… is from page 11 of Richard Posner’s 1986 Richard T. Ely Lecture – entitled “The Law and Economics Movement” – to the American Economic Association (published in the May 1987 issue of the American Economic Review):
It may be hard to believe that the moral tone of our society has actually improved since the Supreme Court adopted its aggressively secularist stance, but economic analysis suggests that the situation might be worse rather than better if the Court had weakened private religious organizations by allowing government to compete more effectively with them in inculcating or requiring moral behavior. Since government and organized religion are substitutes in promoting moral behavior, an expansion in the government’s role as moral teacher might reduce the demand for the services of organized religion.
