symposium a bit over a year ago, has finally officially appeared in print.  You can find it here.

The abstract goes something like this: "Surely just about everyone in the U.S. federal income tax field has heard of Henry Simons, if only for his famous definition of “personal income.”  Few may realize, however, that this proponent of 'drastic progression' in a broad-based income tax was also a self-described libertarian who generally denounced government economic regulation and was arguably the chief architect of the pro-free market law and economics movement at the University of Chicago.  This article provides a brief intellectual history of Simons’ work, aiming in particular to explain how and why he combined these seemingly disparate sets of beliefs, and what we may learn from them today."

I must confess I rather like, and enjoyed writing, this article, although it is not quite history and also, as a friend who prefers some of my other work told me, is not as "analytical" as I sometimes might be.  This reflects that it's partly a literary enterprise and character study.